Auditor’s Report – 1865-1866

(Auditor Report)

This certifies that I have examined the account of the Town Treasurer of 1865-6 (as entered and balanced in the Treasury Book on the 24^th day of February last) and also the list of town-orders drawn and town-notes issued during the first municipal year as with the vouchers for the same, and have detected no errors or deficiencies therein.

The only serious embarrasment and regret connected with this enamination has arisen from the mutilated state of the town-note and town-order books, from each of which there have been taken several blanks-with no vouchers offered, and no security given to the Town, concerning the use which has been made of them.  Such a fact is by no means a novelty in our municipal history, yet so long as this system of mutilation shall continue to be protected by your officers & tolerated by the Town, it must be entirely

[Back of Page]

in the power of any and every board of Selectmen to involve the Town in debt to any amount and for any purpose, without the consent, knowledge, or suspicion of the Town, until it may be wholly too late to look for a remedy.

In relation to the recent mutilation of these books, the Town is respectfully referred for information to such statements as your present board of Selectmen are prepared to make; and, for the future safety of the Town, it is very desirable that some immediate check should be put to this unwarrantable and dangerous practice by some action of the Town [?] this subject.  All which is respectfully submitted –

H.S. Storer, Auditor

Scarborough, March 2, 1866

[Transcription by Carole Plowman, Scarborough Historical Society, 12 January 2020]