The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-28

can be limited or regulated by some other authority than himself it will be entirely feasible for him to always manage to employ a sufficient number 1 of deputies to consume the entire out put of the fees which comes by law into the sheriff's office. This could also be done by paying large salaries to deputies and assistants. It would be possible for such deputies to covertly divide the same with the sheriff and in that w1y aid him to still receive the benefit Of all the fees of the office "On the other hand, when the sheriff Is placed on a salary, how are the rum ming expenses of the office to be taken care of until his fees begin to come in It Is well known that if takes from
 one to two years before the fees, which an incoming sheriff earns, are collect ed, and as a consequence each newly elected sheriff for the firststwo years of his incumbency must borrow or ad- vance money to run his office. Will he be allowed to pledge the fees for such l loans or will the county be required ! to advance it out of the general fund of the county? Again, suppose an emer- gency arises in which it is necessary to employ large number of deputies, such as riot, a mob or a strike who | would judge of the necessity of the extra deputies required, their number | and the length of time for which they could be employed? What provisions if any. will he made to protect the sher- | if against liability to respond in dam | ages for illegal or wrongful or negli- | gent acts of his deputies done under color of office? These and many other | details must be worked out with the greatest care or we may find ourselves lincumbered with far worse complica- tions, burdens and abuses than We now
 have. Still the county ought to have benefit of the revenue of the sheriffs office over and above reasonable com pensation to be paid him. It is In ar
 ranging the details of the bill provid- | ing for the change that we must be careful to guard. The same is true of
 the clerk of the criminal court and the same care is to be observed or
 should be. in preparing the bill in the case with the sheriff In order to
 be sure that no additional burdens are
 placed upon the county.
 Partially Solved Already
 | Presumably two causes have led to
 the apparent determination of the peo- pie of Jefferson county to put all off
 cers upon salary basis. The large net amounts supposed to be annually re- ceived by them and the oppression of
 the poor as the result of the avidity of officers to make arrests for trivial of lenses for the fees thereby accruing l lHSoldi do lHc oHtTilI anu tue ciiiil-
 nal courts are concerned. the salary | feature has been to some extent solved | by working county convicts on the roads. which the present board of rev enue has been doing for nearly year. As the law now stands, we contend that | the county is not required to pay these officers the costs worked out by coun- ty convicts, when the county works the convicts. instead of leasing them or hiring them out. Consequently on the advice of our attorney, the Board of Revenue has declined to pay to the officers any costs upop those con- victs which have been working upon the roads and unless the next legisla- | ture should pass a law requiring the
 county to pay these cdsts to the of- ficers of the criminal courts the large
 salary feature of the officers of the criminal courts is to some extent a1- ready solved9 If the legislature should
 pass a law requiring the county to pay
 these officers out of the general fund of the countys then it would necessarily result in an increase in taxes if the convicts are to still be worked on the roads So it Is important that the tax payers and those who believe in work ling convicts on the roads see that no laws are passed by script buyers or fee erabbers to compel the county to pay 1 the court costs in criminal cases when
 convicted persons are worked on the public roads.
 GAS far as the fees of the officers of the civil courts. the tax assessor. tax collector and probate judge are con- jcerned the change from compensation lin fees can be easily effected without any complications whatever and would Undoubtedly result advantageously to 1.-the county. and should be done The
 only question here would be the amount