The Recorder

Paper	Dolls
Prefwork	98
Stitching	30
	24
Total expense of Jones
Paid by the executive	152
	870
Balance in favor of Jones	718

THE

PUBLIC PRINTER.

THE MEMBERS OF THE NEXT

GENERAL ASSEMBLY, or at least such

of them as wish to prevent the waste of public

money, are requested to give an early atten-

tion in the approaching session. One of the

first questions that are to come before them

will be upon the choice of a public printer.

The second will be whether it is proper to

pay two thousand seven hundred dollars per

annum, for a piece of business, that can be done

equally as well for one thousand. It is

very possible that Mr. Jones may endeavour

to get an election smuggled through the house

on the first or second day of the session. This

paragraph is written, therefore, to warn those

members who are anxious to serve their con-

stituents, that they ought to come to town in

time at the first opening of business, in order

to prevent an attempt of that nature; if indeed

any delegate could be supposed to countenance

it.

A memorial will be presented to the assem-

bly on the first day of their meeting, stating

the common printing price for which the du-

ties of a public printer can be performed.

The memorialist will offer to perform the

whole for a given sum, of about nine, or per-

haps eleven hundred dollars. In the Recor-

der of October 20th, we made some remarks

on this subject. They are not entirely correct.

It is said that Jones, for his salary, printed

two thousand eight hundred copies of the laws

of last session. Further information assures us

that Jones printed only two thousand for his

salary. He printed eight hundred and seventy

copies additional; and for these he received

eight hundred and seventy dollars. These ad-

ditional copies, containing each of them fifty

six folio pages, would require twenty-eight

reams of paper. The highest price which

the paper cost him could not be more than

three dollars and a half per ream; or, in

whole, ninety-eight dollars.

Thus Jones received a fraction more than

five dollars and seventy-two cents, instead of

one dollar; just as if you had paid five shillings

and eight-pence half-penny for a loaf of bread,

which was worth only one shilling.

This, to be sure, is a very promising sample

of your executive council. They cost two

thousand pounds a year for salaries; and go-

vernor Monroe is not entrusted with a vote

among these venerable sages. No part of the

blame can, therefore, be attached to the pre-

server of the life of Thomas Paine. He at-

tempted this act of justice and humanity at

the notorious risk of offending those who sent

him to Paris: at the risk of being recalled


from his embassy. Jones was no doubt laugh-

ing within himself at this omission upon our

part, of those eight hundred and seventy dol-

lars. For its extent there is not, and there

cannot be, a viler job, in the whole annals of

corruption. You cannot shut your eyes

against facts like these! Samuel Coleman,

the sub-clerk of this council, thinks it a terrible

crime to tell such facts; and such explana-

tions it is, with John Guerrant, one rea-

son for calling Callender a trai-

tor. A letter for a meagre folio pamphlet

of fifty pages! -- The very sound of

the words is an outrage upon common sense.

The wretched shambling answers that Jones

gives upon this subject demonstrate his con-

sciousness that the ground upon which he stands

is breaking down under him.

Senators and delegates of the assembly of

Virginia! We have been assured by several of

your members that there is not one man of

you who will set his face in defence of those

things. They say that the longer endurance

of such enormities is not possible. They affirm

that the story requires but to be proved in

order to command reformation. You have

only to peruse the public accounts, as they

will be laid before you, and all doubt is at once

extinguished in a burst of conviction. Get a

public printer, if you please. But, in God's

name, let him be paid at the rate by which

other printers are paid. If one is ready to

do the business for nine hundred dollars, for

which you are at present giving twenty-seven

hundred dollars to another, who, by the way

never set a type in his life, can you be simple

enough to cast away eighteen hundred dollars?

It cannot be.

We have formerly stated that the public

printer receives large sums besides his salary

Such were these eight hundred and seven-

ty dollars. The whole saving by a reform can

not be less than THREE THOUSAND

DOLLARS per annum.