The Cairo daily bulletin., 1871-07-12
AN UNIQUE REPORT.

/ Asbt Oltls
THE GRAND JURY ON THE COUNTY JAII.
coukr HOUSE SQUARE, ROSES, PRIvy
VAULTS, SWEET BLOSSOMS, FILTH. FLOW.
ERs, FoULNEss, PURE AIR, sTENcuEs.
hLoE GRASS, oLARINo 1MPuRITY, CIyILr-
HArloN, BLOOMING AS THE ROSE. rTC.
| FLEA FOR NEW JAIL AND AN APOLLO
or FOR TiEJAiLER--HERE is RIcuN Ess
| FOR YoU.
| lGrsnd Ju. rs Rcportl
To the Hon: ID. j. Baker, Judge of the 10th
Judicial Circuit Court, Cairo, Ills.
The grand jury for the July term of tho
Alexander County Circuit Court, A. D.
1871, would respectfully submit to your
honor, that In pursuance of our duties, we
have made careful and unprejudiced ex-
animation of the public buildings of the
county Of Alexander, their condition,
management, etc, and beg leave to report
that in our opinion, the county Jail, in its
present condition, is not only totally unfit
for the purposes for which il is used
namely, the Incarceration or confinement
of human beings-but is actually danger
| Gus and prejudical o the health and COM
fort of the community. The Jail, being
placed in the basement of the court house,
is without ventilation or drainage, and
consequently, as foul as lazar-housc, and
threatens at any moment, to breed infcc-
ton in the neighborhood, not combining IT,
self to the prisoners in their cells, but di-
rectly and disgustingly affecting the cir
cult and county clerks offices, their vaults,
record books, etc, rendering the transac-
tion of the public business not only un-
pleasant and dangerous to the officers en-
ployed but to the entire public who have
any legal business to attend to, the efiluvia
arising from the cells being sickening in
the extreme, and, in the present hot
weather, almost unsufferable.
In acquainting your honor with this
state of facts, this jury does not intend to
censurc or implics,e officers directly in
charge or arraign them for palpable omis-
sion Of duty, as We find the jailer as attentive
to his prisoners, and the Jail itself as we'll
kept, perhaps, as the circumstances will
permit, but any attempt at perfection in
keeping the Jail clean is frustrated by its
situation and position.
| We, however, do find much cauae for
complaint in the condition Of the court
house yard or square, its privy vaults, ETC.,
the condition of which is wretched and
filthy to the last extremity. The court
house square, instead of presenting an in
viting aspect, where the people Of the
county, who are compelled TO attend court,
can await with cheerful resignation the "a.
dious and wearisome uncertain es of the
law, in the shade of forest or fancy trees,
lolling and lounging away from the heat,
quaffing the odors of sweet blossoms and
flowers or at least, pure air on the blue
grass sward which ought to cover it, are
repulsed and driven away to the sur
rounding saloons, or other less agreeable
places Of resort, by the forbidding and
horrid aspect Of everything that grcets
their eyes or noses. They behold the pub
lie square, instead of a pleasure ground
the receptacle for every species Of lumber
: trash and filth known in the catalogue o.
5 squalid wrct" "hedness, and more resem
bling badly-kept slaughter pen than the
, public square of n city boasting Of an en-
lightencd and christian population and en-
joying all the refinement Of the nineteenth
century. The privy vaults are OF th'
most obnoxious and filthy character that
inauguration can invent, and the stencil
arising from the contents SO horribly sick.
ening and disgusting that wonderment
guesses why we do not have II pestilence .
The court house ITSELF an ornament and
credit to our city and county, is sadly and
shamefully marrel by the present sur.
roundings.
We ask, in the name of mercy, for the
desparing wretches immured in the midst
of this glaring impurity, of the health and
comfort of the officers connected with the
courts, of our public business, of the great
public itself who cannot see the neces-
s.ty of being tortured in attending TO their
public duties, and, in the name of enlight-
ened humanity, civilization and christian
charity, that these foul nuisances be
absted. BY the building of a Jail on mod
crn enlightened principles, the filing Of
the court house yard or square to its proper
grade; the planting of shade trees, how-
ers and grass, the place will "bloom like
the rose,' instead of remaining as it now
is-an eyc-sore to every civilized or sensi-