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Show FEED16 OF HIES OF MUSSED County Commissioners Go Into Matter Behind Closed Doors; No Decision. Behind closed doors, beyond which nowspapor men and the public in gon-oral gon-oral woro not allowed to pass, the county commissioners dobated tho county jail question for three hours yesterday. Whon thoy adjournod it was announced that no decision had boon reached and that another meet-1 ing would bo held Tuosday. Tho discussion centered around tho method of fooding prisoners at the county jail and whether tho sheriff is entitled to any remuneration other than his regular salary, for fooding the prisoners. It was declared after tho mooting that tho presont system of allowing al-lowing tho sheriff to mako what over profit he can out of the 45 cents a day allowed him for each prisoner would bo abolished, but the details of tho new system havo not been worked out. T. E. Will.ey, county attornoy, and Shoriff Andrew Smith, were presont at the mooting. The former gave tho commissioners com-missioners au opinion to the offoct that tho present system of allowing tho sheriff to make whatover profit he can is not only morally wrong, but is not legal, in Ins opinion. Mr. Willoy argued that tho law prescribing the duties of the sheriff makes it imperative upon him to act as jailor at tho county jail and to feed tlio prisoners. He quoted .general Jaw authorities wherein it is specifically stated that any surplus monoy from the amount allowed a sheriff sher-iff for feeding prisoners belongs to tho county and not to tho sheriff. Tho law providing that tho sheriff shall be compensated for feeding tho prisoners was interpreted by Mr. Willoy Wil-loy to mean that he shall be reimbursed fo'r all money actually spent in buyiug food, but under the law he is entitled to no compensation other than his regular salary fixed by law to cover all his duties, includine tho 3"H- of jailor. Tho county attorney urged strongly that the commissioners abolish the present Bystem, pointing out that it was the plain duty of tho shoriff to feed the prisoners with tho money furnished fur-nished him by the commissioners and to take to himself nothing other than his $3500 yearly salary. The sheriff and his privato attorney contended that under tho law tho sheriff sher-iff must havo chargo of feeding prisoners pris-oners and must bo paid for that extra service. It was learned after tho meeting that tho commissioners intend to follow fol-low the advice of tho county attornoy and if the sheriff continues to have chargo of the feeding of prisoners it is probablo that he will bo forced to attend at-tend to that duty without extra pay. "Whether the present Bystom 13 wrong from a moral or local standpoint stand-point or not, it is wrong from a business' busi-ness' standpoint and we are going to chango it," declared A. H. Crabbe, commissioner. |