Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1884 — THE STAR ROUTE CASES. [ARTICLE]

THE STAR ROUTE CASES.

Items from the Accounts of the Spec Counsel. [Washington Telegram to Chicago Tribune. The statement of the expenditures of 1 Department of Justice iu the star-route cal has been furnished to the Senate in respoi to the resolution of Mr. Van Wyck. T document is about the size, shape and weig of an unabridged dictionary, without inch summary, or condensation, and with IJt clew to the vast mass of vouchers. But t bookkeeping methods are not so orude th the astounding extravagance of the Depa ment of Justice can be kept secret. T information shows how the Treasu can be plundered in the name of refor Brewster, Attorney-General, received SSJI as attorney in the star-route cases, the It voucher for $2,500 having been approved short time before he became Attorney-Gs eral. William A. Cook receives SI,OOO f services in the Howgate case. This did n result in disclosing the whereabouts of Ho gate. He also receives $6,000 in the sti route oases. The leading counsel in t star-route cases, who was paid the least, w Ker, of Philadelphia; yet the vouch® show that in 1883 he charged $29,000, which he received $21,000, an unsetti balance being in dispute. In i dition he receives $5,250 for his services the Kellogg case, although the case has n yet been brought to trial. The total char made by Ker tor the year’s work was $32,51 most of which has been paid. In addition this, the junior counsel, while drawing em mous fees, presents his board bills regu ar and the Attorney General approves one, f instance, of sixty-one days at $7 per di amounting to $427. Dick Merrick, who hi pens to live here, did not charge for boa but Ker and Bliss, besides drawing from ! to SIOO each per day, charged for everyth! apparently from a bootblack to a aha] Mr. Merrick charges his uniform rates 1 about SIOO a day and gets them. 6001 Bliss presents the champion fees and g< them allowed, but he has not secured all t money, owing to the fact that the approprl .tion was exhausted. The details of one his bills would revved as a model for a cha eery lawyer in the Jarndyoe suit. Heeharg for waking up in the morning, for eating k breakfast, for walking to court amd baok, fi the place where he sleeps, for the man wl brushes his coat, for the boy that brings h books. Bliss’ fees average 81C0 a day, at he crowds a great many days into a yea Bill Wood, the detective, gets small snm Allan Pinkerton gets larger ones, having t coived in about a year some SB,OOO for t services of his operatives. No names a furnished of the persons shadowed.