New-York daily tribune., 1854-03-31
NETWORK DAILY TRIBUNE, FRIDAY. MARCH 81, 1854

(CrQsfl
doubt the accuracy Of the printed statement ana
presently certain Experiment queries were pu' form
as 10 further and larger SUNS received By that ocsi
which queries were never answered 1t now turns
ont that n.tesd Of $500 his fees in tie year amounted
N acme sl2 CO. which. for beginning, ard before
the meet was well warm, was not 80 bad.
NotvthstGpdipq the printed statement, Of tie Street
Commissioner the tax payers did not seem to be sat
sfed and they still pressed their bill in the state sen
ate to reduce the fees OF the Counsel If they hai be-
leyed that they were only to amount 20 some @oV'
9 wear. il would hardly have been worth their
while to take sny trouble in the m.tter. But they
continued to urge it the Legislature In the mean
time the attebtion OF the Supreme Court ws' drawn
.o the subject and under the act Of 1889, they pro
ceeded to perform the duty there imposed upon them
NJ reducing the fees in street opening cases within
moderate limts, and drew up series of rules the
purport ard effect of which will be to soae the nu
sspce These rules are no yet adopted but no doubt
soon will be.
On the oath net meeting took place before the
Judiciary Committee Of the Senate TO which Commit
tee petition of citizens asking for the passage OF an
act to reduce the fees and expenses in sreeoPenlng
csses in this City had been referred at the opening OF
the session At this meeting the gentlemen named in
the article which has been going the rounds OF the
newspapers under date OF the 2Gth inst and wlo had
gene to Albany for other purpose than to use their
endesyors to defeat the law then pending to make the
Chief Of Police electiye) were present by in'itAoon
And at this meeting o. has been loudly reported, the
CORPORATION Counsel came forward voluntarily, aud
submitted ss bis project to be introduced in the place
of the bill then before them, the draft OF act pur
porting to be an act to reduce his fees which af
terward was introduced with such lsudsons into the
Senate and passed unanimously to third reading
Now the fact is that at that meeting no bill was sub
mtted, while at least the four gentlemen from New
York who attended on behalf OF the petitioners
present nor any statement made TO them, or in
their hearing by either the Counsel the committee
beyond the statement by the committee to the gentle
men who represented the petitioners, made on the
threshold of the proceedDgs-namely that they had
determined not to interfere with the Counsel during
bic term Of office, and further statement made by
the Counsel in answer to an inquiry BY Mr.. Senator
Whitney, in which he admitted that he had received
$4,000 for his first years fee instead of 500 as
reported by the Street Commissioner. Nothing, how
ever, was said of any intention on tie part of the
counsel to giving up his fees in the If the Central
Park or to present them to the commissioners On
the contrary while disclsmDg the pursued by
others be distinctly announced his intention to take all
that the law allowed him, and that he could receive
consistently with honesty and justice.
Nor was it asserted at that meeting that the bill
proposed by the petitioners and advocated by the gen.
tlemen present was one Of spolatiOn and injustice.
Such an assertion would have been answered and re-
IL 4 n - e
the first lawyers and purest in the city and was
intended and is believed to be, not bill OF "spoia
tion and injustice" but one which cuts of "spolii-
tOn and Injustice" The embraced in it have
been asked for by hundreds and thousands Of the best
men of the City almost yearly for the last fifteen years
Their names are ecorded in the documents of both SEN
ate and Assembly Many Of them have gone to their
last lopg homes but the memory of such Peter
A Jay, Robert G. Cornell, John Rathbone Jr. David
c. Golden Stephen Allen, Maturin Livingston, Philip
Hone, Walter Bovine, Anson G. Phelps. James G.
King, Nathaniel Paulding, Samuel NJ Fox, and many
others sill rest in the affections Of their surviving
fellow citizens, not as III Just and spoilers, but as
good citizens and honest whose characters can
not be bsckened by the most indirect mputatOus,
even if ndOrsed BY members of the Senate by the
Corporation Counsel.
Now what is the purport end and aim of the bill
which the reports and letters referred to tell US the
counsel has ccndescended to draw, and the Committee
bave introduced into the Senate The new Rules of
Court cut up his fees root and branch and bring him
down to the point where he should have stood years
ago the same level precisely, and with the same
fees all other lawyers But the proposed act
Of the Legislature instead of leaving him in this
position, oyerrides those Rules and expressly pre-
to him. in spite of the Court, all his costs
and charges, at the usual and customary rates
heretofore taxed and allowed, in all proceedings
perding or before the lst day Of January. 1855"
Observes it does not simply pay him the present
rstes for all the work he may do the st January
1850, but it extends and applies those rates to all
work then pending. If single step has been taken
in any matter, the proceedings are pending If
nothing more has been done than to direct the CON-
mencement of proceedings or if single paper has
been prepared though it may require years to bring
the proceedings TO close, the matter is pending,
and the Counsel is entitled to his full fees in it, His
game then is clear. He has only to cut out all the
work be can lay his hands on 10 employ all bis time
up to the lst January, 1855 in doing the work but
only in starting TO DO it, and then having got much
as he desires pending on thst day, to begin and to
take bis own time to finish il, receiving all the time
up 10 the expiration of his term of Office the custom
airy fees, taxed, and in addition after the Is,
January 1883 the snug of Sc 500 per annum,
and ADORE what he is now entitled to-
There is another feature Of the proposed bill, which
doubtless is Lot there without its object II provides
for change in the officer who is hereafter 10 tax the
eoss-no matter in these cases-and trans