Sistersville daily oil review. [volume] (Sistersville, W. Va.) 1902-1905, 1903-04-07

gotiable city paper, and that should
be the treasurer's check, and banks
should be notified to accept no
other. If occasion arises whereby
the city needs money they should
borrow the same as an individual,
by giving the bank a note signed
by the proper officials and approved
by council.
In this manner all errors should
be avoided, and would do away
with the possibility of raising the
amount of bills as passed by coun-
ell, unless three city official should
be In collision with some firm or
outside party"
Mr.. Birmingham was also seen,
and was equally positive concern
Ing the weakness of the present
system and the cause for the un-
fortunate condition now existing
in the city. He said:
The great cause of the defalca'
ton In the city finances was not so
much In the system as in the abso
lutte confidence reposed In the city
clerk. Had the integrity In the
Office been as great as the conf
dence In the officer, there would
have been no trouble. The present
system will work admirably where
every official wants to do what Is
right: no system can be so perfect
where there Is a cool, deliberate
systematic effort to pllfer public
funds. A closer system might make
the discovery sooner, but the best
systems In the financial world have
been beaten for months and even
years out of hundreds of thousands
of dollars"
I'm my judgment, the clerk
should use check perforator like
those used In the banks, whereby
the amount of dollars In each order
would be perforated on 1t. This
would prevent raising any order.
Then the mayor should see that
the order and the bill and the city
record correspondent. This will
doubtless be done hereafter, but the
imprint on that order will prevent
changing 1t after the mayor has
s'gned 1t. Then, Of course, the
treasurer should pay the order to
the person whose name appears
upon 1t, O.: to his duly authorized
agent. Great stress has been laid
on tie fact that the treasures paid
some orders to the city clerk. This
would not necessarily have prevent
ed the trouble during the past year,
for the same determination to cheat
that raised some orders would and
could have forged assignments Of
those orders and the treasurer
would have paid that assignee.
when a bank can be imposed
upon by a forged Endorsement on
Its customers, 1t would have been
very easy to impose on the city
treasurer by the forged assignment
of an order.
"A full publication of the bills at
each council meeting would revive
the memory of every member of
the city council, and eight men
would run over them some one of
whom, surely, would detect any
traudulet Ones"
"For the convenience of refer
ence and auditing difference NUM-
bers should be used on the minute
book, bills and orders. That Is,
opposite each item on the minute
book there should be the appro
pirate number, which would be
duplicate on the bill and order.
Then a moments work would be
sufficient to compare the whole
three"
"It would be hard to get a more
complex system that would not
impose so much work upon the
clerk and treasurer that additional
help would not be necessary.
With these Suggestions, I believe
the city finances would be secure
from any except fragrant system
attic attack, which would be
speedily detected"
These suggestions come from ex.
perts, from the gentlemen who
have been hired by the city to ex
anime the present complicated con-
dition of the city books. They are
not given to the city officials by the
Review with the Idea that they are
in any way suggestive of the fact
that our new officers will not be
able to evolve system equally as
good as any In the country, but as
matter of news the public IS inter
ested In knowing where The trouble