New-York tribune., 1874-03-28

Il
shy. He sent the LITTER to Mr.. Banfeld, with
request Tor his opinion as to the proper
"answor to DO made" But Mr.. Banfeld was
not born yesterday. He took up the letter
/ with his thumb and forefnger, and quietly
laid it away in one of those convenient pigeon
holes with which the Treasury Department
seems to be perforated OF course he forgot
all about it when the Committee called for the
papers in the SanbOrn case, and it was not
sent in until after THE TRIBUNE had obtained
copy and printed it. But though Mr. Ban
| field failed to answer the letter. he had talk
about it with the Secretary: =" | told him that
| cit seemed TO me that that was q letter for
him to answer; it was not for me to give
"reasons why he had adopted the course he
" had in relation to these contracts. lie said he
| "would think it over" so the letter never
| was answered at all and it was easy to guess
why, for it was what Mr.. Wegg would have
called q regular scarer
Pressed to tell why the collection of the
taxes was taken ont of the hands of the reg
ular officers and given to man who was
only authorized by law to assist the regu-
lar officers, Mr.. Banfeld made most curious
answer "We thought it was fair and
proper CONSTRUCTION Oh tnab dCt, odiu hO' w
consider that by the words "the proper
Officers GpluralI of the Government" 1t
meant-the Secretary of the Treasury Hence
Sanborn need not act as subordinate to any
body but the Secretary himself. Besides, con-
tinues this acute student of words and their
uses, "the idea of assistance Is reciprocal
| 4" how a man can assist me unless ] am dis
posed to assist him, is little difficult to
comprehend We should be sorry to hurt
the feelings of tho Solicitor OF the
Treasury, but we think he ought to go
to school. He forgets the new theory
of mutual assistance however when he offers
o totally original and certainly unexpected
solution of the difficulty by explaining that
though Sanborn was not assisting the revenue
collectors, since they were expressly ordered
to keep their hands off his cases, he might be
said to assist the District Attorney, through
whom Mr.. Banfed pretends to have assumed
that the collections would all be made. So
Sanborn was "assistingr Mr.. Bliss, was he,
when he hired that gentleman to bring suits
for him at five per cent of the proceedSf Mr..
Banfed may well say, "The contract was an
anomalous thing, and of course our action
"under it must be somewhat anomalous
The only excuse tnat mas ever Dtcn Hauo
for the contract is that it applied solely to
taxes which were not Of record in the revenue
Offices and could not be reached by the proper
collectors Bat Mr.. Banfield tells the Commit
tee that so far as he knows there never was
any attempt to ascertain whether the Sanborn
cases were of record or not, nobody connected
with the Internal Revenue Bureau Was ever
consulted about them, and the strict provision
of the law that no suit for the recovery OF
such taxes should be brought without the
sanction of the Commissioner of Internal Rev
enue was deliberately ignored. 1t was las
"sumedn that these cases were not or record
merely because according to SanbOrn they had
not been paid, and it was understood"
that the contract would not cover cases that
were of record. because "the parties under
"taking to take these contracts" said 80 in
conversation" And when Mr.. Banfield was
asked why he did not ascertain from the col
lectOrs whether the representations Of the con-
tractors were correct, he replied, in an airy
sort of way, al supposed it would come
"around in the course of business and there
"would be no difficulty"
1t has come around. Mr.. Banfield was right
in that anticipation, but he was wrong in the
other, for there is going to be great deal of
difficulty, and we suspect the gentlemen in the
Treasury have only seen the beginning of it.