Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1875-05-14
When SHALL We Have a workhouse.

/; is an I'D subiect-this Of the need OF
some arrangement under which criminals
confined in ouT jails for petty offences can
be allowed TO work out their fines. But
while the need remains there is need also for
talk about it, If nothing is said nothing
will ever be done TO cure the evil. The
simple facts are al the argument needed.
Louk at them. The County Jail in this city
has been full all winter. 1t has twenty
seven inmates to-day-or had day or two
since. More than half Of these are confined
for petty offences, not necessarily involving
mach iepravitv. They are many of them
strangers to our city-saiors, or laborers, or
travellers, who, passing through here, sIent
night, got drunk and We're sent up for in
tlxication. They had not money enough
to lay their fines. Theys have no friends
here or herelbouts to advance the money
fox them s. they lie in Jail. There are
more than dozen men there now, whose
sentence was q fine Of five dollars and costs,
AMI who have averaged three months apiece
behind tie bars The board Of each Of these
men has cost the State fifty dollars. There
i one man who has lain there for seSen
months. and whose board has cost the State
nearly d hundred dollars. They would all
lie there til tley died If not pardoned out
and q l;i;ilu TO tie Governor Tor the re-
lea. 60. 81 number % them l. now in eircula-
ZION Alo~; Of them are able-bodied men
able and 81 ling to work and for whom hard
airr 0.1I bee mach better than idleness,
d. 81 is Us every man, and especially than
illeac-- b. ;.e company Of rogues and con-
,ic;~. Some 81 these men were apparently
pret.. respectable mea, not very bad
men. when committed. What they vii. be
when discharged. after five or six months Of
enforced idleness and association with
thieyes. J.. u,t-- apparent. In many cases,
uudoaa,eliy, ;Ae long and short Of the story
Il thu, ta- Stale has paid from So to Sloo
T. leach ,ice taa man who, though weak,
was u1t yicill, when the State laid it, hald
on h.;.
Jaa ;le state afford such a process as
tai,e
Oi c5av-= these facts are not an argument
agains; furnishing intozica;ion and petty
offence They are a powerful argument for
a workhou-e. We want 4 place of coufne-
ment ilr TettG criminals in which they can
be set 10 w,;k can be made to pay their
board ly their labor during their confne-
men; AMI car have opportunity by indus
Try and good behavior TO accumulate the
sums needed to pay their fines
The N,-t of workhouse is tie ehiei o5-
lection. B.l The cost oil keeping petty
C mina.- who could not Tav their fines, in
thi- ,oaary. for forty years past, has not
been sinai. sum. 1t would build pretty
large workhouse.
If TIE counties 30 not feel a. ii they mid
afford o. lessen the evils OF the schools OF
crime they are now maintaining, Auw
woald !. g. to combine, by say consres>iul-
a di,tric;s-;o establish workhouse for
each district The State could well afford,
A. q mere matter Of money, to build three
Ia the State, where criminals Of /
the class We are talking about could be c,.- .
lected from the county iails Its by no means
clear that i. would not make money by tie
operation And st least i; would clear its
skirts from the outrage Of maintaining q Jail
system under which mans first com
instead OF being a warning
and lesson Of good, IS. IN 50 many cases, a
in vice, and an introduction to
life Of crime Who would no; pay his
share Of the taxes necessary to free him from
his share O. this mighty wrong?