Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/176

 168 F. G. YOUNG. The table represents anomalies, some of which are quite easily accounted for. The comparatively large sums for 1853 are due to the fact that back levies of territorial taxes are being received and deferred claims presented and paid. Taking the items by classes or columns, it is to be remarked that a superintendent of schools whose office was abolished in 1851 presented his claim in 1853. There was an increase in the rate of taxation in 1855 that some counties did not conform to, so their payments were not accepted in 1856 and com- misions were not collected. The unusual expenditures in 185i) were incurred in making transition to statehood. The shrinkage in the outlay for prosecuting attorneys in 1854 is clearly due to a deferred claim. There is the same- reason for the fluctuation in 1859. The care of the indigent insane was made a charge upon the Territory during only two years. The burden was then again remitted to the counties. The expense of locating territorial roads ("internal im- provements") was, after 1857, aLso shifted to the counties. The three large sums in the column of ''miscellaneous" ex- penses are to be accounted for as follows : That of 1853 was due to the cost of removing the body of S. R. Thurston, the first Territorial Delegate to Congress, from its first burial place in Mexico to Salem. The large sum of 1857 was in- curred partly in getting a Thurston monument and partly in paying claims for work on the State House that was de- stroyed, which claims had not been allowed by the official of the national treasury. In 1858 there were claims to meet for construction material for the penitentiary building after th< national appropriation had been exhausted.