Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-07

/ OF the above tables proves that 1t Is ln1ecGl
| Gus and spreads rapidly under favorabl
| conditions, while the other table is plair
I argument that, like other infections, it dis
! appears under proper regulations.
owe have lots of paupers who won
work, " testified Andrew Rhuhl, overseer o
| the poor in Buffalo township, Cente
county, before the State Commission ap
! pointed year ago on this subject "W
/ support able bodied men who won't work
| We can't compel them to work. We hav'
about six of those. They are from % to 4
| years of age. Wesley Stahl, one of these
is 30 years of age, has four or five children
and never does days work. We pay hi
house rent and give him provisions. We
pay his S25 per year rent Paupers would
oppose going to the poor house"
Mr.. Californian, overseer of Lewisbure
borougE, In the same county, said to the
| commission: "Have some able-bodieo
paupers. One family has been charge on
; us long time. If we had poor house we
would not have half as many paupers. A
great many would not GO"
An attorney of Lewisburg, Mr.. Linn, re-
sorted before the commission to an argu
ment in favor of the township oversee- sys
TEN, saving:
The wants of many people are relieved
without degradation by the kind-hearted
overseers. The present system supplies
their wants better. The plan of boarding
them in an almshouse. The almshouse
might chase of a great many paupers, but
that is not the idea of the poor laws. The
poorhouse is a barbarous test of pauperism.
My views on this subject are tinctured by
"Oliver Twist" l read it when young and
it has always colored my views of the poor
house.
PAUPERS KEPT BY PAUPERS.
The very next man who followed Attor-
ney Linn before the commission was an ex-
overseer of the same town, Mr.. Slifer. He
gave some startling facts.
Farmers do not take paupers to board un-
der the present plan. A man almost as poor
ships are pretty badly taken care of. The
overseers pay 81 week to a man to
board the pauper. The man who
keeps the pauper usually makes
on it, and the pauper gets the short end.
Under the present system. the children of
paupers almost always become paupers.
They do not attend school much. They
have no books. 1t is considered useless
expense. 1t is hard to get places for chill
dren. L suppose there are 100 pauper chill
dren here. The influence of helping par
ents makes children expect the same thing
The people thought l was too easy on pau
pers. The overseer who was on the board
with me advertised in the paper that by
establishing n soup house he could keep the
paupers for As cents per week. The people
demanded a soup house, then, and it was
tried for six months but stopped. The
paupers had got tired of soup and started
begging. Wespend $500 a year on the pau
pers here. If we had an almshouse we would
take good care to get the very lowest bid
ders. 1t saves the rich, and they don't care
for the poor
This frank admission was made by Samuel
Keiser, the overseer of West Buffalo town
ship, when he appeared before the commits
sion:
Overseers sometimes take q man into their
own home and make little out of his
boarding. We board our paupers in private
families and pay 81 per week for each. Over
seerS hunt somebody willing to keep a
pauper He drives out and finds the place
where he can be kept the cheapest. Some
of the people who keep paupers are farmers,
but usually they are kept by the laboring
class.
ovERsEERS AFTER THE MONEY.
I have no reason to believe that the ma
iority of she hundreds of township over
seers still holding office are anything else
than honest. But the system they are
working under is so loose that it affords
every opportunity for questionable transae-
tions. That an oversee, could consent to
make something out of him is incompre-
hensible, and vet there is the above state
ment for it. The commission also came
across the same thing in Monroe county,
where an .overseer, who testified before
hem, was found to be boarding pauper
himself "whom he allowed to work little |
for him if he cared to. -
In my own investigation met with one |
)verseer who explained to me how some |
years ago plenty of overseers kept |
store and drawing up orders for provisions |
sor paupers to be paid for out Of the town. |
ship fund, filled them themselves 'Of |
concluded this overseer, ''this is |
10 longer allowed by law, but it is no harm |
where We happen to have several barrels of |
1our or potatoes on hand to fill these orders |
ourselves"
So loose is the system that it is rarely the |
ase that township ten miles from another |
ownship of the same county has any knowl- |
dge of what tax millage is necessary there. |
find remarkable lack of uniformity in |
he poor tax millage within one county. In |
indiana county, for instance, it runs any, |
where from 1 to 515 mills in the various |
ownships. In Armstrong 1t varies from |
Mills in one township down to 8 or 1 in an |
ther. In Center county, in Butler county, |
n Clarion and in Elk, the most wonderful |
Inference exists Within a single township |
he tax millage is fixed, the money when |
aised dispersed, and the wages of the over |
eers fixed, contracts with attorneys, doctors |
nd liverymen drawn up, and orders for out |
oor relief given out without any outside |
supervision from county or State authori- |
les.
Township auditors are lax about making |
ny report whatever to the County Court |
House, and, as the Commissioner of Arm |
trong county confessed to me: at was an |
wfuI hard job TO get any reports from
hem, and the returns we sent to Harrisburg |
asst month omit several townships for that |
eason."
FIGHTING OVER PAUPERs.
This army of attorneys employed in the |
s or 20 counties of Pennsylvania where |
he old law still operates are necessary to |
ght settlement cases." Mr. Silvus, over
eer in Manor township, Armstrong county, |
old me of one which his township has |
,ending in the courts. 1t is dispute over
pauper with Allegheny City.
"Who has the pauper In the meantime?"
asked.
'Oh, he's up in Sharon, Mercer county,
eing kept by his son.
That is a good specimen of verv many of |
he legal fights ensuing to foist one pauper
n to another township or county. This
auper is no longer pauper, and yet the
Expense over him goes on in the courts.
here is one authenticated case in the GEN.
raj part of the State, where the pauper
led, pending a decision of his case in the
ourts. In scores of instances could show
7here enough money has been spent in liti-
alton between townships to have kept the
isputed paupers five and ten years of their
ives.
This thing has made township overseers
q many counties over-zealous to keep peo-
lie out of their districts who thew think are