The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1907-08-07

Calhoun County.

Calhoun County.
The ST. Matthews Commercial Ad-
vance of date July 9th, contained a
lengthy article, by DR.. T. 81. Dreher,
purpordng to be reply to recent
article in this paper relative to the
new county question. The aforesaid
article was partly headed, Knockout
Drops.'' Yes, the headlines really
contained those three words-"Knock
Out Drops.n but it was misnomer,
for surely the worthy headline writer
Intended to put it Drop Out Drops"
For If we condense what the Doctor
had to say, in his two column article,
wefind that he advocates the new
county because he wants one like
child crying for new toy. We would
not do our good friend, the Doctor,
! an injustice, if he did go little further
and say that we were dealing in per-
sonalities and Misrepresentation:
That was little hard on US, but we
do not concede the correctness of
either statement. While the Doctor
is a very important and Influential
citizen in his community, we do not
think he is justified in taking all we
said about the new county PROPOSE
tien and its promoters to himself per-
sonally. If he is laboring under that
misapprehension, we want to assure
him that what we said was not so in
tended. As to the alleged misrepre-
sentations charged to US, we will un-
dertake to prove by the statutes OF
South Carolina that our statement, to
the effect that taxes will be higher in
Calhoun county than they are in Or
angeburg and Lexington counties, is
correct. We think that the statutes
wiilprove fair and unbiased witnesses
in this matter. eve will quote from
the statutes later on in this article.)
We lay down the general PROPOSE
tion that if we cut Lexington county,
orany other county, in half and make
two counties out of it and thereby
necessitate the running of two gov
ernments, when one is sufficient, it
viii Of necessity require more taxes
as the handsof those who live in the
tee7itory affected. That appears to
10 to- be . truism. Certainly, two
Gets Of county officers win have to be
paid, two court houses and two jails
WIN hssst De msintained, two courts
win hsya 4o ba1um and Ill other ex-
penses Incident to county govern
ue1it likewise. We make that as
general proposition and propose to
sErovei It. Now fol- the statutes We
rtomised to quote from. We propose
tostaks the supply bin for the yesrs
1905 and 1907 respectively. And, my
dear Doctor, we win not go to the
piedmont section, or some other Sec
tion OF our State, for an illustration,
butwe win take Orangeburg and Lex
ington as representatives of the old
counties, because they are the coun-
ties from which you propose to cut
Calhoun aoanty; and in order to Sc
cure two coulties as representatives
zof the new counties, we will take the
Two nearest the territory interested
and not go to another part of the
State for them. That is fair, isn't it?
We viii therefore take Bamberg and
Lee counties as your representatives.
We find by reference to the acts of
1895 the following to be the tax levies
in these several counties:
OLD COUNTIES.
Lexington Ordinary County
purposes. ............. ...:311a mills.
Oraageburg- Ordinary Coun-
ty purposes. ~ mills.
Orapgeburg-Past Indebted
ness n mill.
Total for two counties. 6 mills.
Average in each county 8 mills.
NEW COUNTIES.
Bamberg-o Ordinary County
purposes mills.
Lee-Ordinary County pur-
noses mills.
Iee-SinEng Fund ...... mill.