Daily Kennebec Journal

Only Too True.

Readers of the Journal will recall to mind that the issue of Aug. 24th contained a communication concerning a poor veteran in Winthrop. Samuel Torsey, who had fallen a victim to Hoke Smith's infamous ruling. The communication was from one of Winthrop's most reputable citizens. It is fair to presume, however, that many who read that communication, and who also had read the statements about "pension frauds" continually reiterated in the Democratic and Mugwump press, thought it exaggerated. It has been difficult for northern people to fully appreciate the cruelty and injustice of Secretary Smith's ruling, by which pensioners were assumed by that autocrat to be guilty and their names were stricken from the rolls until before a partisan board of pension examiners composed wholly of Democratic appointees, they should prove themselves innocent.

Possibly from among this number of doubting ones was the gentleman who requested the Portland Advertiser to investigate the facts of this Torsey case. The Advertiser did so with the result that the case was found to be really worse than at first stated. It was found that he had become weak-minded, that his pension alone stood between him and the poorhouse. Also that he was mustered into the service Dec. 24, 1863, and was mustered out with his regiment at the close of the war. The Advertiser comments on the facts as follows: "So much for the facts. It turns out, as our correspondent suggested might be the case, that the pension was not 'canceled,' as was at first stated, but suspended pending re-examination. This has been done of course under the order of the pension bureau of last June, suspending pensions believed to have been rated too high; but what there could have been in the papers of this poor old man to lead the authorities at Washington to suspect him of drawing more than he ought to have, can only be conjectured. But whatever the reason, it was not a happy choice for the department when Samuel Torsey was hit upon as one of the victims of the new departure. It would not take many such examples to make the whole business odious to the public. Eventually, however, it may prove a fortunate thing for Mr. Torsey. The facts show that he is rated too low instead of too high. Instead of $8 a month, he is clearly entitled to the maximum of $12 under the act of 1890."