Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-12-22
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For the Yorkville Enquirer.
RETRENCHMENT FOR THE COUNTIES.

RETRENCHhlENT FOR THE COUNTIES.
EDITOR OF THE ENQUIRER: The Colum-
bia correspondent in your issue of the 1st,
pretends to be full of retrenchment, but
when one examines his shears and sees
where he begins to cut, it is found to be the
same old shears that have been run on the
farmers by our professional men for years
before reconstruction. Then commissioners
Of roads and bridges were compelled to
serve under the penalty of fifty dollars and
were not allowed 80 much as cent for their
services. They were required to attend at
the Court House some three or four times
a year; and once they concluded that the
county ought to give them at least their
dinners; but they did not get many din
riers before they were stopped from as much
pay as their dinners, by law forbidding
any such privilege as taking their dinners
to be paid for out of the public fund.
A commissioner who did his duty was
compelled to lose month or so every year
in attending to the roads and bridges, and
now see they want to fall back to the old
system of forcing farmers to serve in some
of the county offices without compensation
retrenching altogether on the farmer and
doubling the professional mans fees, in
every move or change that is made.
I need mention but one or two of these
moves in retrenchment to show how they
favor the poor farmer in these so-called re-
tt ,nchment schemes. Take the law as to
State witnesses. The farmer is bound over
in bond for his appearance at court and
then he must pay to prove his attendance.
He then receives the whole sum of fifty
cents per day, which does notpay his board.
But examine the law on the professional
man. The physician, for conducting a post
naortem examination receives from ten to
twenty dollars, and as expert witness ten
dollars per day for attending Court, and in
stead of abolishing needless Offices they add
more. Look at the salary of the Circuit
Judges; and then another office recently
created-that of stenographer, to wait on
the Judge and write in short hand at big
salary, when the salary of the Judge is suf-
ficient, or third more than it ought to be-,
if you will compare these salaries with the
pay of commissioners, jurors and State wit
nesses.
Yet, according to the working of the sys-
tenn, retrenchment means to appoint farm
ers to serve the county as commissioners for
no pay, and be required to provide their
own dinners when at the Court House on
official business. Now, if this is the way
retrenchment must come, put all the offices
in the county on the same footing and let
us retrench out of debt instead of making
new offices to tax the farmer.
And then the county commissioners are
required to make yearly report, pub
lish it in the county paper and pay large
fee for publishing it. Then the county
treasurer is required to make an annual re-
port nearly the same as the commissioners
report, which taxes US twice on nearly the
same report. This should be regulated bet
ter, and with less expense. Examine the
ENQUIRER, of 18th Of November and see
the amount paid out for printing for the
county Offices. and you will see one reason
why our taxes are so high. There are too
many big baskets to fill out of the laboring
mans earnings. w. H. CARROLL.