The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-10-12
GORGEOUS BILLS SHAVED
BOARD OF FINANCE TRIMS THEM
 DOWN TO $500 EACn.
Papers, Too, Willing to Shave Them, but Only to $15O Committee Appointed to Confer With the Three Papers-Investi- gation Reports Will be Returned to Com mon CounciI--victory for Minority.


 The board of finance in a two hours and three-quarters executive meeting held yesterday afternoon to consider the bills for the advertising of the street sprinkling assessments unanimously adopted the three following votes, all the members of the board being pres ent:
 Voted, That because under the char ter it has no jurisdiction to act thereon, this board respectfully returns to the court of common council the report re- lating to the advertisement of street sprinlllng assessments and all papers transmitted herewith, and acts only on the advertising bills themselves.
 Voted, That this board does not ap- prove the advertisement bills as pre- scented.
 Voted, That MT. White, Alderman Forsyth and the controller be a sub committee of three in behalf of this board to confer with the Evening Lead CT, the Morning News and the Connec- ticut Republkaner and ascertain on what terms, if any other than the pay ment of said bills in full, said bills may be compromised.
 After the board had been in session about an hour, telephone messages were sent to the offices of the Morning News, the Evening Leader and the Connecti- cut Republikaner, requesting that the business managers of these papers ap- pear before the board and state what sums would be accepted in settlement of the bills. The three managers an- @1,l 1p,, firm of filling. Webb & Morehouse, rep resented them, and would appear. Ma jor Brown accordingly left the board meeting and returned in a few min utes with MT. Morehouse.
 It was learned from member of the board of finance last evening that after the members of the board had discussed the advertising bills at length a committee of three, consisting of Henry c. White, Alderman Forsyth and Controller Brown, was appointed to withdraw and settle upon an amount to pay the papers, which got the adver- Using, in settlement Of the bills and re- port back to the board. After with drawing to the controllers office and comforting, the committee reported that
 
 amount to pay each of the papers for printing the sprinkling advertisement. This report was accepted by the board and was announced to MT. Warehouse when he appeared before the board.
 It was stated last night by a member of the board that previous to the ap- pointment of the committee to settle upon an amount to pay in settlement of the bills, each member of the board was requested to write upon a slip of paper the amount which he thought would be fair sum to pay each of the papers. Five members did so, and each wrote upon the slip of paper the sum of $500 which he considered fair sum to pay each paper. The sixth member announced that he would write on his slip the amounts which he thought each paper would accept. He wrote on his slip three sums, each just one half of the amount of each bill sent in by the three papers for printing the assessments.
 That this gentleman evidently had in- side information as to what the papers would offer to settle for Is shown by the fact that according to the state ment of a member of the board, MT. Morehouse, who represented each pa per, announced, after the amounts had been written, that each paper would settle for S750, only a slightly larger sum than the member of the board had written on the slip.
 It was learned last night from an authoritative source that Alderman Forsyth in the first part of the meeting stated that he was in favor of pay ment to each paper for the advertising such sum that the profit on the actual expense of printing the assessments would be $100 and that he thought $l00 profit to each paper was enough. As the testimony taken by the investigat- ing committee showed that the actual cost of printing the assessments was less than $200, it will be seen that if the report as to what MT. Forsyth con- sidered a fair sum to pay the papers is true, he favored paying even less than $500 to each paper.
 The action of the board of finance in deciding that $500 to each paper or not more than $1,500 to the three papers means victory for the minority of the Investigating committee, which recom mended in it's report that not more than $500 be given to each paper.
 Captain Dove, member of the board of finance, in speaking last night of the special session, said, T did not favor holding an executive session, and I think that the reporters should have been admitted But I do think, how ever that the board arrived at de- cision quicker than would have been done had the meeting been an open one, as I think the members of the board expressed themselves more free ly than they would have done had the newspaper men been present.
 When asked to state what amounts the board had agreed to offer the pa pers in settlement, he said: 1T can say nothing as to that. A committee was appointed to confer with the managers of the papers and I do not wish to give out any information that might hamper them in their work. l will say, how ever, that the members of the board were in perfect harmony on every ac- tion taken"
 Sixteen More or Less Injured.