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79
patch of its business, and to fix the compensation of its presi-
dent and officers.
Without discussing the question as to whether the Conven-
tion is authorized by this Act to establish rates of mileage for
its members and officers; the Committee are of opinion, that
the rates established by an old Act of Assembly which have
not been departed from at any general session of the Legisla-
ture, or in the cases of the two Conventions which have been
held since the year 1850, to the present time, are the proper
rates of mileage to be allowed and paid to the members and
officers of this Convention.
This table of rates may go back far beyond the year 1850 ;
the Committee did not inspect the journal of accounts beyond
that time, regarding a practice of seventeen years as a safe
precedent for their action.
The Speakers of the House of Delegates of the sessions of
1866 and 1867, received an allowance of ten dollars per diem.
The Committee recommend that the same rate of compensation
be allowed to the President of this Convention, and that the
Secretary and Assistant Secretary be each allowed the sum
of eight dollars per diem for their services, and the same
allowance for mileage as is received by the members of the
Convention; and they further recommend that the per diem
and mileage of the other officers of the Convention be the same
as is received by the members.
In view of the very liberal recommendations which
the Committee have thought proper to make in behalf of the
officers, they trust that the Convention will not hereafter
entertain any proposition for extra compensation.
The Committee also recommend that the President have
power to appoint a Revising Clerk, chosen with special refer-
ence to his capacity and fitness for the office, whose duty it
shall be to revise, arrange and engross, as the same shall be
passed by the Convention, the Articles and Sections of the
New Constitution; and also, shall keep the said record at all
times open for the inspection and information of the members
of the Convention. It shall also be his duty to revise the
printing of the Journal of Proceedings and reports of commit-
tees, so as to insure correctness, and. to make an index of the
same.
The Committee are also of the opinion that the services of
two additional folders are requierd, and they recommend that
the President have power to appoint them. The work in the
folding room is now much behind hand, and it does not ap-
pear to be possible to keep it up with the force now employed.
The title Committee on Claims, does not seem to be appro-
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