St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-10-18
A HORSE ON M'CARDY.
The Very Particular Comptroller
Contracts Bills Without
RequisitiOn,
And the Aldermanic Committee
on Claims Desires His
Reasons.

The board of aldermen committee on
claims held its regular meeting last
evening. and passed upon the usual
grist. There were the same old pecuI-
iarties cropping out which have been
discussed at almost every meeting of
any common council committee having
to do with claims since the Bell charter
went into effect.
Those present were Chairman Mont
gomery, Aldermen Warren and Zim-
norman. There were before the COM
mittee several thousand dollars of bills
of the fire department. Among them
was the bill of the Northwestern Fuel
company for s5S4.S0 for hard coal. The
bill showed that the price paid was
1855 a ton. This called out the remark
from Mr.. Montgomery that that was the
regular price this coal was selling for if
person wanted only one ton of it. Mr..
Warren inquired whether the fire de-
Dartment did not let contract for fur
nishing coal. Nobody knew. Then Mr..
Zimmerman remarked that the Bell
charter simply required the common
council to look over these bills, but gave
it no power to interfere: no matter what
might be found wrong with such matters
the common council is without power to
remedy-the fire board has sole control
of the matters. There were also before
the committee the bills OF Albert
Boedigheimer for hay, amounting to
S19l.76, and of Joslin & Co. for hay.
amounting to $3.50 20. These bills indi-
Gated that the fire department had no
regular hay contractor. There was also
the bill of Grggs Bros. for oats, amount
cents buShel. Some member of the
committee remarked that that was more
than the market price for oats. But
these bills were all allowed by the fire
board and referred to the controller, SO
all the council committee could do was
to look at them and make comments.
Comptroller McCardy had before the
committee bill of $3.50 for 5S5 certifi-
Gates of Indebtedness which Berlandi &
Bott printed for him. There was no
requisitiOn attached to the bill, and Mr..
Warren moved to send the bin back to
the comptroller for an explanation.
Another member of the committee
called to mind the fact thot not long ago
the common council passed resolution
granting permission to the city officials
to contract bills in cases of emergency
without waiting to procure a requiSi-
ton. However, it looked to the COM
mittee that this was pretty big bill,
and from the nature of it one which
would not come up under the emergency
clause. Besides, the price asked by
orbitant. The bill was laid over to
await all explanation from Mr.. McCardy.
Mr.. Warren said that since the comp
troller was so very particular about
everything 1t was no more than fair to
be little particular with him.
Comptroller McCardy had before the
committee bill of SIS for one of Cur
tees city aliases. This was also with
out requisition, and it was laid over.
MIR. Grant of the sanitation company,
handed in a bill of $3.50 for disposing
of carcaSSeS of 4S2 dogs which were
drowned by the dog catchers. The
sanitation company, it was stated, did
the work without any authority or con-
tract, hence the bill was laid on the.
table H
There was before the committee a
large grist of bills from the city printer,
They had been laid over at a previous
meeting to be examined by Aid. Frank
lin, but Mr.. Franklin was not present,
and had evidently not performed the
task. Mr.. Zimmerman said that, in
view of past experiences, he for one
did not feel like passing upon the bills
until they had been examined by an ex-1
pert or by Mr.. Franklin. who is prac-
teal printer. The bills all specified
the price charged in each case for COM
position, presswork, and for stock.
Every bill happened to be for printing
postal cards. One bill was for printing
$50 postal cards. and OH it was marked:
compositions 5 cents; presswOrk, 81 .20.i
stock postal cards.. S11.76." Mr.. Zim-
norman remarked drily that the city
printer had charged for the postal cards
S1.96 more than they cost. In another
bill was charge of $500 for 800 postal
cards. In almost every bill the charge
for postal cards was materially in excess
of the price charged by the government
for them. 1t was at length voted to lay
the bills over to be examined by an ex-
pert. Damaged postal cards are re-
deemed by the government. Nineteen
bills from the Office of the city engineer
were sent back to be verified.