Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1899 — Investigation In Marios County. [ARTICLE]

Investigation In Marios County.

Indianapolis Sentinel. The experts appointed to investigate the county records have made a partial report covering their work as to the offices of clerk and sheriff. They hjve not yet made their investigation of the other offices. The results as shown in the report, which is published elsewhere, show that in the clerk’s office Mr. Fesler is accountable for about §3,600 of fees that haye been retained by him which belong to the county. In the sheriff’s office the amount of money belonging to the county that has been retained by the officials amounts to $18,500. The experts hold that there is no question whatever as to the ownership of this money, and that all of it can be recovered. The Sentinel has no doubt that they are correct, as the law is perfectly plain and has been passed upon by the supreme court in terms that have no possibility of misunderstanding it. It was only a question of how much had been unlawfully retained, and the amount has been ascertained by an examination of the records made by the officials themselves. There is, therefore, every reason to believe that the tax-payers of the county stand to recover at least $22,000 as the result of The Sentinel’s exposure of violations of the fee and salary law and its demand for an enforcement of the law. And if this amount is due from these two offices, where the indications of the violations of law were least, what is to be expected when the rottenness of the auditor’s and treasurer’s offices is unveiled? The Sentinel has by its own efforts brought to light many thousands of dollars of misappropriated fees in these two offices, and if the experts go through their accounts with the same care that they have shown in examining the records of the clerk’s office and the sheriff’s office, an increase of many thousands in the total of misappropriated funds may be looked for. There will be a hot time in the old town when Billy Schmidt and Harry Smith are brought to a settlement, and it only remains to be seen what