The Colville examiner. [volume] (Colville, Wash.) 1907-1948, 1914-10-03
COUNTY FINANCES
ARTICLE NO. 8.
The Colvlle Examiner Series. Oct. 8, 1si4O
County Clerk


orally used to designate that i'm
portant individual who sits at the
left of the judge and listens to
all the woes of the people when
brought into the limelight of the
superior court. But this clerk is
officially designated as the clerk
of the superior court, he having
little to do with the routine of
general county affairs.
His duties are to record all the
proceedings of the court, take
charge of court trust funds, re-
cord marriage licenses, keep in
custody all papers and files deal
ing with court matters, register
jurors, witnesses, bailiffs, etc,
and see that the court orders are
properly executed. When he has
nothing else besides his regular
work to do, he can impart the
intricacies of securing admission
to citizenship to the aliens who
apply for naturalization-and this
matter is a big study in itself,
being government work.
The clerks vault is the repos-
itory for full official details of all
the iniquities, shortcomings and
frailties of that portion of,human-
ity which has sought or received
justice from our superior court.
The affidavit which your friend
made against your neighbor is
there, and the details of every
estate which has been settled in
court are there. If you charged
your enemy with being horse
thief, your affidavit is there. And
it is always up to the clerk to
find them if necessary. For this
purpose he has a double index
system of reference to all cases,
and each case with all it's papers
is neatly enclosed in an envelope
and filed in its particular place.
There used to be a time when
lawyers took out papers and for
got to return them, but now the
lawyer must sign a receipt for
each paper he takes out for ref
erence, and this receipt is inclosed
in the case envelope, showing just
who is responsible for any papers
not returned.
The present clerk, at the be-
ginning of his term of office last
year, also adopted a duplicate
system of receipts for cash paid
for filing fees, and these receipts
are checked daily and monthly.
The result for 1913 was that no
discrepancies occurred in the mat
ter of fees.
Practically all papers filed in
any civil case are charged a GER
tain fee for filing. Each new
case filed must pay a $4 fee, and
all judgments require a fee of 81
to So. The use of the court seal
for private parties requires fee,
and in four years of the county's
history the clerks office has thus
been self-supporting.
Outside of his own office ex-
pense, capable county clerk can
be of great financial saving to
the county if he possesses the
ability to keep up his office work
and expedite court business. If
the clerk is not of trained clerical
ability, he could hinder the prog
ress of a case by failing to find a
certain paper, information, war
rant, court order, decree, or
whatever it might be. And
when 40 or so witnesses are in
court on pay from the county, a
ten-minute delay means real
money to the taxpayer.
A good clerk is of infinite value
to the judge, for the routine
order of court settings is not a
subject which the judge can
carry in his head-not in Stevens
county at any rate, and the clerk
must look after the court calen-
dar (settings of cases) and keep
the lawyers and even the judge
informed. A large part of the
clerks work is in dealing with
lawyers, and when three or four
lawyers are each looking up the