The sun., 1898-12-12

General Assembly to meet much interest
is manifested by the politicians as tc
who will be the respective speakers and
officers OF the Senate and House.
As the Senate is Democratic only three
prominent Democrats have so far beer
mentioned for the position-John Pyle
and George NJ. D. Hart Of New Castle
county and Stephen D. Slaughter o'
Kent.
During the past week considerable op
position has developed against the candi.
dacy of Mr.. Pyle and it is more than
probable that the fight will rest between
the two remaining candidates.
There are four aspirants for clerk ol
the Senate-W. L. Mcfarland of Smyrna,
Woodburn Martin of Georgetown, G. W.
Kenney of Laurel, and Alexander NJ.
Day OF Dover.
The race is for this position but it is
stated on good authority that Mr.. Nc
Farland will be given the position for
the reason that two years ago trckery
was resorted to and he was defeated for
clerk of the House to which position he
at that time aspired.
Among the persons mentioned for
speaker of the House are John Pilling
and James D. Kitchen, of New Castle
county, and William Tharp, of Kent,
with chances in favor of the latter.
For clerk of the House there are Will
liam T. Smithers, w. Scott Vernon,
Frank H. Davis and A. A. Watson and
the probabilities point to the cleo
tion of Mr.. Vernon.
The only name now mentioned for
counsel is Walter H. Hayes, Of this city,
and he is not likely to have any oppo-
nent.
One of the local daily newspapers
which has recently done much whole
some work of a public character and of
public utility made the observation a
few days ago, in connection with the ex-
celent movement for uniform system
of sidewalks, that "the newspapers are
dependable upon to inform the people
what their servants are doing" This
statement is so literally true that when
the newspapers fail to furnish that in
formation great mischief is done, and
much harm results. Have the news
papers fulfilled their admitted duty in
respect to what their servants (masters, J
the Levy Court Commissioners are doing?
The State Sentinel and to modest degree
the Dover Delawarean may be depended
upon to tell and keep telling what the
Levy Court Commissioners of Kent
county are doing; and the SUSSEX RepuJ-
tican can be depended upon to tell what
the Sussex Levy Court is aoing whether
that Levy Court is controlled by its own
party, the Republican, Or by the Demo-
cratic party, and the SUSSEX Journal may
be depended upon to tell what Repub-
!ican Levy Court is doing But the same
is not true of the newspapers of this
city.
A few years ago when the Republicans
controlled the Levy Court, Erery Erening
told not only what the commissioners
were doing, but also not dong. This
policy it had applied also to the preced,
ing Levy Court, because of the personal
grievance its business managers had
against the then Wilmington Commits.
sioner, Henry D. Hickman, a Democrat.
But now when the shameless gerryman.
der, worked through partisan Legisla.
ture, in company with variety OF other
partisan measures, the Levy Court is
Democratic, neither the Erery Eycuinq
nor any other Wilmington newspaper is
keeping the taxpayer informed about the
Levy Court proceedings. A good illus
tration of this fact is that two years age
it developed, at the close of John r
Dickey's regime as county treasurer, anC
boss of the county generally, that the
Levy Court had run the county into deb
to the enormous extent of Sl5000O, il
spite OF the statue which forbade count,
current indebtness for more than $40,
600. That could never have occurred j
the reporters OF the daily press here hat
been instructed to watch carefully tn,
simplest proceedings Of the Levy Court
Tie Levy Court actually refuses to pub
lish other than a garbled report OF TIN
auditors ol the county, tax office ant
county finances, and yet the newspaper
are silent. They had "hing" at it be
fore the election, but Immediately th
polls were closed, the most importan
matter of local self-government was al
lowed to drop out of sight
Mr.. Hyde has great deal to say
chiefly by way of inuendo Of matters i
Sussex county, but OF matters here
where they are three times as bad, he
dumb as an oyster. 1t is too bad that Dl
Jekyll is dead. Sussex county is bank
rupt," he eXclams, because that grea
county owes about $333, 900 of hoatin
debt. How much floating debt has aga
accumulated in this county? Suisse
county has no St. Augustine swan
snake to trail Its eternal length throug
the pocketbooks Of the taxpayers, a
New Castle has. Nor has Sussex count
tax rate of 80 cents per 500, nor a ia,
able valuation of S50,0O0,O0O as th
county has. The current debts of SUISSE
county are largely an inheritance frol
years of sipshod Democratic administrt
ton, coupled with the paying thousand
OF dollars for indexing county record
which a private firm could have pal
for hundreds Of dollars, but which pr
vate firm would not have paid dolla
for doing outside OF the salaries paid I
employees whose duty it was to keep tn
records indexed. A large part of til
$33 600 of the debt in Sussex was PAL
out for just such alleged work, and thos
workers were not Republicans. Th
knowledge of this fact led to the 800 RI
publican majority in Sussex for Repul
lican Levy Court. The people recoe
nized that this debt was not Of Republ