Daily Tombstone epitaph., 1886-01-19
A Communication.

ask, not so much for my own infor- nation, as for the instruction of the aforesaid board.
 In calling special election to occur on Thursday, February 4th, for the pur- pose of voting an assessment Of So,ooo in addition to the regular levies and ap- propriations for school purposes, for the current year, Messrs. Baggs and Willis have proceeded in manner entirely unwarranted in law, and the sooner they learn this fact the better for all con cerned.
 Section Io4, of the Laws of Arizona, says: "The board of trustees of any school district, when in their judgement it is advisable, may call an election and submit to the qualified voters of the dis trict the question whether tax shall be levied to keep the school open longer period than the ordinary funds will allow, or for building school house or houses, or TOT all tneSe purposes.
 It is under this section only that the board may proceed, and it will be noticed at once that no permission is given any board by this law to ask for money to "build fences," "plant trees," or make necessary minor improvements" as de- sired by the ill-advised trustees of this district and so published in their cleo ton proclamation.
 Restraining the indignation which as taxpayer may justly feel toward the trustees for their conduct in this matter and speaking of them as charitably as l can, must hold that the board has been very unwise in making the demand which they have.
 The past two years are the dullest known in the commercial history ot Arizona, and the present year does not open auspiciously. In this community, especially, the future is associated with the gloomiest forebodings and yet our officials want to spend more money than ever before. If the gentlemen to whom we have entrusted our schools for this year were alive to the situation and had interests in common with the people who aonored them, they would have taken
 he advise given them in recent issues of your valuable paper and limited their wants to a sum sufficient to pay the teachers their salaries for the remainder of the current year and withheld their iencing and arboricultural designs until more propitious time in our affairs warranted such indulgences. Three .housand dollars will pay the teachers for the next four months, and even if the fencing and planting are necessaries, is not five thousand dollars an excessive price to pay for them ?
 In previous years this district has paid ts school teachers the highest salaries paid in the United States for such ser vices, but notwithstanding this unneces' sary drain on the school fund, the trustees this year advanced all the salaries from 2s to 90 per cent over last year, and this too, at time of great business depres' slon and when retrenchment should have been practiced if never before The principal of this district is paid SI5c per month and her assistant SI25, while the faculty draw each SIoo. A school month is twenty days, and day | is but five hours, thus our humble precep | tors are paid dollar an hour for her ser vices, while our principal taxes us dollar and half. When we remember
 hat miner has to work for thirty cents
 an hour, cannot the community consis
 lently object to paying the teachers iron
 ,hree to five times as much as the majorit.
 of us receive for our labor? If tn,
 teachers salaries had been fixed thi
 year at a figure proportioned to wha
 similar services receive in most othe
 parts of America, and the trustees hat
 not been so suspiciously eager to get tn
 district out of debt, in brief, if econom
 had been practced instead of extrava
 gance, the regular appropriations woul
 have proved ample for all requirement
 and probably have left surplus. In
 stead of this, we find ourselves confronte
 with deficiency in funds and trees an
 S8,ooo is the modest sum asked for |
 make everything sublimely smooth ono
 more.
 Tombstone has ever been gene rousl disposed toward it's public schools, and the sum now asked for was the legitimat outcome of an improvement made, would be cheerfully voted; but asked fc
 as the sum is by board of trustees which the people no longer have COT 6dence and to be used as it is, to pa enormous salaries unjustly established, ' meet de6ciencyextravagance has create and to pay for improvements confessed