The Evening Herald

The Borough Council is making a mistake in appealing the case of Constable Taliesin Phillips. The sum involved is comparatively small, and by the time the final result is announced the borough will find that instead of having less than three hundred dollars to pay, the principal, costs, interests and attorney's fees will amount to almost one thousand dollars. Besides, no good can be accomplished in an appeal. Mr. Phillips is not to blame for recovering the judgment. The Council would be better employed in chasing with a sharp stick the property owners who defy the sanitary laws and wink at the disease-breeding beds on their premises.

Mr. Phillips sued to recover $5,000 damages for the death of a child which he alleged, and which he evidently proved to the satisfaction of a jury, died from a disease caused by the improper drainage of property, to which Council's attention had been repeatedly called, but without avail. The borough should consider itself lucky in keeping so far away from the $5,000 mark.

This staving off of the payment of judgments is false economy, and this is exemplified in the case of the HERALD. The paper sued, and as in almost every case in which the borough has appeared as defendant, judgment was obtained for the full amount with interest and costs. The principal at that time amounted to about $150, and now the claim with costs and interest amounts to over $600. The Borough Council asked time to apply for a new trial, but has not taken a step in that direction.

As one of the Councilmen admitted at a recent meeting, 'the policy of the borough is to keep them out of their money as long as we can.' Meanwhile the taxpayers are paying the fiddler in interest and costs. A judgment against the borough drawing six per cent. interest is better than an investment in government bonds—for the judgment creditor, not for the borough.

There is only one excuse for the 'staving off' process, and that is that the men who are engaged in it hope some day to defeat the judgments by casting the borough into bankruptcy, and at the present rate of public water works operations it will not take long to get the borough there.