The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1895-06-12
GRAND JURY PRESENTMENT,

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June Term Of Court for Alb
beville County.
To His Honor James Aldrich, Pre-
siding Judge:
The Grand Jury for Abbeville Coun-
ty at this the June term Of Court,
would respectfully make the following
presentment
lst. Believing that the custom of
occasionally subjecting our County Of
fees to a more thorough and searching
investigation than is practicable in the
short time at the disposal of the Grand
Jury at the various sessions of the
Court has wholesome effect upon the
conduct of our County officials, COM
mittee of our number, of which the
Foreman was made Chairman, was ap-
pointed, at the January term of this
Court, for the purpose Of making such
examination. This committee has dis
charged the duty enjoined upon it in
most thorough and complete manner
and we are pleased to be able to report,
as the result of said investigation, that
the several offices were found to be in
satisfactory condition, indeed we
might say, in excellent condition.
End. We have nothing special to
say as regards the Jail, Court House
and other public institutions-the Of
fcers whose duty it is to look after
these, so far as we have been able to
discover are doing their duty. We are
of opinion, however, that the practice
of letting out the maintenance of the
paupers of our county to the lowest
bidder is ill advised and should be
abandoned, and instead thereof the
County Supervisor should purchase
the supplies, &C., necessary to their
support, in monthly lnstalments; EN-.
play an Overseer or Steward who
should be held responsible for the
same, issuing it out in daily rations to
the several paupers. AS there are al
ways among the inmates Of the Poor
House those who are more or less able
to do some work, the same should be
utilized, and with that view, we would
recommend that the County Super
visor, in conjunction with the County
Board of Commissioners, take into
consideration the advisability of rum
ming, at least, q one-horse farm hereaf-
ter on the Poor House lands.
We see no reason why, with such an
arrangement, an abundant supply of
all kinds of vegetables might not be
raised and the actual expense to the
County of maintaining its paupers, be
reduced even below what it now costs,
with results far more satisfactory.
3rd. Since the last term of this
Court the County Supervisor has put
into practical operation the law pro-
viding for the establishment of
"chain, gang" for work on the public
roads, and, while we regard the law a
good one, and while this force has done
some good work on the public high
ways, we are of opinion that mistake
has been made in not combining their
operations to such work as could not
we'll be done by the ordinary road
hands. We would therefore recon-
mend that hereafter this force be en-
ployed. exclusively, in building up and
repairing such sections of the public
roads as it is not practicable for the or
dinary road hands to do as the same
should be done. In this connection we
would say that as general thing the
several road overseers have not done
their duty in that they have not had
their respective roads worked as they
should have been. We hereby call the
attention Of the County Supervisor to
this fact.
4th. Complaint has been made to US
by persons in different sections of the
county, that the law In reference to the
removal of RATS, logs, &C., from the
water courses has not been complied
with. We trust that the County Su-
pervisor will see that the law in this
particular Is carried out.
5th. The law requires that the sew
eral Trial Justices shall, at least ten
days before each term of Court, file
with the Clerk of the Court an exact
transcript of their respective dockets-|
the same to be submitted to the Grand
Jury for their inspection.
Very few of the Trial Justices have
complied fully with this law, and
number of them have made no effort
to do so. We would here state that if
the same dereliction is apparent at the
next term of this Court, we will pre-
sent, by name, such recreant officials
and recommend that they be dealt
with as the law provides.
Respectfully submitted,
w. A. LANIER,
Foreman.