The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1914-06-20

lore same are palQ, Is open TO cTlgiclsul
and should be discontinued same being
the cause, as we explained for number
of cancellations noticed, some of these
cancellations sometimes six months are
year after the date OF issuance of the
license, as referred to in Exhibit No. g.
Attention is directed to Exhibit No. 10,
showing the licenses issued by years and
months, the amount thereof, and fol-
| what occupation issued. Reference to
this list, will show readily the years in
which licenses we're issued, the column
in which no amount appears, being the
year for which no license was issued
for instance if a license was issued in
1910 and not again until 1912, it would
be advisable to ascertain whether the
party was in business in 1911 or not; or
if license was issued in 1910 and none
issued since, the idea would be to find
out if the one to whom such license
had been issued was still in business.
This Exhibit should no doubt prove
interesting.
You will ;please note items with an
"X" before the amount, those signify
that the party has paid his license every
year excepting 1914, the amount paid
for 1913, amount marked with an"X''
serving as a guide for taxing the license
of 1914.
We observe licenses expiring at GER
tain fixed months are paid at some later
date, the license being dated when.issued; !;
the question would arise as to whether
or not such parties were in business
during the intervening period and il
they were found to be, it would appear
to us that the least that could be done
In such cases would be to date the Ii
censes when it expired, or il dated later
collection for such accrued term the Ii
cense payer may have conducted his
business without a license could be en-
forced
If licenses could be m ade collectible
say on the first of the year to cover from
January to December or such other fixed
date as may be decided upon, it would
yery much facilitate the collection and
accounting of same, besides being per
haps more preferable to tax payers. We
trust this suggestion will meet with your
approval.
FINES.
This source of revenue to the City
was handled without much regard to
Book keeping methods, the only record
of Fine account, besides the Docket
Book where fines were rot always plainly
marked paid, being the General Ledger
where Fines were posted in total by
months, details of which collection being
obtained only by reference to the receipt
warrant stub book, to which stub in most
cases was pinned list giving the names
and amounts of those settling fines. The
absence of such lists at times, in the be-
ginning of our audit, made our task
very difficult and rendered impossible in
many instances the Identification OF
collections with those cases marked
paid in the Docket Book, where is kept
a record of each case and it's disposition
We find in the Docket Book, many
Fines imposed marked "Labored" thus
indicating the fine was to be paid in Ia
bor. We find no evidence of this OF
record on the books, as far as could be
ascertained when and where such labor
was performed, instances of cases being
found marked paid without any date OF
payment appearing on the Docket Book,
again cases were found marked ap-
pealed without any notation as to their
final disposition or status being made in
the Book. This Book, in our opinion,
being an important one, should have
been kept in such manner as to obtain
readily the condition of all cases tried
by the Mayor, without having to ex-
amine and check theentire Docket Book,
at the cost of good deal of time and
labor to get this information, as we were
compelled to do to prepare an Exhibit
of this account.
It is essentially necessary that this
Docket Book should show the exact dis
position of each case handled, the fine
imposed, the date paid and if the fine is
labored out, some evidence should be
given to this effect. A ledger account
showing the status of each case, the de-
fendant being charged with the fine as
soon as imposed and credited when paid
or settled, should in our estimation be a
proper book for the recording OF the
cases.
The following summary shows in a
condensed form the results of our find
ings in regard to these finest
Fines marked paid in Docket
identified with Collections. So 642 0e
Unidentified Items marked
paid in Docket Book nnidenti-
fed with Collections tnrned inS els sc
So 26o Sc
| Fines turned in TO Treas
urer .................... ..............S 392 &C
Less payment for Fines i'm
posed previous to our audit...s 81 81
s3 2s5 II
Apparent oyerpayment by
\