Arizona republican., 1890-10-08
THE COUNTY HOSPITAL.

Under the above caption the Gazette of yesterday published a long labored article in defense of the County Hospi- tai under the management of the pres ent Board of Supervisors.
 The two columns of vaporing may be condensed into a simple statement as follows, of the expense of maintaining the County Hospitals 1887, Dr. Woods, manager, $23O0; 1888, Dr, j, E. Whar- ton, manager, $170O; 1889, Dr. II. A. Hughes, manager, over S550O.
 The Ga,ette tries to console the tax payers by trying to show that the cost of maintaining patients in the Hospital under the management of the old Board of Supervisors during 1887 and 1888 amounted to more per capita than it has under the present Board, composed of flakes, Sankard and Smith.
 That is only species of special plead ing and does not reach the merits of the case at all. Of course twenty-five or fifty people can be maintained at less ex- pense per capita than three or four peo- pie, and one of the principal complaints against the present management is that large number of people have been quartered upon the county that have no just claim upon public charity.
 It is not in proof that any really de- serving indigent person was excluded from the hospital when it was under the control of Drs. Wood or Wharton; and there are no grounds for saying that the patients received poorer food and atten- tion then than now. There is no reason for believing that there were fewer indigent people in the County deserving public charity during 1887 and 1888 than there were during 1889. But the cold fact stares the taxpayers in the face that the cost of maintaining the County Hospital during 1889 exceeded the ex- pense of maintaining it for the two pre- ceding years by $500. And to make the statement complete it must be remembered that in addition to the S5500 cost of maintaining the hospital for 1889, the Board of Supervisors ex- pended $l032.55 for fitting up rooms for the family of the brother-in-law of Supervisor flakes.
 The Gazette is silent upon the probable amount the County Hospital will cost the taxpayers during the current fiscal year--lS90.
 Dr. II. A. Hughes by the crafty man. ner by which he put in a straw bid for 1889, and afterwards secured the con tract on his own terms, occupied the field alone for 1890.
 His first bid for maintaining and treating each inmate confined in the County Hospital and poorhouse" was $50 per day. But as he afterwards became stricken in his conscience he appeared again before the Board of Supervisors (viz Jan. 3l, lSS9) and of his own volition reduced this bid to S1,35 per capita.
 If the cost of maintaining the County Hospital this year does not exceed last year it will be because Dr. Hughes and brother-in-law Morse cannot succeed in attracting enough inmates" there to fill the building. Meantime, all the really deserving patients in the hospital could be boarded and lodged at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco at less expense than they will cost the County under the present management. At the present accelerated rates of increasing County expenditures it is only ques- ton of a short time when an annex will have to be built on the hospital grounds for pauperized taxpayers.