Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1874 — JASPER COUNTY FINANCES. [ARTICLE]

JASPER COUNTY FINANCES.

Il has been discovered that negative electricity attracts flame, Which positive electricity repels. It is annoupced that General Packard will commence the publication of a semi weekly Republican newspaper at Laporte, within a few days. Farmers and swallows, take cover 1 Lightning-rod peddlers, to the front, double quick, m-a-r-c-h! The present State debt of South Carolina is only §25,770,611.44. Of this amount 115,000,000, nearly three-fifths, have been contracted within six years past, during the period which the Republican party has had control of the State government, Benton county, with a new §50,000 court house In process of erection, is only taxed forty cents on the §IOO valuation, while Jasper county, out of debt, and no public improvements contemplated, is assessed fifty cents on the §IOO. Is there any good reason for making the levy so high in Jasper county? Out of the 126 ohl Republican newspapers of the State, all heartily endorse the Republican State platform and ticket, except the Rensselaer Union. —Kentland Gazette. If that statement is true,at least two facts are proven by it, to-wit: Ist. That the manager of The Union does not like the Republican State platform. 2d. That he dares to say so in the face of tremendous opposition. Judge Jeremiah Wilson is reported to have assigned as a reason for declining to be a candidate for Congress again that it was“because he had got tired of investigating people.” Rather a sad comment upon the party in power when a gentleman who has spent a large portion of his life upon a judicial bench, gets tired of investigating the rascality of its leaders. A scientific gentleman says that the comet is nothing more than a cloud of very attenuated gas. Although it spreads over several millions of miles of space and travels with appalling velocity, if it was condensed into a solid substance like wood or iron for instance, the whole thing could be held in the hand of a person of ordinary strength and size. Like many 4th of July orations, it is mighty thin stuff.

Tt is the deliberate opinion of the man who writes short paragraphs to be put into the Cincinnati Commercial, that’there is more than one man in this country fit to be President of the United States, So important did he consider this discovery, or suspicion, that he repeated it five or six times in a recent number of that excellent newspaper. Let the reader recollect then, that there is more than one man competent to be President, and perhaps be may b.e one of the persons the Commercial is hunting for. i Within the borders of Carroll county live three gentlemen, either of whom, the Delphi Journal thinks, would be qualified to represent the people of this district in Congress; and either of whom would certainly be elected should he receive the nomination of the Republican party. Judging by the record of the past six years, no doubt, the Journal editor, together with many other good people, seems to think most anything would do to represent the district, and most anybody could be elected ij' only conspicuously' labeled “Republican” fore and aft. Still, we have nothing to say against the gentlemen nominated by our contemporary; for anything known to the contrary, they are all very clever men. Had Gen. Packard consented to stand for renominaton, the Michigan City hint er prix e is of the opinion that one of the strongest names yet mentioned would not have been in the field. Should Gen. Packard receive the nomination for Congress at Valparaiso on the 6th day of August next, the opposition candidate will probably carry Jasper county by 1,000 majority. However much editors in this district who enjby government patronage through Mr. Packard’s influence may desire his return to Congress, the convention they are preparing to manipulate at Valparaiso, will not dare to put a salary grabber in nomipation; neither is that convention likely to pass a resolution censuring the thieves Republicans have elected to Congress.

At the close of the financialexhibit of Jasper county for last year, which is published among the advertisements on the third page of this paper, My. Auditor’ Babcock says: In comparing tills statement with the May settlement it may be gratitiing to your body [the board of County commissioners] as trustees of Jasper county to notice that while the levy for county purposes in Jasper coujity last year was below the average of the State, and that while less than sfxty per Centum of that levy under the two installment principle was collected, the known liabilities have been discharged, our orders have been kept at par, and there is a balance in the treasury which will probably meet the necessary expenditures of the county until further collections reach the treasury. Now it this sta'temen-t conveyed an accurate impression concerning the financial management of the county, every taxpayer might congratulate his neighbor that his local interests were in the keeping of shrewd, judicious, economical financiers; but, unfortunately for the pockets of taxpayers and for our Auditor, the tacts do not support the impression he designs to make upon public opinion. Instead of local taxes being “below the average in the State last year,” they were 41 per cent, above the irverage last year. The Indianapolis Journal on Tuesday of this week published a list of the counties together with the amount levied in each for local purposes in 1873, as shown on the books of the Auditor of State. There are one hundred ami two counties in Indiana, forty-eight of which gave Democratic majorities in 1872, and forty-four were Republican; of these, thirty-nine Democratic and forty Republican —seventy-nine altogether-had lower levies for local purposes than Jasper county had. The total local levy in this county last year was §1.33 on the §IOO valuation of property, while the average local levies in the other one hundred and one counties was less than 89 cents on the §IOO. Now, when it is remembered that no great public works were constructed or contemplated, and when public attention is otlicially called to the fact that the county is out of debt, her orders are at par, and that there is a surplus in the treasury sufficient to meet current expenses, the question involuntarily arises, Why are our local taxes higher than those of other counties?”