176 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Jan. 28,

To be paid by the taxable citizens of Baltimore into the
State Treasury, for no other reason whatever except that the
costs accruing in the criminal cases were largely in excess of
the sum necessary to defray the expenses of administering
criminal justice in Baltimore. The undersigned think that
this presents a case in which the "expenses, costs and
charges" of one of the Courts under the general supervision of
the Judges of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore city, ought to
be reported to the General Assembly with a view to a change
or a reduction thereof. That reduction might be effected
either by a review of the items constituting these costs, and
reducing each in the proportion necessary to bring the ag-
gregate down to a sum only sufficient to pay the expenses of
the various offices above named; or a more compendious and
equally efficacious mode would be to allow the several officers
referred to, to collect from the City Register only so much of
their respective bills against the city as may be necessary to
supply the deficiency in the expenses of their offices, which
may be left after applying to such expenses the receipts from
other quarters than the city.

By the same Article of the Constitution, it is made the duty
of the Judges to appoint such officers for their respective
Courts as may be found necessary, and of the General As-
sembly to prescribe by law a fixed compensation for all such
officers. Under the existing laws applicable to the Bailiffs
of the Courts, those officers are paid a per diem upon the cer-
tificate of the Clerks of the Courts in which they respectively
serve, and perhaps, as to them, no further regulation maybe
needed, but the legislation applicable to the Criers in the
Courts of the City of Baltimore is unequal and ought to be
amended. Thus the Criers of the Superior Court, and of the
Court of Common Pleas, each receive from the City Treasury
a stated annual salary of fifteen hundred dollars, by the pro-
visions of the 135th section of the 4th Article of the Public
Local Code; whilst the Clerks of the Criminal Court and of
the City Court have no legislative provision made for their
payment, except their fees of office. The consequence of this
is, that the Crier of the Criminal Court receives $3,000 for the
performance of a merely ministerial duty, not greater or
more responsible than that performed by the Criers of the
other Courts, whilst the Crier of the City Court, under the
application of the same mode of payment, will receive a com-
pensation so trifling as to be altogether inadequate to the
office.

Under a sense of duty which the undersigned do not feel at
liberty to disregard, they respectfully report this as an ex-
pense of Court which ought to be amended by abolishing the
Criers' fees in the Courts of the City of Baltimore, and bring-