Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-01-04
every Literally Compensated. -


every Literally Compensated"
The suspicious circumstances under
which Commissioners Coble and Bushong
were secured to draw warrants for the
payment of some $500 of bills to county
officers were, i'm themselves, enough to
create the belief that there was some
thing rotten in them. With the sheriff,
to whom the county owed a large amount
of fees, and who in turn was responsible
for payment to the county Of the jury
fees collected by the prothonotary, there
should have been a settlement and in
the absence of it and the collection by
the sheriff of all his account without the
payment of his liabilities, the new board
should proceed straightway to settle the
balance due from the sheriff and collect
it without further delay. The payment
of the bills for blanks, ordered without
authority by the clerk of quarter sessions
and many of them useless, was unprece-
dented and unwarranted. A majority
of the commissioners in refusing to pay
it were right, and Bushong's change of
heart was too sudden conversion to
pass unsuspected of improper influences
being exercised to work it.
But the largest and most outrageous
bill of the prothonotary was such a raid
upon the county treasury as demands
investigation. 1t does not appear any
where that the work for which it pur-
ports to be rendered was ever done by
any authority except the "Order of
court so frequently referred to in the
bill rendered by McMellen, and it was
upon the recommendations of Judges
Livingston and Patterson that he should
be very literally compensated that
McNiellen chiefly relied, and behind this
the commissioners fortify themselves in
defense of their action. 1t is needless
for us to point out that the judges lave
no authority to appropriate the money
of the county. That is the bust
ness of the commissioners, and any
interference with their business by the
judges is as much of an improperly and
impertinence as it would be for the COM
missioner, 10 undertake to hold court and
try cases. Beyond those orders of pub
lication, which the law authorizes them
to make, and other matters affecting the
conduct of the court itself, and the mere
certificate of services rendered by its offic-
ials: the judges have no power to make
directions for the payment of money out
of the county treasury, and their recon-
mendations for the payment of other bills
ought to have no more authority with
the commissioners than those of other
individuals. Manifestly they could,
with entire propriety certify that they
ordered the necessary work of re-arrang-
ing the papers. in the prcthonotary s
Office and that it had been we'll done, but
when they append to McMellen's S demand
for 81 500 their recommendation that he
should be Every literally compensated, :"
they are very naturally understood to
approve the payment of that amount or
a more liberal compensation.
The services rendered, if proper to lie
paid at all by the county, were not
worth 81 800, nor anything like it. The
prothoDotary recites the work done and
that it engaged the services of two
clerks. Anybody familiar with the pro-
thonotary's Office knows that for only Il
portion of the last year of his term did
Prothopotary McMellen hi We one more
occasional clerk in his Office than the
regular force which is retained by his
successor, who will give his own time
and clerical, ability to the Office, which
McMellen did not. In fact S40O or
$500 would he ample compensation
for the work done, even had
it been ordered and prosecuted
in such a way and with such an
understanding on the part OF the COM
missioners as made them liable to pay
for it. As it was, the amount of the bill
and the circumstances of its payment
were such as to smack of disgraceful
and disrcputable job, "put up" on the
county by McMellen and securing
the approval of Coble and Bushong by
such agencies as operate "after office
hOurs.''