Show ABOUT THE unsatisfactory CONDITION OF THE COMPILED LAWS ox ON thursday last march ath the NEWS contained an article on the evils frequently resulting from the lowest bid system it was shown that in confiding an important transaction to the hands of any per son or firm there were cons considerations idem ns more weighty than more mere surface cheapness which is often the most expensive process in the end As ati an illustration in point the report of the legislative committee appointed under the statute on the subject passed and approved in 1888 to compile and distribute the laws of utah was cited the report made by the committee to the assembly asserted that the contract for printing the laws was so imperfectly executed that the urgent necessity for the compilation was the only consideration that prevented the rejection of f the work mr herbert pembroke the gentleman 7 who was awarded the contract for the printing because of his bid being largely below any aay other has handed in for publication the following communication muni cation SALT SA LT LARB LAKE march 6 1890 editor abdil dim dimet deseret et N news 8 in your article of thursday wherein in you endeavor to prove it bad policy to award a contract acL to the lowest bidder you do me injustice and I 1 beg of you space for an explanation at that time there was a printing house association comprising the prominent printing offices of salt lake and this association adopted a scale of prices iwas I 1 was not a member of the combination and was bound by no scale but put pat in my bid based on independent calculations I 1 was waa satisfied taft with the result the tendency of your article is to convey the impression that I 1 am an incompetent printer you know that such is not a fact and so do all the printers of this city you must admit that the printing of the compiled raws laws was an excene excellent nt job my contract was for printing and binding the laws of 1888 and a d it ft was waa awe fulfilled to I 1 let letter eter I 1 now wish to defend myself against the report of the committee on compilation the copy for the books was not arranged in a complete and intelligible manner not one single section number was inserted inthe in the whole batch of copy these figures were inserted by me at the expense of a great many hours the total cost of that work was nearly the committee would not pay me for this labor A proof of th this Is matter and a proof of every page after its make up ap was furnished by me if laws were omitted and errors were left undetected that was not my faultry fault my contract bing being for printing jand binding the laws and the committee ought not to blame me for it A great amount of small type composition was necessary which one could not estimate upon for it was not written t the time for instance the old volume of laws contained conked about 56 pages of index matter the now new books contained about pages of index more copious cop ous side notes and larger small type headings the enta entire extra ex tra cost of which was about this the committee also refused to pay and I 1 now charge charge the members of that committee wit with unfairness in arbitrarily withholding it from me the committee in no instance k kept t its cont contract et with me and you cm can judge of its general incompetency w when f en I 1 tell you that the chairman of it came to me last week to get the figures upon which to prepare his report of some of the expenditures yours etc H referring to the impression Impi alleged to have been conveyed in our article that mr pembroke is an incompetent craftsman such a con st ruction is strained the unsatisfactory condition of the compiled laws was stated to be the result of his bis being forced owing to the lowness of his bid to take one of two horns borns of a dilemma suffer loss or slight the work entrusted to him 91 9 he is not a poor workman consequently the shape in which the compiled laws appear does him injustice in that respect mr pembroke states that he be is not responsible for the situation and assails the legislative committee who however are probably able to take care cam of themselves in this respect he makes a very da magling admission that the see sec eions of the laws were not numbered in the copy wind and that the numbers were inserted by him he does not seem to un understand derA tand that the section numbers are a very important feature of a law and errors in that line are liable to destroy its meaning mean ilig effect and force especially where one section refers to another he admits therefore that he has been guilty of legislating without authority a serious offense alt although bough doubtless without any intentional idea of committing a wrong rong the rule in the absence of an express understanding to the contrary is that the flating conflating con Wing pub usher shall read the proof and correct all literal errors the errata in the compiled laws appear to be largely of that obar character acter the charge of general incompetency potency laid against the committee by mr pembroke is exceedingly sweeping and for that reason serious especially when it is 18 directed at men of such known and acknowledged ability as 8 B R thurman C 0 richards E D hoge L B R tuttle J E carlisle W C haiie G Wi sutherland therland and J T hammond the application of the chairman to the printer for information to enable him to make up his report does not by any means necessarily indicate in competency on the contrary it may simply have been the result of care to ensure correctness which is always commendable especially when exhibited by a public officer |