The San Francisco call., 1899-04-12
GRAVE SCANDAL
IN COLLECTOR
LYNCH'S OFFICE
Illegal Fees Extorted
From Chinese.
BOAST OF SEARCHER WAIT
DUPLICATE CERTIFICATES OBJ
TAINED THROUGH HIM.
Lawyer schaertzer Refused to Let
His Client Be Bled and the
Grating Scheme Was
Exposed.
BOAST OF SEARCHER WAIT
DUPLICATE CERTIFICATES OBJ
TAINED THROUGH HIM.

A scandal has developed in the Office Of
Internal Revenue Collector Lynch. The
suicide of Cashier Norton under the We'll
burn administration and the exposure and
flight of his principal have barely grown
cold when an incipient case of wrong do
ing comes TO light. 1t is a fragrant viola
ton of the Federal statutes, and if not eX-
posed at this time and checked would
no doubt prove to be the entering wedge
for greater abuses.
1t has come to the knowledge of The
Call that under flimsy pretense a GER
tain class of persons doing business with
the Office are taxed $40 each for a service
which the law declares shall be performed
without any charge whatsoever. The fact
that Chinese persons are the only suffer-
ers and that brokers for Chinese and
hanger-on of the revenue Office are the
beneficiaries is no palliation for the Of
fense Somebody has been grating bud
Of profit on the Federal tree in defiance of
the laws and in the oppression of a class
of people too ignorant to know how to
resist the eXtortion.
The matter came to the knowledge of
The Call yesterday through the refusal of
II. c. Schaertzer, a lawyer, TO permit his
client to be bled out of $40 which he was
not required by law to pay. Mr.. Schaertz-
er had Chinese client, a laborer, who had
lost his registration certificate and who
was anxious to get a duplicate from In
ternal Revenue Collector Lynch. Under
the statute the Collector must furnish to
all Chinese applicants duplicate of their
certificate of registration upon their GER
tifying that the original has been lost. For
this service the Collector is not allowed to
make any charge. This particular laborer
wished to leave for a cannery in Alaska
in a day or two, and he employed Mr..
Schaertzer to get him the duplicate re-
quired.
The Collector was temporarily absent
from his Office when Mr.. SchaertZer called
with his client and an interpreter, and he
stated his errand to Chief Deputy F'rick.
Mr.. Frck informed the lawyer that it
would be probably week or more before
he would be able to supply him with
duplicate, one reason being that several
bundles of the certificates We're being
bound in a downtown printing establish
ment and that they would not be available
Mr.. Schaertzer offered to go to the print
ing Office and make the search himself,
but Deputy Frick informed him that the
binder would not allow him to handle the
certificates. In vain the lawyer pleaded
that his client had to leave the State
safety without the duplicate certificate
The deputy could do nothing for him.
The lawyer and his client had barely got
outside Mr.. Lynch's Office when they were
approached by an elderly man named
Wait whom Schaertzer recognized as a
had been employed for three or four
months last year in making an index Of
the Chinese certificates. Wait tapped the
lawyer on the shoulder and said that he
could get the duplicate for his client with
out delay If the lawyer would pay him So