Litchfield enquirer., 1876-01-27


 and frahes 'needed replacing. Thus it became evident that nothing of the old building could be saved but it's bare shell and the centre wall running through it from north to south. Even the roof re- I 1quiredfmpe repairs. .4@Speci6eations. for repairs were made by the same archi- tects employed by MT. Bartram to prepare plans and specifications for new jail. The work required by these specifications could not be contracted less than SIS, S,9A5, and the commissioners wrote to ask the several representatives if new meeting must not be called. A majority of the replies favored the call. At the meeting Mir. Bartram appeared. and. although not himself a representative, though no longer c member of the advisory committee, he occupied, with Representative McMahon. of New Milford, three-quarters of the time of the meeting in making and reiter- ating charges of bad faith against the for not preparing specifications in accord anee with the plan we have above recited. It was very unfortunate that the architects could not have been here to defend them selves and their work, but we do not im- agine that it would haue changed the re- suit, for it soon became evident that there had been a radical misunderstanding on the part of the county commissioners and I-eA zG f which Mir. Bartram, Ill sympathy with the majority of the representatives, desired to have made. ',.
 The county commissioners and the architects proposed to do thorough and permanent work. Messrs, Bartram, Mo- Mahon, and their following, wanted only temporary repairs for a temporary pur- pose. Mir. McMahon's motion for an ad- journment sine die immediately on the defeat of the vote for @ new jail shows that he would have preferred to make no repairs at ala much honester and more judicious course than the one finally adopted. But the decisive evidence on
 
 the vote against building new jail was in reality sectional one. A glance at the list of yeas and nays on our first page shows that the former are to be found ex- clusively in the towns near Litchfeld and those to the south and east of us. The representatives from towns on the Housa- tonic and Conn. Western railroads voted "No" in solid body. One representa- tive from Goshen. and one from Harwin- ton, "went with the current against the new jail on Tuesday but an examInation of the old building and the patent fact that MT. Bartram's s proposed repairs were to fall lamsntably short of thorough work, brought about an entire change of view on their part. Had the representatives from the towns in the north and west been equally open to reason, the second vote for new jail would certainly have carried. But those representatives came here de- termined to postpone the building of new jail, determined to vote the least pos sible amount for repairs, because they hope within a year or two to force a division of the county and the building of two new jails instead of one., The more candid of them acknowledged this deter imitation in private conversation, just as the New Milford Ray justified it in it's editorials. Our only regret is that they had not acted honestly up to their opin- ions and adjourned sine die without action, instead of insisting upon the squandering of. $1O, ,OOO to hide policy that most of them were ashamed to avow. Will the county commissioners and Messrs. Hodge. Frost and Clark carry this preposterous plan of repair into effect? We hope not. Of the original committee of which Mr. Bartram was chairman, and who reported this plan of repair, the majority favored 8 new jail. Even Mir. Hotchkiss, of Wolcottville, so frequently referred to as willing to con- tract with MT. Bartram for repair at $i0,000, favored new jail. The archi- tects and the builders who have examined the old building all consider it folly to attempt repairs. Even MT. Bartram, though insisting upon his plan of repair, acknowledged that if it were his private affair he should build new. The final re- suit of expending $l0, ,O0O as Mir. Bartram proposes would be an inconvenient, an ugly, and badly located prison build ing. with miserable botch- of a jailers' house attached, such as would certainly require the expenditure of another $5,OOO or $1o, 900 within few years to make it even habitable. Ten years would see an expenditure of $2O. 900 on structure that would satisfy nobody, when few thou sand dollars more would have given us satisfactory, well-located, thoroughly con- venient jail, such as would meet the wants of the county for another sixty or hundred years. '.. .-.
 The McMahon- -Bartram plan of repairs reminds us of the way knot of farmers living on d stream often combine to build an eel-pot. They employ the poorest possible materials, and the least possible labor. and the result is a structure that will hold all but the slipperiest of the cells and will probablHSbe washed into the Sound in the next ireshet. Just so, Messrs McMahon. Bartram & Go. plan their jail with the expectation that it will soon be washed away into the Housaton;c valley, the Naugatuck valley. or both. They hope to make it.tight enough to hold all but the slipperiest of our human eels, and, further than that the weaker and poorer it is, the easier it will be carried away, We hope the county commissioners and the representatives committee will give no countenance to such plan. Let us have square dealing. and square fight on the question of dividing the county. !