Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-01-07
Extra.Judicial Recommendation

Wehave been 10th to help our esteemed
local Republican contemporaries place
judicial dignity in false light by coun-
tenancing their suggestion that any
judge OF this court had said or done any
thing which could excuse their statement
that there We're decisions of the court y
in which the court says the county
should pay for 4 certain class of blanks
used in the clerk of quarter sessions
Office, which the verieSt ignoramus ut
county to furnish and hence not the right
of the commissioners to pay for. We
need not stop 10 argue that the county is
not liable topaz the bill which NJ. Urban
got one of the commissioners-Busho
to approve because Judge Livingston
told him he could make no mistake ="
in doing SO, and to which he got the
other's-Coble's- approval on condition
that Bushong approved Il job in which
he was more interested. While it is plain
to everybody who knows anything about
the matter that the Barnes bill
was as much Of IN ''i:npudent grab as
that the McMellen and Edgerley
bills, asgregating $1,000. were jobs
set up Oh the county, it is not
necessary to consider whether they We're
valid claims OF not in order to deter
mine :he manifest improperly of the
judges of our court passing upon this
matter before it came before them judic.
tally If these claims were not valid and
the county was not liable to pay them it
is plain that for the Judges or any
body else to recommend their payment
was grossly improper. IL they were
valid, and the commissioners had re-
fused their payment it is to be presumed
the claimants would have sued the coun
ty for them and the case would have
come up for trial before Judge Living
ston or Patterson, who had incapacitated
themselves to sit in the adjudication of
them by having previously appended to
two OF the bills their recommendation
that the parties should he Every liberal
ly compensated and in the other case
by Judge Livingston's advice to the
commissioners and the new clerk of the
quarter sessions as to what the county
ought 10 pay.
OF course these bills are paid, and un-
less the auditors surcharge the commits
sioners with them, they will not get be
fore the court. But had the commits.
sioners resisted their payment they
would have got into court, and does
anybody pretend that Judge Livingston
or Patterson would be fit to sit upon the
case OF 4 claimant whose services they
had already certified should be very
literally compensated - And yet with
what propriety can they thus in
capacitate themselves for tile duties to
perform which they ale electedp
If it becomes known that persons who
have or pretend to have claims against
the county can have them passed upon
in advance by the judges of the court,
why should not other litigants have the
same advantage!
Judge Livingston makes a very grave
mistake if he suppoSes that when his fel-
low-citiZens, recently voted him into an
other term as judge they intended that
he should decide between the county and
claimants upon it, or any other such
matters except when they came before
him in due form Of law, and after
proper hearing.
Judge Patterson had before shown that
his recommendations to the county CON-
missioners as to what bills they should pay
are ,corse than worthless. With his con.