Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1902 — ANOTHER SOLAR PLEXUS FOR ABE. [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER SOLAR PLEXUS FOR ABE.

Judge Palmer Over-rules Motion to Tax Costs to The Democrat Editor. Judge Palmer of the White circuit court, this week over-ruled the motion of defendant’s attorney to tax costs to plaintiff in the case of Babcock vs.. Board of Commissioners of Jasper county, and the county must now pay costs. This is the case, it will be remembered, where Abe and his cohorts cut a printing bill of The Democrat’s from sl2 to $9, and the Democrat editor sued for the full amount, took change of venue to > White county and was given judgement for the claim in full at the February term of court in that county, the defendant’s own witnesses (except the cow-pun-cher) swearing that the claim was substantially correct. After the court had rendered a verdict, and in the absence of plaintiff’s attorneys, Mr. Hanley, the attorney for the defense, made a motion to tax costs to plaintiff, on the grounds that a judgment for less than SSO in the circuit court throws plaintiff in for costs. While this is true in most cases, it is not so in cases of this kind, where the county itself was defendant, and the court stated that he would listen to argument on the question. Nothing further was done that term, but at the present term the matter was called up and the motion was overruled. This ends the matter, and the SSO to SIOO costs—including attorney’s services—which the attempt of Abe and his gang to beat The Democrat out of $3 honestly earned, has cost, must now be paid by Jasper county. Never for a moment did the commissioners have any grounds for making the cut in this claim, or any other ever presented by us, and much as we disliked to put the county to the expense of a lawsuit to get our rights, we could not calmly sit down and allow this gang to cut every bill we presented and then have them bellow about our robbing the county, without making a protest, and we were forced to go into court to establish the validity of our claims. So flimsy a case did Abe have that his attorney, after having Clark and Marshall measure the legal notice in question and both pronounced our charge all right, told him there was no use in taking either of those gentlemen over to Monticello to testify that it was a false or padded claim. To this Abe and Sim replied that it didn’t make a d bit of difference what either of them said about it, to have them suppoenaed and take them over anyway. Of course the county pays the freight, and neither Abe or Sim cared a continental about the expense. Even though it did cost Jasper county SSO or SIOO, they figured that it would cost us something, and that was what they were after. The above is a fair sample of the personal spite that Abe and his cohorts have worked out at the expense of Jasper county taxpayers, and never for a moment has the question of merit or justice cut any figure—Jasper county paid the bill and it gratified to some extent the personal spite of these “public servants.”