Birmingham age-herald., 1895-06-30

not. He would then find that the law
 provided for vacations for him as well
 as for me. JAS. h. LII h1'
 Card From I. "A. Brown and Moses Hlil.
 To the Age-Herald:
 In your issue of the 2Sth instant ap-
 pears a card from Commissioner George
 L. Thomas, in which he undertakes to
 defend the board Of county commlsslon-
 CTS against certain charges made Dy the
 grand jury, by declaring nine members
 of the jury who voted for the report
 set of imbeciles. This adds another count
 in the indictment of the jury commission.
 If they had been fit persons to draw the
 jurors for Jefferson county they would
 have rejected us when we were urdWh
 as grand jurors.
 He says eight of the seventeen jurors "repudiated the report in toto and voted
 against it's adoption" General Thomas
 is either mlsinformed or wilfully mis-
 states the facts. It is not true that
 eight jurors voted against the adoption
 of the report. It is not true that more
 than one repudiated the report in toto.
 The jury were practically unanimous on
 the adoption of the report, except as to
 the use of the word illegal in that part
 that referred to the sittings of the com
 missioners. Every member of the grand jury knows this to be true, and we do
 not feel justified in further publishing the secret proceedings of the jury. We were l1npdneleu dllu SMOIH py Jud5G Greene to investigate all violations of law brought before us fairly and impartially The charge was made before us that the commissioners had sat both as jury commission and as county commiSsion-
 CTS longer than the law permitted. We had the case under consideration twenty five days; we examined all the records; We examined the county officials who
 have business with the commissioners;
 we examined the members of the former board; we heard the commissioners in their own defense; we heard them
 through their representative; we received
 and considered a paper prepared in their defense we sought information from every source, and while we were per
 sonal friends of the members of the board of county commissioners, we could not avoid the conclusion that the charge was well founded, and said so in our report It may be true, as General Thomas says, that we are not expected to be la
 miliar with the laws which govern the sittings and prescribe the duties of the commissioners court but when the OBrien law says they shall not sit more than ten days-eXcept that in May they
 may sit till the business is disposed of and the tax collector Swears that the business is disposed of in six days, we know that their sittingS are limited to sixteen days in May. Indeed, we think
 this work may often be done within the ten days. When the O'Brien law pro- vides that they may sit in July and Au- gust till the business is disposed of, and
 the business must be disposed of and the books be in the hands of the probate | judge early in September, we have com
 mon sense enough to know they cannot sit indefinitely under that provision. As jury commission, the present board has spent about 100 days each year in drawing juries. The old board did the same work in from thirty to thirty | five days. We know, without Solicitor | Little's ipse dixit," either that the pres | ent board sat longer than was necessary for this purpose, or they are too slow to | be worth $5 a day.
 | We must give General Thomas credit | for one thing he denies us. We do be- | lieve he wrote his article himself; we be- leve 1t from one expression He speaks | of the commissioners court as my l court" We have long heard that he
 considered the commissioners court and l the fullness thereof his own, and the ex-
 precision my court" is in keeping with l the reputation of the man.
 | Hear General Thomas on grand iuries.
 They are therefore entirely dependent | on the solicitor for the law and its ap- l plication to the cases which come before l the jury for investigation. However de- l fective may be his construction or ap- l plication of the law, or whether he is l biased in his opinion by prejudice and | should take advantage of his official po- l sition to vent his spite upon any one who had in some way incurred his dis | pleasure, his 'ipse dixit' is to them the
 law, and the responsibility rests upon | him.
 l Yet few days ago he was making | his defense before. reasoning with this | senseless, responsible-for-nothin body. | If this distinguished parsonage, who | owns the great commissioners court of l the great county of Jefferson, is not re- l Strained in some way he may soon de- l stroy our jury system, an institution as | old as history and regarded by wise men | for 1900 years as the safety valve of all | systems of justice.
 1 Commissioner Young, in his reply to l the grand jury. published in the news of June 27 proves the present board guilty 1 of the charges made. He shows that the present board. who are limited in their l sitting by law. drew as much money as the old board. who were unlimited, and