The enforced division of allegiance between party and people is but a single source of personal inefficiency. Under the much lauded “government of laws” that reaches the heights of absurdity in the county, the chance of effective law enforcement is reduced to a minimum. Take it for instance in the exact compliance with statutory procedure. The sale of a piece of real estate for non-payment of taxes, for instance, must be conducted in accord with a detailed series of steps set forth in the law, or the title of the property is clouded. Claims for payment for services rendered or material supplied, may also be legally allowed only after the proper formalities have been observed. And in countless other directions the efficiency of the county officers and employees must be measured principally by a meticulous obedience to the law. But contrast the necessity with the performance: The former chief of the Bureau of Municipal Accounts in the Comptroller’s office of an eastern state, after examining the affairs of fifty-six counties, was able in 1914 to say: “In not a single county examined has there been found compliance with every provision of law. On the contrary, in each of the counties examined serious irregularities in financial transactions have been disclosed, and the taxpayers’ money illegally expended, in some cases beyond recovery.” The comptroller’s agents examined the affairs of county “A.” Of the transactions for the year ending October 31, 1913, they said: “County administration during that year was carried on, in many important respects, illegally, and in many cases the officials completely ignored the law, resulting in waste of public money, amounting to many thousands of dollars.” The former treasurer of this county, according to the official report, “had, it would seem, no proper conception of the legal duties imposed upon him. He made payments of unauthorized drafts of committees of the board.... His important statutory duty to pay only on proper legal authority apparently constituted meaningless words.” The same authority reported that: