The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1859-03-29
An interesting investigation.


As official corruption is declared on all
hands to be the besetting sin of the day, the
public eagerness to detect it, has put every
one upon the hunt for it. The argus eyes
of the public are peering into every pigeon
hole, nook, and Granny where it may be con-
cealed. The disclosures which are being
made, explain to the dimmest comprehension,
the reasons for the ardent patriotism--the
fierce loyalty to party-and the eagerness
with which the slightest opportunity to
serve the people is grasped at by certain in
veterate place seekers. A taste of "treas-
ury pap has seemed to create an Unsuitable
strange physiological fact has never peva
understood till recent Investigations dis
closed the causes. 1t has also long been a
puzzling subject of enquiry among curious
and meddlesome men, how much more
money could be saved and laid up ont of an
official salary than could be- by the strictest
care economical from the same sum gained
in any private pursuit. 81
An Office holder grows rich, fat, and saucy
on a salary of $500 per annum, while his
neighbors have to become skinnints to live
on 81, 500. The magic of these operations
is coming TO light; the public are beginning
to understand the newly discovered alchemy
by which small salaries of few handred
are transmitted into incomes of as many
thousands; and how it is that our enormous
sums. raised by taxation, by transmission
through sofieial hands, are deprived of all
power to produce anything but the most
shabby and wretched improvements; how
it is that people the most insufferably
taxed-that has one-fourth of the annual
rentage of its property extorted from it by
the tax gatherer-has nothing but a swarm
of fat ofice-holders to show for the costs.
The disclosures being made of the shame
less abuses and corruption that prevail IN
the administration of the national, state,
county and municipal finances must at last
arouse the people TO a more rigid and vigil
liant supervision of their own public affairs.
A greater publicity, a stricter accountable
ity, and seyerer penalties for abuses, must be
established and enforced, or the very vitals
of our prosperity will be eaten out by pub.
lie peculatars. The worth of all property
is estimated by its annual rental in this
countryits average is perhaps eight per cent;
the law says ii is usury TO charge more than
six. If it be taxed one per cent, it takes
away so much of the rental and its value
is reduced l23 per cent. If you tax it 2
per cent, its value is reduced 25 per cent.
In this city, township and county, we pay
nearly three per cent. this year, and three
eighths of the income of every mans prop
erty is thus taken for public service; and
what kind of service do the people get for
yielding so much of their property to the
tax gatherer. The answer is given in the
present condition of those who have admin
istered the funds, andin the wfetched public
highways, bridges, and the absence of many
institutions which, the necessities of the peo-
Pile demand. ssiS s---'--s = - A' {.
The law has recently made an important
change in the manner of doing township
business. 1t is now to be transferred to the
almost entire control of a single officer The
change has led to inquiries in regard to
the past management of our township af-
fairs. On inquiry, it appears that no res
ports, which any one ever sees, are ever
made. Tax payers after grumbliug at the
- assessors and tax collectors, as usual, have
paid no attention 30 what was done with
their money after it had gone from their
hands, and have left the township officers
to manage the funGs in their own way, with
out troubling them for any account of their
stewardship.
What lies beyond the boundaries of the
year 1858, in the past, is yet undiscoser-
cd, bat an investigation into the accounts of
the township for the fourteen months Just
expired, viii show that We are about to get
gid OF very expensive system, if it be an