Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-12-11
SOFT SNAPS VANISH.
Transcribing Clerks to Be Paid Ac-
cording to Their Ability.
NO NEED FOR A BOARD OF REVISION.
Three Penitentiary and Several Workhouse
Sentences.
DRIFT OF THE DAYS DoINGS IN COURT

The County Commissioners are on q
STRIKE and it is one that would undoubtedly
be settled in their favor if those who foot
public bills and are not subject to Doodle
influences bad their way.
The Commissioners are striking, not
against salaries paid for clerical help, but
for an equalization Of compensation that
will give q competent person better show,
and tend to the elimination of the political
bum element that in return for supposed or
real political work or influence demands
the privilege of going upon the county pay
roll several weeks each year as clerks, jury
service being insufficient to accommodate
all who feel that they have divine and
prescriptive right to soldier at public e1-
pense during at least portion of each year.
Will Pay According to the Work.
Heretofore the Commissioners have felt
unequal to the task of fighting the horde,
but now the exigencies arising under the
t,iennial valuation have so complicated
affairs that remedy of some kind must be
had. Mr. Mercer was delegated to formu-
late plan, and he has, and it meets the
views of Messrs. Weir and Boyle. For
wears the transcribing rooms have been en-
numbered by some incompetents who have
a political pull, and these, though doing
often less than one-third of the work others
did, got the same pay. AS equalization of
values is the cry this year as to
property assessments, so the Com
missioners think equalization should
rule in the transcribing rooms also
Accordingly, this season the trapscribers
will come under civil service regulations,
and those who do not do good davis work
will be paid accordingly, and if it be possi-
BILE to scrape barnacles off it will be done
The Commissioners might stand the an
novance and the county the cost if it related
merely to an ordinary state of affairs, but in
the short period intervening between asses
sors' time for turning in their books and the
time when the Commissioners must turn
them over to the Treasurer that he may be
enabled to receive tax, any delay is too
costly.
No Board Of Revision Needed.
In the hustle between periods all proper
ties cannot be sufficiently considered and
the persistent ones demanding assessment
abatement are apt to get better show than
those more modest and in this way the
burden is uneveniy distributed. The plan
proposed is something after that outlined
when the creation of board of revision
was contemplated. 1t only contemplates
the employment of few more clerks regu-
larly and the dispensing to a great degree
with large force, but is claimed to be
equally as competent to revise assessors as
would be board of revision and does not
add to the countv's burden, whereas board
of revision would cost s15, 900 year.
The Commissioners do not express them
selves so radically with regard to bummers
and political heelers as given above, but
citizen who has given the subject an inves-
tigation does, and it was evident that the
Commissioners felt as strongly as he, if they
did not talk SO radically. The trouble is
that the system is so deeply rooted il poll
tics that it is difficult to eradicate it.