The Cecil Whig., 1880-05-22
"TERGIVERSATION." {"

On saturday last. under the ABOVE cap
tion, the Cecil Democrat heralded the
birth of another editorial bantling, as to
possible question. AS a political etfuSion,
it is rc-emnently Cruikshankian. POM
pous in its verbositv, fallacious in its argu-
ment-if such dignity can be accorded it
and equally erroneous in its conclusions
Indeed. the ,lninitiated reader of it would
suppose that its author enjoyed a hered
tary monopoly of all current honesty and
morality, and that outside of the col
umns i'll which its complacent Self-righte-
BUSINESS finds voice, all else were base.
ness and corruption. Things po$Sibly
however, arc not always as they SEEM
Stripping the article in question of its
personalities, in which we have no tlispo-
sition to indulge, the truth-secking tax
payer will be disappointed i'll finding in
it so little at all rcvalent to the issue
which has been raised in the columns of
The Wig, relative to the misappropria-
ton of the public moneys. Indeed, the
editor of the Cecil Dem0cr0t has vet to
produce the first article in which he fails
to betray an evident purpose to evade the
direct point at issue, viz, that there has
been in the office of the County Com
missioners an illegal and unauthorized
subversion of the moneys of the tax
payers of Cecil county. Now naturalists
tell us that one of the curiositieS of old
Neptune's unfathomed depths.-than
which to the average taxpayer the sub
terranean depths of the Hole in the
Wall - are scarcely less mysterious-is a
crafty piscatOrial dodger, which. when
closely pursued, elects his ink, and cs-
capes unseen in the surroundin. obscur-
ity. Our contemporary of the Cecil DEM
Ocrdt is an awkward imitator of his sub
marine eXemplar, for he, too, spatters
his ink equally plofusely, and tlourishing
his tail, dives into his subterrancan
depths, failing, however, to deceive his
pursuers by his tiippant vcrbosity ard
meaningless assertion.
When the charge was originally made
in The Wig that large sums of the peo-
pies money had been disbursed by Sue
cessive boards of County Commissioners,
which the annual levy lists showed had
been collected, but which nowhere ap-
peared in the annual exhibit of county
expenditures, the taxpayers of the cour-
ty had right to expect, that the figures
would be met frankly, and business
like statement made by those to whom
were entrusted the county CONCERNS
But public expectation has not been re
allied. For this the reason is obvious.
Four solid columns of meaningless and
prevalent matter, which few had the pa
thence to read. and fewer, reading, could
understand, followed, at fortnightly in
tervalS, by equally evasive and unsatis-
factory rigmaroles, constitute the result of
the combined intellectual effort of clerk,
editor doctor and apprentice to explain
away troublesome figures, and to end this
'idle" controversy. Failing to provoke
from the subterrauean depths any lucid
and satisfactory exhibit, Mr.. Reese was
finally publicly appealed to, to satisfy the
popular demand, by making a concise
and intelligible statement of the county
bonded indebtedness. Mr.. Reese has
made his statement. Its brcvity and
directness are in delightful contrast to
the tedious verbosity of his party asso-
ciatc. Not satisfied, however, with his |
own abortive attempts to obscure the |
issue, the editor of THE Dem0crut. evi- |
IDENTIFY piqued at Mr. Reeses frankness,
now undertakes to distort the figures |.
which the latter has presented, and feigns |
surprise that We should call the $22, 200 a |
defciency, (Which Mr. Reese admits were
levied, collected and disburscd orer and |
aJorc any and all claims or debts against |
the county that appear on the levy list"
Now, ISM it plain to the meanest under
that it is immaterial by what |
name you call this amounto You may
term it what you will. Deficiency or
what not. But why that qualifying ad-
iective "actual," which Mr.. Reese takes
the pains to apply to one portion, sS 900,
of this sum, this "actual' deficiency?
Isn't the inference plain that there was
some olher sum Short" either levied
and expended or estimated and not levied
for? Most certainly. And such is the
fact. The other sum, Sl3, 300, explains
the meaning of the word "actual" in
this connection. That sum of $13. 800
had been levied nominally on bond ac-
count, had been collected, but disbursed
for other purposes. 1t, too, was an "ac-
tual" deficiency then on bond account
because it had been illegally diverted
from the purpose, and the sole one to
which the Commissioners had any legal
right to apply it. True, it needed not to
be levied for again. 1t was a sum ex-
pended and gone. In this respect it diff
cred from the other deficiency Of SO, 900,
'or the simple reason that it was an
amount in excess Of the sum it was levied
o cover, and would never have been
leard of but for this discussion.
Now having fixed the amount as stated
~ Mr.. Reese, s22, 200 (not s23, 200, as the
ditor of The Democrat enormously states,
'ut which serves his purpose as we'll as !