That Twelve Hundred Dollars

The Register is anxious that we shoukl express our Individual opinión of what it is pleased to cali the 'salary grab" of the judge of probate. Our opinión is that the man wko could sit Inj congress and vote an increase of salary lo himself, and .hen vote to make that iucrease retro active, so as to cover the term already paid for at a legal rate, ought uot to be president, lo say nothing of De Golyer grabs and other rascalities. Uut the Hegister does not think so. Now the judge of probate had no power to increase his owu salary. He had no vote in the matter. It was not a qusaUoB solely dependent on a vote either, hut a (juestion of law. lf the supervisors had never legally reduced tüe salary froui $1,500 to $1,200, the whole amount was due, and though it was "back salaiy" it was not so in any obuoxious sense, nor made so by the act of the vcry persons benefited. So there is no taint of the celebrated congressional back salary grab about it. If, as the court held, in the Manistec case, the supervisors had no power to reduce the salary after having once ftxed it, their actiou in paying the extra claim was the mere rccüflcaüon of a mistake. This is the light in which the transaction must stand ur.til the legal decisión is changed.