The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1878-03-28
HOW YOUR MONEY is SPENT.


for stealing an old fiddle valued at
three dollars, one ball of shoe-thread,
ten cents, and three avis, ten cents
total, three dollars and twenty cents
while the costs attending said trial and
conviction amounted to not less than
thirty dollars. Moreover, in the case
OF Allen Armstrong, colored, lately
before the Supreme court on an APP
peal from the Circuit court of Ruth
erford county, we wrote and received a
reply from Thos. B. Fowler, clerk of
the Circuit court of said county, who
said the costs in said case amounted to
forty-fve dollars and thirty-nine cents,
and the cost Of the new trial which
was ordered by the Supreme bench
will be about the same, making ninety
dollars and seventy-eight cents, not in
Guiding the costs in the Supreme court.
\ ct the negro stole only a few green
hams and shoulders of meat-not ten
dollars in value These are the bills
that the State has to pay: this is the
way the taxpayers money goes. The
legislation underlying and sanctioning
such legal extravaganza in criminal
prosecutions is positive outrage upon
the tax-paying endurance of the peo-
pie. 1t is a standing advertisement
that the State can wastefully squander
funds at the very moment when her
credit sorely needs this very money to
save her name from the reprOach of
Reputation.
1t is high time that the Intelligence
and public spirit of our people be
aroused to the necessity of retrench-
ment, especially in this branch of the
public service. We who so ardently
plead for the maintenance of State
credit, dare not open our lips to ask
the taxpayer to bear higher taxation
than the rate now fixed by law, when
the public money is thus wasted. As
long as such a drain-pipe taps the State
Treasury and draws off so much cur
rency Likelihood, it would be the reck-
lessness of a spendthrift for the Legis-
lature to ask the people of Tennessee
to submit to higher taxation that the
interest on a compromise of the State
debt may be regularly paid. First
let the State set her own house in order
as an honest economical debtor, show
ing adisposition to retrench in every
department, and then turn to her loyal
sons throughout the Commonwealth
and ask them to help her meet the
demands of an equitable adjustment
of her Indebtedness, and we predict
such an appeal will not be made in
vain. Not to retrench-nOt to econo-
( mize-but to increase the burden of
taxation, is to demoralize the taxpayer
and smooth the way to Reputation.
The chief duty of State-credit men, if
they sincerely desire to save the State
from Reputation, is to set their faces
sternlY against every species OF ex-
travagance in public expenditures.
We need not expect to wink at waste,
fulness and at the same time hood
wink, cajole and hurrah the people
into supporting high pressure taxation.
They know the meaning of such fool
thunder They cannot be further
deceived. They intend to pay the
State debt upon a reasonable and fair
basis of compromise, and thus preserve
their State from shame They are
sound, they are true, and can be
trusted with the question. We fear
that those State-credit advocates who
see no need of rctrenchment, and only
look to high taxation. as the Moses to
deliver the State out of bond-slavery
are to-day sowing dragon-teeth that
will become an armed enemy in tho
near future. Such men who stick the
coulter so rank and deep will rupture
the forbearance of the public and dc
infinite injury to any honorable adjust
ment of the State debt. One-half Of
the amount necessary to meet the
yearly interest on an equitable settle
ment of the debt can be had by re
trenching expenses of criminal prose
cutions and in the reasonable reduction
of high salaries.
At any rate the people demand that
an effort first shall be made to save
money before any attempt is made tc
raise it by any higher taxation than
the present tax. If all parties will
only meet together at Nashville in the
spirit of just men, determined to re-
spect the claims of both debter and
creditor, and consider in a patriotic
manner the most feasible WAYS and
/ means to raise funds sufficient to provide
for an equitable compromise, we ap
prehend no difficulty or danger in thi;
question. But if extreme Iow-tax anG
high-tax men clinch in n struggle with
each other, it will be mere fight fol
selfascendencv, utterly at variance
with the dignity and Importance Of
the interests involved. In the settle