Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-12-04
CURRENT TOPICS.

WITHIN Il rauluS OF nItv miles mas I'M
proved more, if as much, within the last
decade as St Clairsyille. Its business
men are stable, and its people generally
comfortably situated. Indications are
that improvements will go steadily for
ward. Next summer our streets will be
! lighted with electricity, and not many
years will the people be content with
old-fashioned macadam streets, and ac-
companying mad OF dust. Paved streets
will follow. and new and better build
ings take the places of old ones. A
| through line of railway is delayed, but
1t lcW come.
Meantime, while our present popula
ton is getting along reasonably well,
We need something to attract additional
population. Various kinds of manu-
| featuring can be carried on as success
fully at st. Clairsyille as anywhere else.
Organized effort will put something of
that kind on its feet, and once pros
porous manufacturing concern is in Op
Grafton Others will follow. We have at
our doors thousands of acres of as good
bituminous coal as is found anywhere.
Why not utilize it in manufacturing,
as other towns less favorably situated
are doing?
Wen-direeted public Improvements
always pay. Notown ever amounted to
anything, OF ever will, whose people are
too niggardly to light their streets well,
to improve them, or to provide other ia
cilities demanded by an advanced civil
ization. Improvements cost money.
No town can expect to get anything
worth having, for nothing, and no town
ever amounted to anything whose people
were afraid to go in debt for public i'm
provements.
THE late Democratic candidate for
Sheriff had hearing in these columns
last week. His ill-tempered expletiyes
require no rejoinder. and certainly should
serve TO satisfy the people that they
made no mistake in defeating him for
the Office for which he was candidate. !
The writer went into the campaign |
with good opinion of Mr.. Patterson.
He so expressed himself to few friends.
Notwithstanding he did not expect to
vote for him, it was not pleasant to have
that good opinion shattered. After de-
feat it is not a pleasant task to assail
the defeated, but in the present instance
matters concerning Mr.. Patterson's can
vass so loudly called for criticism that
an individual writing for a newspaper
would have been derelict in duty to the
public if he failed to take notice of
them.
Mr.. Patterson's denial of unworthy
methods in his canvass-of the use of
money and the working of saloons-will
not do. Large sums of money were
used to further his election, and saloons
were industriously worked in his in
terest. Would he have people believe
these things were done without his
knowledge? He does not deny his
"break" at Barnesville, and l am frank
to say that it is more discreditable to
the Republicans who participated in it
than to Mr.. Patterson-but they were
not candidates for office at the hands of
the people. Within a few days DEM
ocrat of Maynard precinct-a gentleman
who voted for Mr. Patterson-told in
St. Clairsyille of his having sent $50 to
the town of Maynard on the night be-
fore the election. Down in Washington
where the effect of jug lines
in former campaigns was a matter of
notoriety, where candidate Scott was1
generally known and well liked, and |
where candidate Patterson was not
known by solitary voter prior to his
he managed to run Scott
% votes behind his ticket. In Poase
township, where Mr.. Patterson made his |
greatest rnn, drunkenness was rampant !
On election day, and for days before. So -.
1t other points in the county. Perhaps
5hese things "just happened" so to
speak, without any help whatever from
Mr.. Patterson.
The gross abuse of Scott and the {
audation of Patterson by Democratic
papers required some notice. They got .
t, and at once big and little among
them united in Safeguarding the {
writer, and the dignified ex-candidate
Joined in the chorus. They have opened
he way for a full discussion of the {
natter, and if hurt they have themselves
)nly to blame. ,
THE Ohio Talley Neocs published at t
tx candidate Patterson's home) deyotes
, column of its space to 81. B. L." and