Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-07-11
Aa,lcaster tmtelliqellcer.
TUESDAY EVENING. JULY II. 1854.

TUESDAY EVENING. JULY II. 1854.
The Auditors Report.
The county auditors have justified the
expect atiOns which were based on the
long, patient and impartial investigation
of the affairs of the county. which they
have, apparently, been making for sew
eral months past. Their report, though
not as long as may have been expected,
is the result of a searching inquiry into
many abuses prevailing in the local ad-
ministration of public affairs. 1t goes
to the root of many of them and. is
therefore the most important official
document which has been placed upon
the local records for many years.
From time to time the INTELLIGEN
GER has published reports Of this inve'
tigation, and Of the methods by which
the auditors were reaching their conclu-
siOns. In the wisdom and justice of
those conclusions the great body of tax
payers and honest citizens will acquiesce'
The auditors might have gone further
and not risked condemnation from any
source worthy of respect.
The iniquitOus modes by which magis-
trates and cOnstables have increased
their business and their fees, to the
great scandal of good order and honest
administration, is familiar to our read
ers, and the auditors have footed up the
losses to the county from these irregu-
larities and illegalities at 50, 1915 All
of this having been paid out with the
approval of the solicitor, the law officer
of the county, for whose appointment the
commissioners are not responsible, they,
of course, could not be surcharged with
it, but as fraud vitiates everything con-
taminated by it, the auditors very
properly suggest that the proper author
ities-the present county commissioners
exhaust all the proper appliances of
civil and criminal law to redress the
wrongs and recover the rights of the
county in this direction.
Especially gratifying to the INTELLI-
GENCER and to every honest man must
he the bold surgery of the auditors in re-
gard to the big bill of McMellen for re-
arranging the papers in the prothono-
tary's office. He was paid 81 800 by
COble and BushOng, upon the recon-
menlation Of Judges Livingston and
Patterson attached to his bill, that he
receive livery liberal compensation
The views of the auditors as to what is
very liberal compensation are just $500
below tLose of McMellen and the judges.
And they are still high enough.
The impu,lent grab of S2l1 80 from the
county treasury for blanks furnished to
the quarter sessions Office is rebuked by
the surcharge of this entire amount
upon CObls and Bushong, who are re-
sensible for its payment. This job and
the balance that appears to he still due
from Urban from a forfeited recogni-
zance paid into his bands exhibit that re
former in his true light ; and they desis
nate him as Il peculiarly lit person TO
act rs bulldozer in chief of the Repubii-
can county committee. If the Ner Era
can produce its ng-promised and
never-published judicial decision " to
sustain his raid on the county treasury,
now is the time for it to print it. 1t
may relieve its friends Urban, COble,
Bushcng and Judge Livingston from
embarrassment by letting that decision
see the light of day.
AS Commissioner Montgomery took
no part in these payments, and indeed
aided the INTELLIGENCEE in exposing
the enOrmity of them, he is properly ex-
Oneratcd from this surcharge but he is
joined with his colleagues in response
bility for certain other payments, most
ly Of coroner's physicians fees, amount
ing to $49S.75, and if it shall appear that
in these payments, for services never
performed, the three commissioners were
alike culpable or careless, it will be a
salutary example to have them held ac-
countable for them with equal strict
ness.
The auditors find All unexplained de-
ficiency of over eleven hundred dollars
in the accounts Of the late B. f. Cox,
superintendent of the county hospital,
and intimate that it may be greater.
The fish pot destruction and the "dis-
missed cases" business receive due at.
tentiOn. The big bills of the jury CON-
missiOners are severely criticised, but
the auditors come to a very ill-considered
conclusion in the recommendation that
the selection of jurors should be made
by the county commissioners. The Lord
deliver us from having such men as Chris
Coble and Ike Bushong select our jurors
The charges of this report become
liens at once against the parties sur
charged. They have sixty days for ap-
peal. If they do not appeal execution
can he issued to recover the judgments
for the county. If they do appeal and
issues are to be framed it may he taken
for granted that our own judges will take
no part in the adjudication of the Nc
Mellen bill, atleast, ,as they had previously
appended to it their Recommendation of
very reasonable compensation" nor
will Judge Livingston he very likely to
have anything more to do with the Ur-
ban Barnes bill which, Urban says, the