Dodge City times., 1890-07-11
FRAUD AND DECEIT.
W. f. Petition FORCED TO
PAY BACK A PORTION OF
HIS BILL TO FORD
COUNTY.
He is Openly Charged With hav.
ing Forged q Price List.
INTERESTING READING FOR TAXPAYERS

When the county commissioners met
On last Tuesday. there was paper filed
with them charging that W. F. Petition
had been obtaining money from the
county on fraudulent bills, and detail
cd statement that he had so obtained at
the January and April meetings of the
board the sum of s16OO5 more than he
was justly entitled to at the price agreed
on for the work, which agreement was
that he should have the same prices
charged by Geo. W. Crane & Co., of To
peka, Kansas, and the board were asked
to have the account of W. F. Petition
audited by expert printers, and make
Mr.. Petition refund to the county what
ever sum, if any, he had 50 fraudulent
ly obtained. They were furnished with
a genuine price list of Mr.. Geo. W. Crane
and also letter from Crane s Co., Civ
ing price on Bar Docket. The commiss-
toner's went over the bills themselves and
found him guilty on the bills allowed in
the sum of S34 IS which he agreed to re-
turn, and on the bills presented at this
meeting they found over charges of s33. IS
making total of of s6S. We still hold
that if the bills are audited by Geo. W.
Crane or any other disinterested or com
petent printer the over charges will be
found to be largely in excess of the sum
stated. -
But We also hold that a man who will
make false representations and false af-
fidavits and use forged price list to de-
ceive the board to obtain this amount
will do the sane to obtain a larger
sum if he thinks he will not be detected.
We are in favor of the county paving
the full amount of all bills that are just |
and right, but when work is contracted |
-or We want the bills to be at the con
tract price, and no more. We believe
that the commissioners were deceived
and that they believed the bills were just
when allowed. and when the showing of
fraud was made they went to work to
right it. We think they should have
had the bills audited by competent prin-
tiers, and are satisfied that the expense
would more than have been saved BY
the reductions made
There was another feature of the pro
cecdings that occasioned some excite
ment. One of the bills showed altera-
tions in three places where 500 blanks
had been furnished and had been paid for
double price. some one had made a pen
Gil mark in front of the S making it read
1900. and Mr.. Petition claimed that he
had furnished 1900 The orders were
called for and when Geo. Potter. the
county clerk. went to get them they
could not be found. They had been ab.
stracted from the files. Ask Geo. Potter
who did it! But it was quickly settled
as part of the blanks were furnished for
district clerk Thos Lahcy, and he being
in the court house, promptly said that
he had never ordered nor received more
than 500 blanks of that kind.
Among other items in Pe.illOn's bill
was charge of sl2 for programme for
the County Normal. A larger program
more labor and material was
printed for the Normal by the Globe,
NOW the Globe Republican, for s., and
the same style programme for the Col
lege has more than once been printed for
81. The price is less than onehalf asked
by Petition.