The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1882-05-20


could be maintained in the courts.
That the levee system, where all
have equally contributed by the
uninterrupted payment of taxes,
is in the nature of a partnership
investment for the benefit of all
concerned, and there is no war
rant in law TO sacrifice the inter.
ests of any concerned, unless from
absolute necessity. Would IA rail-
road to which several counties had
contributed by permanent invest
ments-vested rights-be justified
in destroying its utility to one of
the counties and repudiating the
evidences of its investment
Yet some seem to think our
levee district is a sort of little re-
public with political attributes
exempt from the judicial jurisdie-
tomas the rule of a majority to
decide questions of right or prop
erty. Still, as one Interested on
the west bank of Lake Bolivar, If
the good citizens of Washington
county are willing, as has been in
timated, to pay reasonable COM
pensation for property in order to
try this interior line of levce, for
one will accept their proposition,
and gladly give up this oft-recur-
ring fight with inadequate and
stinted means to restrain the head
waters carrying disaster to your
district. Yet were | living below
on Deer creek, | should equally
oppose the new line, knowing the
situation as / do.
The defenses on the bank about
Bolivar Landing are u bunglc of
temporary protection levees, run
ming at right angles and winding
in almost every direction to the
current, in the nature of obstrue-
tions, which throws extraordinary
stress back on the main line on
the Wade front, dn which identical
spot the levee has twice given
way). And yet behind all this the
work on the permanent line across
the head of the Lake has never
been prosecuted to completion, or
even progressed with that expedi-
ton required by the simplest die
tates of prudence. 1t has been
partially completed twice, only to
increase the loss by the disasters
in front, and become wasteful
expenditure of money to no pur-
pose whatever. Hence the "enor-
nous outlay" Such mismanage-
ment would be a disgrace to, and
ruin the credit of, any enterprise.
But now, for no other reason,
abandon the head of the Lake,
where you have a comparatively
high location, approved by your
engineers, parallel to the current,
and in no danger from caving
banks, and let these waters far
from the channel nature has indi-
Gated, concentrate and bag them
on your receding lowlands at the
outlets of Deer creek and Lost
Swamp bayou, and you will have
the "devi's own," sure enough,
to hold such embankments as you
propose or your means command.
Nevertheless, | would have very
little respect for the ability of an
engineer who could not make this
line of eight miles Of leyee rea-
sonably secure, give him the means
Yet still less for an engineer who
could not at much less than half
the cost construct a SAFER line
across the head of the Lake, where
there is a gap only of less than 500
feet, and some enlargement of
levees adjoining only required.
Then to sum up with two general
considerations:
First-The disasters to our lev
ees by the late food prove moth
ing against the line as located
+ across the head of Lake Bolivar
which is not more forcibly appl-
cable as against other sections OF
the levees. We have the breaks
in the upper part of the district in
the ordinary embankments and in
the buckshot levee, below Easton's
and on Catfish Point, ana at Miles,
in levees of only four to six feet,
while the Wade break was in the
general line and an average levee.
Only the Bagot levee could be
considered as pertinent to the
Lake Bolivar question, though not
on the proposed line, and as has
been explained, this levee was lost
from no inherent weakness of To-
cation, but in the decentralization
of forces from the Wade break, it
was allowed to wash away from
being simply below grade.