Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian., 1858-12-04

his simple duties as recOrdmg papers as
Register of Deeds; we examined the manner
of issuing scrip and orders and keeping re-
cords of scrip and county orders from the
beginning; examined all receipts and papers
from the organization of the county up to
the 9TH day of last June, relative to the col
lection of taxes; we had an order from the
Board Of Supervisors to take possession OF
the books to make the investigation; we made
up all the accounts to the 7th day OF June,
| 1853, in the first place to find how much the
amount of delinquent taxes were that went
into Mr.. Heenan's hands; we examined the
Sheriffs return made March 1st, 1898, for the
tax of 1887; next we examined the City
| Treasurer's return made to Mr.. Heenan at
at the same time, for taxes of 1886; IN the
third place we took the lists of lands sold for
| delinquent taxes from the organization OF the
! county up to 1857 inclusive, and ascertained
what had been collected upon them by Mr..
Heenan; he should be debited with all delin-
quent taxes returned to him by the Sheriff
| and City Treasurer for the year 1857, and all
monies actually collected by him for prior
years; in addition there should be added the
| costs and expenses Of sale for the taxes of
! 1857; these sums added together would give
| the amount of tax certificates in Heenan's
| hands the dry after the tax sale for 1857 with
the money in his hands for collections of that
and previous years, then to ascertain the
amount of his credits to which he was enti-
tied, he furnished us with a list of taxes for
1857, unpaid at that time (the 9TH June,
| 1859; then by deducting the last amount
| from his debts it showed the actual amount
| he had collected; we only debited or charged
| him with the amount of monies actually col
| lected by him for taxes previous to the year
| 1857, [ made application to him for one
| book to examine, which he refused to show
me! 1t was book in which he kept the
dates of payment and names and amounts
| Of taxes paid, as he received them; he told
us it contained an account of the taxes col
ected; he preferred that we should make
| up the account from the other books he had
there; | ascertained that there was not far
from $4,000 collected (assuming the list Of
! tax certificates he furnished us at that time
as being correct) in his hands at that time
| (the 7th June, 1889 Heenan recommended
that the County Treasurer should be author
lied to settle the details and account with
him, and said that he had not the time or
data to settle it.
Mr.. Walker and myself called Heenan into
the office of the County Commissioners on
the morning we made our report, and stated
to him the result of our investigation and the
| amount we found to be in his hands.
| lie acknowledged it TO be correct, and said
| that it agreed with his books, and took the
amount from us upon a slip of paper. The
exact amount was $l5.927, ,S9-that amount
covers all his collections for taxes up to that
time for delinquent taxes up to the 7th Of
| June, 1858. This included interest up to
January 1st, 1853, upon the taxes actually
collected by, him for the years prior to 1857.
| We did not compute any interest upon the
taxes collected by him for the year 1857
| The "rci line" book was put into our hands
| by him as the "tax sales book The record
hook Of County scrip and orders kept by
Hecnan contained a good many mistakes,
| biunder5, &c. Iiio system Of keeping the
| 'Scr;p Register was 70 number each dcnom-
| nation of dollars Of scrip issued from one up
wards, and shOuld show the precise amount
and numbers Of all scrip issued. 1t was in
great confusion They did not follow the sys-
tenn. There were duplicate numbers Of the
| Quite number were not registered at all.
| We were satisfied that the amount actually
| issued by him was correct, although the Reg
lister shows nominally some $4,000 or $13,-
| 600 more! 1t cannot be ascertained from the
| Register what amount las been Issued The
only certain means by which tlic amount Of
scrip and county orders issued can be asccr-
tanned is by taking them all up as they come
in Oh payment and comparing them with the
| Register
| IIeenan claimed that some orders which
purported to have been issued on the Register
had not, in fact, been issued at all But Hee-
nan did not and could not furnish any de-
scription of those which he claimed had not
been issued-and could not identify them
There were large numbers skipped in the
numbering on the Register. The numbers
were not put down. Some skips were made
in the numbers, for instance such as from
| 1000 to 5000 | can't tell whether those of
which the numbers had been omitted had been
actually issued or not! But think they had
not form my opinion from counting the
| coupons remaining in the book. He issued
two orders of about 5000 that had no cou-
pons, and were not registered! If he had is
sued other County orders which were put in
| circulation, there was no record by which it
could be ascertaincd! | made list of some
eight or ten pages of duplicate orders which
had been issued by uecnan to different per-
sons at different times and numbered the
same! They were numbered in the Register
entirely different from their true numbers, so
that they could not be identified by the Reg
ister. The Register is like circulation bank
book 1t is intended to show the amount in
circulation, to contain the true numbers of
the scrip and orders and such description
that you can identify the scrip Or order from
the Register upon its return.
In our examination | found bill under the
proceedings of the Board of County Commits
sioners of May Sd, 1888, presented by Heen-
an to the Commissioners for allowance of $57O,
in Heenan's handwriting, for making out a
copy Ct the Delinquent Tax List for 1867, for
the Times newspaper to publish. l have
since searched the files of the Board of Super
visors for this bill in Sept. or Oct last 1t was
missing and could not be found but took a
copy of it in July last.