The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-06-27
Rejoinder of the Expert to the Reply
Of the Sheriff.

The Sheriff, like the Judge OF Probate, conf
plains that he was not given an opportunity
to explain, except in a few instances ana
We would state that as to his statement thai
he was not given an opportunity to explain,
he is mistaken, as he Is In several OF other par ,r
tlculars, which we think we viii be able &c
| show In the course OF this article.
AS TO his seXplanation being ignored: we have
to say that we reported the same 10 the Com
mittee and they agreed with us that they
were not tisfactory-regarding II as MAKING
no difference to the county whether 1t had tG
pay out money which it should not have paid
through the wilful act of all official OF
through his carelessness or the oversight oi
| his clerk.
It would have been q nice Investigation
indeed-a veritable farce, If, when finding
the county had been mulct in the
sum OF thousands of dollars, the investigating
committee had said nothing about 1t, because
forsooth the officers responsible for such q
thing should claim that 1t was the result OF
an oversight, mistake, forgetfulness, or mis-
Interpretation Of the law. No; II was oul
business to state the facts and let the officers
make their explanations to the Court.
But as the Sheriff has taken up the charges
se,7atim and endeavored TO explain them
away, we shall notice his explanations In the
| same order.
1. The first charge brought against him IS
that he had collected costs from AbbeVllle
county which should have been paid by Other
counties.
L
three Instances of this kind; but that the er
ror has been of no advantage to him.
We are inclined TO think that the slS.55 col
Iected in the Sandy Roberts case was just thai
much advantage to him, as he had already
collected the same from York county.
| But suppose he had simply collected the
costs from Abbeville county In the three cases
of which he speaks, and grant that 1t woulc
have been OF no advantage to him, 1t was
certainly decided disadvantage to Abbe
vile county to pay some forty, dollars
of costs which should have been paid BY 9th
| er counties.
| III. The second charge is that he had col
lected costs for the same service from thit
county and also from another county,.
certificate of MIR. j. NJ White. his clerk.
Suppose 1t did occur in that way. Docs
| that alter the fact?
We repeat the statementalready made, ina,
| 1t is Just as hard on the county to nave TO pay
out money through the careless act of an off1
Ger as through his wilful act.
| And So while IL may be fact that he did
not draw off the account containing this item
| which should not have been charged against
the county, he swore to its correctness, and
the county had 1t to pay 1t all the same.
| III. The third charge is. that he had col
lected costs from the defendants AMI alst
from the county.
He admits the correctness of this charge
but goes into an elaborate statement TO ac
count for 1t, in which he says thai after col
lecting the costs, in one OF the cases cited
from the county, he afterwards collected S
| from the defendant which, he says, he placed
to the credit OF the county, and TO which NJ
called our attention.
| To this we would say that he knows very
we'll that there was no such entry on hi:
books when we examined his office, and there
fore he could not have called our attention tt
1t. The fact is, aoe called his attention to the
fact that he had collected these costs, and told
him who paid the same to him.
| There was nothing on his books to show
that 1t had been paid. But suppose his books
cited cite under this head had been paid. That
would not have altered the case
| The complaint was not that he had collect
| ed costs, and had tailed to mark the same as
| paid, but 1t was that he had collected costs
from the county in certain cases and after
| wards collected the same from the defend
ants, and instead of paying over TO the Coun
ty Treasurer the amounts SO collected from
right than any other citizen, and which he i
required by law to pay over, he put 1t in his
pocket, and said nothing about 1t.
He now claims that he had given the Coun
this we would say:
First-That no such entry has ever been
shown 10 US;
books when we made the investigation, be-
cause aS we have before stated, we called his
attention to the fact that he had collected
these costs from both the county and the de
tendant;
Third-That even IL there had been such an
entry 1t would not have altered the case, a.
he knows very well, which fact we can estab
| lish by letter over his own signature. writ
| ten to the County Commissioners, that the
law requires that all costs collected from de
! fendant after the Same has been paid by the
County, should be turned over TO the County
". The fourth charge is that he had col
lected one dollar for each witness named In O
warrant instead ol one dollar for all.
This charge he also admits, and says:
81 charged what believed to be right, whit my at
.orneys advised me was right, and what the County
Commissioners thought tube right"
To the first statement, viz: that he charged
what he believed to, be right, we have this to
sag, (and we are sorry to be forced TO say IT,
but truth demands itO that he knows very
| well that the law, rs amended In 1882. allows
him only one dollar for all the persons nam
ed In Il warrant, besides mileage, instead Of
one dollar for each person so named. He
knows that bill was introduced In he Leg
islaturc, at his request, to repeal this law and
| that the Legislature refused to repeal It,
AS 10 his attorneys advising him that 1t was
right. we would simply say that he would
doubtless have conferred favor on this com
and have stated which of his attorneys he
| had reference to (us he has had SO many late
| ly we are at q loss to know to which OF them
lie has reference) as we can hardly think
| that any one would care to employ lawyer
who is unable to properly construe as plain
a law as the one In question;
And as to the County Commissioners
thinking 1t was right we would say. that
| of them,) to the matter we were informed
that they didn't think 1t was right but that
he had made out his accounts In that way
and swore TO them and they did not like to
think that they doubted his truth and hon
esty, or words to that effect.
The Sheriff further states:
but even IL the Courts should construe the fee bill
hat m
would average $500 per year for the time that have
been In Office be more than third Of what the
expert says it would be-"
Well, don't know that 1t makes much diff
ference whether the amount illegally collect
| ed was one thousand or three thousand dol.
Is the same as that in the other, and there is
no chance for the county to get back any part
OF it, let the amount be one thousand or ten
thousand dollars.
| But let US examine the facts:
The report Of the Committee stated that
1--WE have examined his accounts for the last
several years, and find that the average OF
"such overcharges will not fall very much
"short Of, If 1t does not fully reach, the sum
"of three hundred dollars year." and then II
goes on TO state in effect that this taken as @
basis for eight or ten years-the time he had lad
held the office, would aggregate twenty-five
hundred or three thousand dollars.
| We have since examined his accounts fol
| the last four years, and these were the only
! ones we haQ before US at Lne llme OF the Ill
vestigation, and find from, actual calculation
and In this estimate there Is no warrant i'll
cluded where 1t Is stated the same was Is
sued by order Of the Solicitor or by the Court
(but which we did include in the former csti
mate, and which we are inclined TO think We
were warranted in SO doing), that the amount
lof such overcharges for these fouryears aggre
gate the sum Of one thousand and forty dol
| lars.
SO after all we did not miss ii much, as this
makes the average for the years we looked
into, over two hundred and fifty dollars a