The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-02-15

commitments. The jailors being put on oath. stated that 1t was the practice or the office to charge up feed Tor every man brought to jail and admitted that those to whom I called their attention had not been fed while in jail, and that there were others than those found, but they could not remember which they were. After all, my efforts to find out who had not been fed while in jail from the sheriff and his jailors has ended. l discovered by further investigation that a MT. C. c. Dickens, who had been com mitted to jail and held for contempt Of court, and against whom the charge of embezzlement was lodged after his com mitment, and for whom the sheriff's bills showed he had collected for 1l8 days board the sum of $35. 40 when in reality the prisoner had never eaten morsel or the sherins food, but supplied himself regularly with food from an entirely diff ferent source. The failure of the sheriff and his jailor to give me this informa- tion when I was questioning them has never been explained. In my examination of the latter I put the general question: Do you know of any other prisoner for whom feed has been charged and collect ed. and who was not fed by the sheriff?' The answer was by each: 'I do not" All the discoveries of this item were made by me on outside testimony. There can be no question that prisoner has the legal right to furnish his own food. Sec ton 7197 provides that "any person com mitted to jail may furnish his own sup port Our courts of last resort have re- peatedly ruled on the question of costs. "The rule of statutory construction Is well settled that statutes giving costs are not to be extended beyond their letter, but strictly construed. for the reason that costs are in the nature of @ penalty''- Tlllman vs Wood, 5S Ala, 57S, and others If costs cannot be collected unless such costs are provided by statute. neither can costs be collected for the performance of a service which has never been performed This is clearly a violation of section 7474, which provides that "any sheriff who knowingly receives from the state for feeding a prisoner or prisoners any sum of money to which he Is not lawfully en- titled, must, on conviction. be punished as if he had stolen it." I had to hunt up other evidence than the sheriff and his deputies to learn what prisoners feed bills had been collected for, and had not been fed by the sheriff. and who had furnished their own food, as they had legal right to do.
 Examined Record.
 The large number of commitments to jail for minor statutory offenses so inn pressed me that I determined to examine the original records of the inferior crim- inal court of Mobile county, in which the disposal of the greater number of such cases had been made. as to the source of such prosecutions. Of 7270 such prosecutions inspected 4s00 were origin ated by employees of the sheriff's office. fractfon of litt1a mora thap q per cent of all of such prosecutions. Further in- vestigation as to the number of commit- ments made on the single charge of vag- rancy showed there were 4448 for which the sheriff received total of $2119.10, a fraction over 471a cents for each on an av- craze. The records of the same court showed that of 2699 such prosecutions in spected there were but 6s2 convictions, a fraction over 26la per cent. Using the number of prosecutions, and the percent age of convictions as a basis, the result shows that the state paid, on prisoners committed on this charge and where there were no convictions $1567.50.
 In addition to the above sum the sher- iff's feed bill shows the state paid $1S55. 40 for feeding prisoners sentenced to jail on the charge of vagrancy. Section 7SH of the code. fixing the penalty for this of fense. does not include jail sentence as a penalty.
 sherIn Drago.
 Under instructions from the governors office I have examined the books, ac- counts and vouchers of Hon. John s. Drago. sherin of Mobile county. begin ming with June q. 1909, the date on which he entered upon the duties of the office, and covering the period to September 30. 1909. Sheriff Drago held commitments regularly issued for most of the prisoners for which he had collected feed bills from the state treasury. Prisoners ar rested on process from other counties. such as were taken in on certified copies of bonds, where such prisoners had been previously admitted to bail. and such as were arrested and committed on capiases from the city court of Mobile county, he either held no order or copy of such, and in the case of the certified copy of bond the paper did not show why he was taken into custody, nor the date of Its execution.
 In checking Sheriff Drago's feed bills I noted several who were shown to have furnished their own food. and several prisoners who had been committed under sentence to hard labor for which he had collected for feeding in jail. As has been shown in my report on his predecessors accounts a prisoner has legal right to furnish his own food and a prisoner com mltteu on Hdru ldpOT ecutcnCc HIS food is chargeable to the contractor.
 The following is a statement of the errors found:
 To errors in charging the feed of
 sundry prisoners sentenced to hard
 labor, and others who furnished
 their own food, S7 days at 30 cents
 per day ......................... .s17 10 TO amount collected for feeding C.
 C. Dickens. while in jail. he having
 l,s
 Total ............................ PA. 90
 Respectfully submitted.
 JOHN B. PURIFOY.
 Examiner of Public Accounts.
 On HirschAeld.
 Under instructions from the governor s nfffca l examined the account of Dr. H.