The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1878-09-19

A Card from Mr.. Paine.
he Editor of the Herald

To the Editor of the Herald:
In YOUR issue of last week Mr.. Aleshire
says that he cannot understand how
could have been unsettled on the question
as to the right of the Auditor to draw
$1,000, for the End 1000 inhabitants, and
he quotes the committees report in sup.
port of his position The language of the
report is that the fees allowed the Audi
tor were in excess of those allowed by the
act of April "a, 1877, that part of said
excess was without any authority of law,
and that the balance Of said excess was
allowed under construction of the law
which the committee beliei ed to be erro-
neous. Now the. e.committee were unani-
nous in the opinion that certain fees
drawn outside of that law were not legal,
that the claim under the law for $279 so
for the odd $50 inhabitants was of the
same character. They did not agree on
the $1,000 item
Now then that part of our report which
says "a part of said excess is without any
authority of law" was intended and un
derstood to refer to the odd miscellane-
Gus fees; while that portion of it which
says that the BALANCE of said excess has
been allowed under construction OF law
which the committee believes to be erro
neous," was understood to refer to the
excess which the committee believed to
have been drawn under a wrong con-
struction of the act April "a, 1877. Now
the committee were agreed that there
was balance so drawn, while they were
not unanimous as to the amount of that
balance Cannot Mr.. Aleshire see that
the report covered balance, without
specifying the amount of that balance that
it might have been one in his mind and
another in mine or Mr.. Atkinson, that
the balance might have been so far as the
languag of the report is concerned diff
ferent amount in the minds Of each of
the committee.
But the matter is not of great import
ance and 1 pass it by. / desire to call
attention to the obscurity of the law re-
ferred to in my last article. That por-
tion of the first section which is obscure
in my judgment is as follows: In coun-
ties having 1000 inhabitants above. the
age of 81 years the county Auditor shall
receive $1,000 per year, and in counties
having more than 1000 inhabitants the
Auditor shall receive the like sums, re-
spectively. The word Auditor is singu-
lar and sums plural.
Now the language is plainly this, that
the Auditor (that is he Auditor of each
having more than 1000 male in
habitants, etc shall receive the like
sums respectively. Now why the hse of
the word Sums if it was the intention of
the Legislature to allow the Auditor only
a single sum, viz. $1,000, under that por
ton of the law If the word auditor had
been in the plural, or the word sums in
the singular, that would have been the
1 would have supposed there
had been a clerical error, if | had not
found that the law of 1867 was similar in
that regard. On the other hand, it can
be said with great truth, | apprehend,
that the Legislature did not intend to
double up the pay in such a way as that
would do. For instance, in
q county with 5000 male inhabitants over
21 years of age, such construction of the
law would give the Auditor under that
portion of it $4,000, and 5000 for SIS for
every hundred inhabitants above 1000
which would make a total of $4,000, under
that section of the law alone To sum
up then, l think it is reasonable to say,
that the fair construction of the language
Of the statute gives one result and the
practical result that would arise from it,
eads to the conclusion that the Legisla-
ture did not intend it to have such an
effect have the honor to be very re-
'pectfully yours.