The San Francisco call., 1905-08-17
MATTER OF DOCTORED BILLS IS
TO GO TO GRAND JURY.
Oakland. superyis-
ors Will. Make.
Heavy Cuts.
- y
Prosecution of Of
s4rI -
tenders Expected
E to FolloW.s

OAKLAND, Aug 1e.-After four-days
examination sof thedsSationery bills Of the
various county offices for six months,
beginning last October alid ending. with
March, the Board of { Supervisors this
evening. concluded Its labors and ehas- de-
termined that there is no reason to alter
its opinion that. the bills have been tam
pered with. Atnext Mondays meeting of
the. board the bills will be cutSd6wn $3.50.
Chairman John Mitchell stated at the
conclusion of the investigation. that there
was nothing for the board to do but. cut
the bills down to what is believed to be
the. proper amounts and leave it to the
Grand Jury to do what 1t sees fit in the
way Of criminal prosecutions.
I'VE have now done publicly what had
already been done to some extent pri-
vately," he said, land reached the same
conclusion. Owing to the fact however,
that there is only a bare majority of the
board present. this evening, it is the opin-
ion of those. present that the matter
should be passed upon by the entire board
and for this reason the final act will be
put over until Monday
. Z HASsE is QUESTIONED.
The important witness of the day was
Otto l.. Hasse, former manager Of the
Central News Company, who made out
ali of the bills. With the altered bills
Hynss and Supervisor Rowe subjected
him to a searching cross-examination and
he attempted as best he could to make
an explanation of them. He acknowl-
edged having made the erasures, but said
he did this to make the amounts right
Sometimes he did not have the quantities
ordered on hand, and when this was the
case he supplied certain quantities and
charged for them afterward on other
bills. He declared, however, that all the
supplies charged for had been delivered.
Referring to his connection with County
Assessor Dalton, Supervisor Rowe asked
Hasse if he had ever furnished any other
county official goods of any other descrip
ton than what was on the regular list of
supplies and he replied that he had not
Rowe then asked: You have published
an affidavit to. the effect that Assessor
Dalton has paid you for all the furniture
you bought for him, have, you not?"
Yes. sir" was the reply.
How then do you account for his also
having paid Attorney Woolner a bill of
$40 for furniture?"
.'WelI, if he did, he paid for it twice
He paid me for all that I got for him.
MATTERS IN BAD SHAPE.
Attorney Ben Woolner. representing
Mrs. Lottie Classeby, the owner Of the
Central News Store,' was called and in
reply to questions said: II took charge
of Mrs. .ClasSebyS affairs last June. They
were in a very bad way. There had been
no books kept and bills came into the
store that aggregated within few dol
lars of $4,000, / asked Hasse about them
and he said that the money owed the
store by the county wound make this
right, but that he. had not been able to
collect it. If. however. you gentlemen
cut these bills down, as you now have
them marked, she will be out altogether
about $1,000
80 far as Mr.. Dalton is concerned l
will say that there was no threat or
coercion used to make him pay the money
found was due from him So far as
could tell from the bills, he owed the
store for furniture $170. / went to him
about it and he said that he thought it
had been paid, but said that he would
look into the matter. 1 went back to him
in a few days and he gave me check
for $40 on the Central Bank. That is all
that 1 know about 1t.
The Grand Jury meets tomorrow and
has taken the matter up. 1t has had its
expert tabulating all the bills for several
days past and to-day issued subpenas for
County Assessor Dalton, Otto l. Hasse
and County Expert John ,Sabin.