The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1881-01-25
DIVISION.

A petition will be circulated throughout the
county for signers asking the legislative
assembly to enact a law providing for the for
nation of a new county out of the southern
portion of Deer Lodge county and to provide
that Butte shall be the county seat Of said
new county. A memorial will also be pre-
scented to our legislature setting forth reasons
why this request is preferred. At This juno
ture a reference to a few of these reasons may
net be out of place. Butte is situated in the
southern half of Deer Lodge county. This
portion of the county contains about 5,OOO
people. At the last general election it polled
over 2, 100 votes. It has property of All assess
able valuation of about $3,000,Q0O. 1t is sit
uated over 40 miles, Wunderlich's nearly 70,
and Camp Greek, the extreme southern end
of the county, about so miles trem the county
seat. The remoteness of these places from
Deer Lodge city; the innumerable lncon-
venlences to which they are subjected on this
account their ability to maintain a county
organization; the fact that they are by rea-
son of their distance from the county seat a
useless expense to the whole county, and by
being set off as and formed into a new one
will not only relieve themselves but other
portions of the county of this expense, and
from the further fact that they ask from the
northern portion a msiety only of the area
of the county, are reasons why they hold their
request is grounded in right, reason and JUS
t;oo opI ebo,,1I fharafora Enthusiastically no
granted.
Deer Lodge county contains an area of
$500 square miles. Of this great territory
Butte and the southern portion of the county
ask only 1872 square miles, leaving Deer Lodge
county with an unbroken area of 4 ,70S square
miles-a county larger than the whole state
of Rhode Island with its 1907 sq.are miles,
or Delaware with its 2,120 square miles, or
Connecticut with its 1915 square miles. Un-
der the provisions of the bill o before the
legislature, which provides for the form alton
of Silver BsH county, the southern line OF
Deer Lodge county wsuld be fixed at only
eight miles due north of the city of Butte.
This gives SILVER Bow county but little elbow
room, but it makes it a snug, compact,
wealthy little ~county-one in which bills for
milea e of its officers, witnesses and jurors
would not amount to the e~ne-hundredth part
of the sum now paid to those of Deer Lodge
county. We can afford to accept the small
area of territory allotted to us in view of the
comparatively light SUM we will have to pay
to maintain our county organization.
Still our Deer Lodge contemporary COM
plains that a few families in the upper portion
of the Deer Lodge valley would be placed in
the new county. How would it suit our val
ley nelghbors to fix the line of division so as
to leave to them all Of Tie agricultural por-
ton of the upper valley an' give to the new
county Philipsburg, Georgetown and Cable ?
We are inclined to think a line contemplat-
ing this disposition of those places would
meet still greater opposition from Deer Lodge
men, yet we are informed that three-fourths
of the residents of Philipsburg prefer being
placed in the new county rather than to re-.
main in the old one. We have stated it as
eur belief that no line of division would be
Il lhlC VI I0SCS lOE blG INGU NUFLH- " est. w e
think SO still. That paper has a ~pecuniary
interest in opposing division. But we under.
stand the fair-minded citizens of Deer Lodge
city admit that Butte and the Northern por.
ton of the county deserve all they ask, and
are really willing to concede their request
The Ncw North Vest and the stock politi.
clans of the valley town cannot, it appears, be
brought to this recognition of our rights. W.
believe, however, the legislature will constd.
sr the division question as one vitality affect
ing the interests of a large community of PEG
pie whose prosperity means the prosperity o.
the whole territory, against which the person
al aggrandizement of a few political hack.
should not, nor do we belieue will, prevail.
For reasons above enumerated we respect
fully ask our legislators to extend to the me
mortal that consideration its Importance de-
sands, and to act favorably upon the petition
accompanying the same.
FALSE REPRESENTATION.