Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-04-28
Iatlcaster fltteIliqe1,rer.
FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL %, 1852.
County Officers Fees.

fnAOAX EVENING, APRlL 28, 1852.
County Officers Fees.
Generally direct taxes are most odious
to those who have to pay them. The
citizen who will indifferently suffer an
imposition to be committed upon the
general public, of which his share falls
indirectly upon him, will be very quick
to resent a much lighter tax laid d.
rectly upon him and his pocketbook. 1t
is a wonder, therefore, that the frequent
complaints against exorbitant and
illegal fees charged in the county offices
have not resulted in more general re-
sistance to the exactions, as they nearly
always fall upon the individual. The
politicians indulge the ofIiceholders in
them because it is to their interest to
make these Offices as lucrative as posi-
ble, and because they know that the oc-
cupants of them mostly reach them by
appliances so corrupt and expensive that
they have to misuse them and plunder
the public to get whole. The lawyers
let their clients be robbed-to the scan
dal of the profession and the detriment
of the practice-because, they insist,
that they cannot afford to incur the i'll
will of the courthouse officials, upon
whose accommodation they must depend
for many favors and facilities, nor to be
subject to the annoyance of having the
officials demand their fees in advance
Of process or service, as is their
right. In the criminal courts the
costs fall largely upon the county
and it seems to he nobody's business to
protect it from being skinned. In the
civil courts very often the burthen of
costs, due to the sheriff and prothonotary,
are subtracted from the share of creditors
who are glad to get any sort of divi'
dend on their claims, while the luckless
creditor is Indifferent, since he can
save nothing from the wreck, as to
whether his creditors or the officials get
his estate. In the recorders Office the
individuals who pay more than the law
allows for the recording Of their papers,
no doubt, do it in utter ignorance of
their rights.
For the protection and relief of all
whom it may concern the INTELLIGEN-
GER O-day performs the valuable pub
lie service of printing IN detail just
what are the legal fees of our county
offices, and how all who have business
with them can protect themselves from
paying any more than the act Of 1878 di-
rects. Lawyers can turn their clients
over to the officers to settle their costs
and take an itemized bill, which will be
proper subject for legal examination
if referred to counsel, and for any over
charge made by him the officer takes the
large risk of paying $500 penalty to the
party injured, an ample inducement for
the aggrieved to sue for their rights or
to redress their wrongs. Until such a
receipt is offered no fees need lie paid,
and that the bill is correct every person
can ascertain for himself by comparing
it with the table which every officer is
required to post up in his Office. Now
that the 1NTELLIGENCER has made the
public acquainted with this, there is no
more reason why it should pay the
officials 200 or 300 per cent. of their legal
fees than why customers should pay a
tradesman So for articles on his counter
which he has plainly marked to sell at
81. If, therefore, anybody is paying the
prothonotary or register, the sheriff or
recorder, or the clerks of either court,
fees in excess of the lawful rates, he may
know not only how to protect himself in
the future, but how to recover any ex-
cess paid in the past.
1t is needless to say that no organized
remedy for these abuses is to I've expected
on the part of the politicians; not even
from that element which so vociferously
assumes the virtue of G. reform" within
the party. A few years ago it elected a
lot of new county officials under the
reform" cry, though it marshalled to
their aid the most corrupt influences
which ever made Republican primary
carnival Of fraud - they were no
improvement on any of their predeces-
sors, but the 6 Reformers' never found
out that the officials whom they had
elected were taking illegal fees until
they quarreled with them over other
matters land took up WITH the other
set Of ringsters whom they had lately be-
fore so hotly denounced as thieves. Last
year the same eminent " Reformers"
elected their candidates for sheriff,
clerks of orphans court and quarter ses-
sions (they already had the recorders
Office, on the distinct issue and pledge,
circulated broadcast, that " every can
didate on this (the Citizens' ticket,
pledges himself to abstain from taking
and allowing his subordinates to take il
legal fees" If the incumbents of these
offices have been any better than their
Stalwart predecessors, or if those who
were not on the Citizens ticket"
have been any worse than the d" ke-
formers" whom they succeeded, the
public has not found it out; and the
organ and orators of the Citizens -
party, which masquerades under a new
name and affiliates with a new set of
thieves every year, have furnished no
apology for the shameless faithlessness
of their candidates to the pledges made
by them and for them.
One glance at the aspect of the present