Litchfield enquirer., 1875-08-12
A New Jail.

ing at the Courthouse in this place on the 24th inst, ''for the purpose of taking into consideration the necessity of laying tax upon the inhabitants of said county for the purpose of fbuilding a county jail and purchasing land upon which to build the | same."
 The meeting of last winter disclosed so great a necessity for larger and Letter ac-
 commodations for prisoners that many representatives who voted against new jail conceded the necessity of building one in the early future Six hundred dol lars were appropriated for repairs. but thorough examination of the premises has convinced the commissioners that the out lay of so small a sum for such a purpose would be simple waste of money. It ap- pears that during the recent session ofthe legislature the matter was somewhat ag- itated among the county members, and the commissioners have determined to submit the question to them at the com ing meeting.
 There are now some twenty-five prison CTS in jail, several of whom are of necessi- ty lodged outside the cells. There is no accommodation for women, and something must certainly be done by way of enlarge ment. We hope the representatives will view the premises themselves, and come to decision on business principles. Any sufficient enlargement will, We are convinced. be very expensive and yet very unsatisfactory. whereas, by the sale of the present building and the purchase of a tract of land outside the village, much better location for new buildings could be obtained, and place where the prisoners could be made to do fair amount of pro- ductive labor.
 NIT. Tucker reviews the conduct of the bribery investigation at the recent session of the legislature in spicy letter to last Wednesdays Palladium. The turning point, he remarks, "was the refusal of the committee to exercise the power expressly granted it, of compelling the attendance of witnesses. As happens in all such cases, the men who knew the most were unwilling to testify, and some of them kept away, as the committee knew they would. Some of the ablest lawyers in the state gave the opinion that the committee had ample power; and case was cited to the committee where the speaker of the house issued his capias and brought number of witnesses from another county. This was an exercise of the power by the house alone. It should be borne in mind that at the outset the committee expressed no doubt as to their power, but claimed that its exercise was discretionary. After ward Mir. Johnson. who had at last dis covered his blunder in egging on this in- vestigation, in conversation with the chair. man. suggested that the evasion might be put upon the ground that house con- mittee could not be invested with such power. This was an after-thought, but it served. This occurred on the 14th, and there was a whole week before the com mittee met again. during which joint res. olution might have been passed clothing the committee with all the authority of the general assembly-that is, on the suppo- sition that the committee really desired to do the work for which it had been raised. At the last moment few of the less im- portant witnesses were informally asked to attend, but those who chose to remain away did so, and there was no effort made to compel their attendance.
 Mir. Tucker declares that the committee refused to question witnesses who would have sworn positively to facts duplicating Mir. Wilson. He says he can now produce the man by whom Mir. McMahon sent word to the managers on one side of the Plants vile case that he was ready to be con. vinced," and that the matter was no joke, as Mir. Waller would have it appear. He thinks that twelve of the thirteen Litch- field county members whose votes were offered in the Huntsville matter boarded at the American House and the Trumbull St. House. He says that if the committee had seemed in earnest they would have been asked to inquire into the report that $15, ,000 was spent to obtain the incor- poration of Thomaston, and what was done with the money; and furthermore what was done with the $10. 900 collected by the Liquor Dealers Association. Why do not some of the gentlemen accused by Mir. Tucker call on him to prove his char. ges in court? There never was better chance for libel suit than this matter off, fers.
 The Courant publishes 0 letter which maintains that the recent revision of our statutes was exceedingly we'll done. Such We believe is the general feeling among lawyers throughout the State. Much con- densation was necessary, and it is impos- sible to condense language without occa- sional variations of sense. Then, too, the arrangement of chapters and sections was very much changed, and often the change in order has confused those who were used to the old statutes. In the recent legisla- ture there was quite disposition to find fault with the revisers and under-value their work. We imagine the trouble was more with the legislator than with the re. wiser.
 Woodburv
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