Litchfield enquirer., 1878-04-11

annually supports nsvies, standing armies and foreign missions, and commits immense sums of money and secret service funds to the heads of departments, to be expended largely at their discretion. But as applicable to our little con- pact commonwealth, where every service done and expenditure made by a public officer is carefully regulated by law, and where nothing, In the way of disbursements of public money, IS permitted to the discretion of an official ex- cept where general specific appropriations are already made by law, the scheme is, in my Judgment, unnecessary, cumbersome and use less.
 The specific annual appropriations required by the bill must be made on very close calcu- lations to be of any use. Unless 90 made they they invite prodigality wherever there is any discretion. If closely made, they are liable often to fall short of the vary necessities of the public service. If this bill had been operative at the commencement of the last fiscal year, the specific appropriations voted by the assem- ply to the judicial department for thenext suc- ceeding year would probably have been Gas the 10 per cent. law was then first put in operation) less than the aggregate expenditures of that department for the previous year. This would have proved a great mistake. The judicial expenses of the state for the last year exceed ed, if my memory serves me, those of the pre- vious year notwithstanding the 10 per cent. law about $30, 900. In the case supposed, therefore, there would not have heen during the latter part of the last fiscal year a farthing at the disposition of any department or office of the state for the payment of a messenger, juror, sheriff or judge many court of the state, or of witness in criminal cause nor would there have been any power anywhere in the state to have purchased so much as a ton of coal or ream of paper for the use of the courts.
 The bill, in my judgment, is straight jacket for the public service, where the jacket is not needed for restraint, and where, there fore, it can only serve to cripple and cucumber the service.
 R. D. HUBBARD.
 A SETTLER ROBBED OF TMBKR-The Bridgeport Standard of March 29 says: 'tSev- eral years since we happened to journey with a very disconsolate man who was returning from the West. Having couple of years previously traded farm near Rochester, N. r., for some timber land in one of the West ern states, he had been out to see it. At the time of his purchase it was heavily timbered, and we'll fenced in, but when he saw it, there was not tree or bush, or fence-rail on the premises. The land had been stripped of tim Der, fire-wood and fences by the timber thieves. At the time we had good reason to be lieve from their own statements, that the Vest ern pioneers stole timber and fuel from the Government lands that many of those who owned timber lands, would pass it by and steal from the Government instead of taking their own. The reason of this was that timber lands were worth $19 an acre, while prairie lands were worth only $825 per acre, hence they took good care of their own valuable tim Der and stole what they needed from the pub lie lands. We have no doubt that the same practice prevails today in all the border re- gions, and we think MT. Schurz deserves thanks for trying to stop these depredations."