Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1909 — THE COURT HOUSE [ARTICLE]

THE COURT HOUSE

Items Picked, Up About the County Capitol. Eleven marriage licensees were issued last month, against 6 for the month previous, and 4 for the corresponding month of 1908. Sheriff Shirer has had another temporary boarder the past few days. One Ed Marrs was brought over from Remington Friday to lay out a $2 fine and $2.70 costs for a plain drunk. He will be released to-day. An Indianapolis dispatch sajrs that the anti-saloon league has become alarmed over the recent victories of the “wets” and will take a vacation during the sumf&er months to prepare for active battle again this fall. Apparently the tide has about reached its ebb, and th£ results in the recent elections have been of a most disquieting nature to the league. licenses issued: May 29, James D. C. Rodgers of Rensselaer, aged 58, occupation farmer, to Rebecca Large, also of Rensselaer, aged 33, occupation housekeeper. First marriage for male, second for female, her first husSd having died in 1904. 4ay 29, Natle Chupp of Surrey, of Levi Chupp, aged 19, occupation farmer, to Bessie Pearl Parks, daughter or C. L. Parks, also of Surrey, aged 20, occupation housekeeper. First marriage for each. The Brook Reporter says the opponents of the extension of the Iroquois ditch have not laid down in their fight because they have filed no remonstrance, and intimates very strongly they have something up their sleeve that will kill it dead when the proper time comes. The Democrat’s published reference to the matter have been based on personal interviews with a great many parties who worked against it and Bigned the remonstrance before. Of course not all those that were “ferninst” the improvement then are for it now, in fact there are probably but few such, but many of them have said that they would do nothing to oppose it, realizing that it must come sooner or later and it might as well go through now and get the benefits from it. —o— In the matter of ditch fees allowed attorneys, to which a citizen calls attention in this' issue of The Democrat, the trouble is in the law itself, and of course as our farmer friends insist on sending so many lawyers down to the legislature to make the laws for them, it need only be expected that they will look out for themselves. We do not believe the Rensselaer lawyers are any better or any worse than the lawyers of other counties when it comes to trying to get the full limit allowed by statute for ditch fees. In White county recently an attorney tried to get a small fortune, we believe some-$7,000 .or SB,OOO, for his fees in one ditch, but the farmers who were having the bill to pay, rebelled and the matter was finally compromised in some way by which he only got between $2,000 and $3,000. That same attorney, we noticed in a Monticello paper a few days ago, was allowed last week on three ditches in that county upwards of SI,OOO. v -- —o— According to an Indianapolis paper, J. B. Workman, who conducted the so-called tax-ferret "investiga- 1 tlon J ’ in this county several years ago, Is practically out of a job as the result of a recent decision of the supreme court which was adverse to the tax-ferret business. The paper states that Workman has contracts in various counties where his commissions are in round numbers $50,000. The last legislature put through a bill at his request which it was thought would legalize these contracts, but thus far no county attorney in the state has recognized as valid this act of the General Assembly, and Workman can’t get a dollar. The tax-ferret business has been out-lawed by popular opinion for some years, and the holding of the supreme court that it is the duty of the County assessor to list sequestered property that he is able to unearth and discover, etc., practically ends the business of one of the most infamous frauds that was ever perpetrated on the taxpayers of the counties where these so-called taxferret investigations have been held.