Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1882-07-20
THE NEW COUNTY MOVEMENT.

THE NEW COUNTY MOVEMENT.
A gentleman of Gaffney City was in town
last Friday, consulting the records and look
ing up such documentary testimony as he
deemed necessary to aid in establishing a
new county, by slicing off a portion OF York
and tacking it to one corner of Spartan
burg, whereby the required area may he OBJ
tanned, the county-seat to be at Gaffney City,
with costly Courthouse, Jail and other
necessary and expensive public buildings
complement of county officials and other
necessary fixtures and appurtenances, such as
is needed in organizing, establishing and run
ming first class county according to modern
ideas and improvements. Whether his inVes-
tigation went as far back as the original patents
granted by George Ill.,, or whether, in the Au-
ditors office it was confined only to oascertaining
the financial standing of the taxpayers III that
portion proposed to be sliced from York, we
are unable to say; but we suppose the exam
nation was thorough and exhaustive and
highly satisfactory as to the ability OF the
people to meet their quota of the expense OF
erecting public buildings and eQuipping the
machinery of county government with which
they are already supplied at home, and against
leaving which all the traditions and assocla-
tions of the past cry aloud.
The projectors of the scheme are liberal,
however, as we learn they propose to cross
over the natural boundary and take belt
from five to six miles in width on this side of
Broad River, running from the southwestern
limits of the county. parallel with the river,
thus subjecting the people of the included Sec
ton to all the Inconvenience OF having a
large water course between them and Their
county seat, placing a large number of them
further from the proposed Courthouse than
they now reside from Yorkville while not a
few in the extreme corner of York would lind
trip to the mountains of North Carolina about
as easy as journey from their homes to Calf
ney City. While, to say the most, only small
number of people in York would be benefited
in any sense of the word by the proposed new
county, u large majority by far would be ac-
tually inconvenienced as to distance from their
county seat, to say nothing of the river they
would have to cross by ferry at nearly all sea-
sons of the year. Gaffney is an enterprlslng
town, and for it's citizens we have admiration;
but we donot think the people of Western ork
would willingly consent to be thus deprived
of the facilities they now possess, simply to
crafty the ambition of Gaffney in its aspi-
rations to surpass it's less emulous sister towns
in the same section.
But is not the gentleman acting just a little
hastily or does he wish to get the inside track
of all possible competitors in the movement OF
slicing York into shoe-string counties? What
ever his motives, his zeal is only equaled by
his haste and his hasty action may be i'm
PEELED by the injunction contained in the di-
rections for cooking rabbit-frst, you must
catch him.
There is a good deal yet to he done, however,
before the proposed new county can be estab-
lished. First-the people will be called upon
at the next election to vote Yes or No Oh a
Constitutional amendment proposing to re-
duce the area of counties from the present
minimum of G25 square miles, to the mini
mum of 400 square miles. IT, at the election,
a majority of the voters voting thereon, vote
No on this proposition, the question will proba-
bly, be ended but should such majority vote
in favor of it, it may then be ratified by the Leg
islature, a two-thirds vote of all the members
elected being necessary. So the consummation
of the proposed scheme is yet some distance i'll
the future; but emulating our friends example,
it is not too early for those opposed to the
movement to set about securing it's defeat,
and the first step to attain that object Is
to vote against the proposed Constitutional
amendment. Let those who do not wish to
he burdened with an onerous tax for which
no equivalent in the shape Of public neceS-
sity is returned, see to it that their ballots
contain the word No on this proposition :;
while voters in the section of the county not
proposed to he sliced off should bear in mind
that they too are as deeply interested for as
the area of the county may be diminished, in
the same ratio will the taxes of those left III the
old county be increased. The proposition is
two-edged sword, cutting both ways-the
taxes of those thrown in the new county will
be increased for years while of necessity the
burden of the county government will fall
heavier upon the smaller population left in the
old county.
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