POLITICAL NOTES: Antique

Since last January, when Mayor La-Guardia turned him loose on New York City's government as Commissioner of Investigation, apple-faced young William B. Herlands, former assistant to racket-busting District Attorney Tom Dewey, has been turning up crockeries great & small. Last week Digger Herlands unearthed something neat in political rackets, an antique.

Real-estate lawyers had never questioned a "fee" ranging from 50¢ to $1.25 which they paid to clerks in the City Controller's office for filing various documents required by law. The fees, entirely extralegal, went into a small tin cashbox and were divided among the Controller's staff from time to time. Three clerks, whose terms of city service and "fee" collecting were 24, 34 and 45 years, were suspended, protesting indignantly at an affront to a custom older than the memory of politicians.