Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-12-25
SATURDAY, DECEMBER %, 1897
Entered at the Postoffice at Accomac
G. H, Va, as second class matter

In statement submitted by the
Richmond Dispatch, as to the reve
nues of the State based upon statis-
tics for the fiscal year from October
1st, 1895, to September 30th, 1896
the astounding revelation is made,
that thirty counties drew from the
State treasury 500, 729 81 on account
of criminal expenses and public
schools in excess of what they pay
into the treasury In that number
Scott heads the list with an excess OF
$12, 505.15 and committee of thu
Legislature appointed to investigate
the criminal expenses in that and
other counties show by their repor'
an expenditure on criminal account
in that county not only unlawful
but unnecessary and ineXcusable
The excess in Franklin OF so,
in Patrick of $S,912.7S, in Buchanan
of $7,195.62, in Carroll of $3.50 60, in
Dickinson of So. 907.5S, in Grayson OF
$5,3O6,S1, and OF smaller sums in the
balance of the thirty counties, seem
to indicate reckless expenditure OF
the public funds in those counties as
we'll as in Scott county. Nor does
the careless waste of the public funds
of the State seem to be confined TO
these counties. In Warwick. for in
stance, which paid into the State
treasury S7,719.70 more than they
drew from it. the report OF the LegiS-
lative committee as to the criminal
expenses of that county, shows that
hundreds of dollars have been care
lessly and unnecessarily expended
and the criminal expenses are due,
say the committee, mot so much
from prevailing lawlessness as from
a disposition on the part of certain
officers to use every frivolous or tech
meal offence as means of pecunlary
benefit" In other words, in that
county as the report Of the committee
shows, constables and justices of the
peace, were permitted to swell the
revenues of their offices by charges
for hundreds of trivial offences which
could not be proven and therefore
dismissed at the cost of the Common
wealth, the clerk was paid sum for
docketing the returns of justices
which ought not to have been incur
red, fees were allowed to witnesses
and guards for carrying prisoners to
jail not properly authenticated and
physicians were paid Iees in excess of
those allowed by law. An investiga-
ton of the criminal expenses of other
counties in the State would doubtless
show the same reckless expenditure
of the public funds, but on the other
hand, there are many other counties
where the revenues Of the State are
jealousy guarded, and among them
we can point with pride to Accomac
and Northampton, and it is not just
to those counties which do, to have
to bear the burdens of those which
do not. That our present Legisla-
ture proposes to find a remedy if pos
sible, we believe, and two are now
being considered by them, viz: to
select judges only who will do their
duty and to make every county bear
the burden of its own criminal ex-
penses. The selection of proper
judges, of course is move in the
right direction, but no check upon
criminal expenses is likely to be SO
effective as that which brings the
burdens of the same to the very doors,
as it were, of the people and the bill
looking to that object now pending
before our Legislature, is not only
worthy trial, but will be approved,
we believe, by large majority of the
tax payers of the Commonwealth.