The Early Period in the United States. 
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r-essor often became an indispensable official in the apportion¬ 
ment and collection of local taxes. These, as well as the town 
and county treasurers, became, as a rule, fee-paid officials. 
Most of the new states in the West have made them part of 
their political machinery from the very beginning, and have con¬ 
tinued to remunerate them by means of fees down to the present. 
The only difference is, that the rates have been lowered as 
the amounts to be collected have increased. 1 
A comparison of the fee-system of this period with that of a 
later epoch, demonstrates very clearly, how “division of labor” 
in public affairs has almost kept pace with that of industrial 
undertakings; and, furthermore, brings to light the regular 
differentiation which has been going on in all public offices. 
The attorneys’ fees allowed by law in 1788 in New York, in¬ 
cluded many semi-official charges which now are paid to recorders, 
clerks, sheriffs, newspapers, and the like. This shows that the 
attorney at that time performed many of the functions of these 
officials; in other words, the duties of the attorney have been 
gradually more and more narrowed and limited in various 
ways. As an example of this may be mentioned the fact that 
the public official known as the “ Schout Fiscal ” was entrusted 
with almost every conceivable duty except judicial decision in 
the early colonial courts of New York. He combined in himself 
the power of public prosecutor and the executive duties of 
sheriff. 2 The same will hold of almost every official of that day 
when compared with his modern successors. 3 
1 An example: South Carolina paid her tax collectors 734 per cent, of 
the amount collected in 1803, while in 1813 the rate was reduced to 334 per 
cent. Laws, 1813, VI., 712. 
2 History of the Court of Common Pleas in New York , J. W 
Brooks. New York, 1896, p. 10. 
3 The secretary of state of N. Y. was at first also commissioner of the 
land office, of the canal board, clerk of the council by appointment, clerk 
of the board of regents of the state university, etc. The speaker of the 
House of Burgesses also held the position of treasurer of the colony. 
Binwiddie Papers, Va. Hist. Col., I, 73. 
