Morning journal and courier., 1880-09-29
Board of Selectmen.

An Opinion Regarding Dr. DOherty's
 Little Bii1-The Matter Laid Upon tn
 TabIe-BiIs Approved and Licenses
 Recommended.
 The regular weekly meeting of the Board of Selectmen was held last evening. Present Selectmen Andrew (presiding), Reynolds Feldman, Cooper, Hart and Crawford
 Selectman Hart made the following report on the claim of Dr. Doherty, amounting to $4, 336, for services in ascertaining and re- cording births. It was as follows In refer ence to the bill of Registrar J. J. S. Doherty, which was referred to me at a meeting of the Board of Selectmen September Fist, 1880, beg leave to report That in the detail of it's items have made no investigation, but from the magnitude of the bill my first duty seemed to be to examine the law under which it was supposed to have been made. The reading of the law I found was seemingly plain, but desiring to avail myself of unques- tioned information, sought counsel, the re- port of which I now submit.
 Here follows the opinion of John w. filling, to whom Mr. Hart referred the sub ject for an opinion. The substance of MT. filings opinion is as follows:
 First-That none of these alleged births occurred during Dr. Doherty's term of office
 Second-There does not anywhere appear in the statutes or out of them any intended use to be made of such statistics, the State not being engaged in revising its statistics for the last fifty years.
 Third-The town can incur no debt not au- thorized by statute.
 Fourth b-Registrars of births, etc., have been appointed only since 1852, and why Dr. Doherty went no further back than 1929 do not understand If he could go back of 1852, why should he not continue his re- searches to Davenport's time?
 Fifth-As the registrar makes his reports once ayear to the Town Clerk and Secretary of State the abstract so made finishes the work up to that time therefore there is no reason why registrar should revise the work of his predecessor.
 Sixth-The statute does not comprehend that Dr. Doherty shall make abstracts of these reports and send them to the Town Clerk and to Hartford. There is no other reason to be seen for this work than the ex- pectation that the town must pay for it.
 Seventh-The statutes quite clear in de- ining the duties of registrar which are that he is to keep @ record of births, marriages and deaths occurring" during his term of office, not items that have occurred, and which it was the duty of some other person and paid registrar to have attended to, and the law presumes he did attend to, but as they occur. He does not revise those of his predecessor.
 Eighth-The legislation of 1879 has made no change in the law of 1875 to the duties of the registrar on this point. The act of 1879 on this point only changes the fees, and the fee is made explicit instead of confused, and changed from 9 to 50 cents
 Ninth--Concludes from the statutes ex- amined that pr. Doherty will discharge all fho Iafia 1o, if he reports all the births occurring during his term of office, and will receive dH his law full fees when he gets his pay for such re- ports. If there be statute which authorizes the registrar to revise the work of his prede- eessors in office. I have not been able to find 1t and therefore deem it unnecessary to in- quire whether the results reached by Dr. Doherty are correct or not. The good faith of Dr. Doherty is not questioned, or the hon. esty of his belief in his right to the bill. In closing Mir. filling says Permit the sugges- tion that if this bill is passed, the, successor of the present registrar would pro- bably think it worth his while to see if he could not find two to three thousand more births at 50 cents each and the Select men must undoubtedly satisfy themselves not only that there were such births, but that they have not in any instance been re- ported by registrars in the last twenty-five or thirty years-a task of great magnitude,
 
 taken every year.
 After reading the report Mr. Hart con- cluded as follows: In conclusion I would state that the duties of registrar being clearly defined embracing what is occurring dur ing his appointment, and this bill covering period of twenty-three years prior to the time in which the law was made under which authority he is supposed to have done the work, and also twenty eight years of former registrars, who have performed their duties according to law and been paid for their services, and the latest date of it seven years prior to his appointment to the office of registrar, it seems my duty to report to you that this bill cannot be legally paid by this Board of Se- lectmen. All of which is respectfully sub mitted. F. H. HART
 The quarterly report of the town to the State of the number of children of soldiers entitled to bounty was signed. There are ten of this class.
 Licenses were recommended to E. S. Jen- nings, 162 State; M. J. Alaby, 12 George John Donovan, 163 Elm.
 Bills were approved as follows Outside poor, Ss302. 05 roads and bridges, $142 76; construction, $117.5O almshouse, $15; gen eral account, $8O.75.
 A resolution was presented by Town Agent Reynolds requesting Dr. Doherty to state to the Board the law under which he recorded and ascertained the births from 1929 to 1873 for which he presents bill. Adjourned.