The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1891-03-05
Town MEETING.

Of TOWN MEETING.
is The Australian Ballot fried and
IL Proves satisfactory.
/ The telegraph report that town NEE
ing, Tuesday, was the first civilize
Is election ever held in town." was exa2
" gerated of course, but the fact remain
, that the day passed orderly and we hear
but one expression, and that was, 81 lik
a the new way of voting.n The Herat
70 sums up the matter in these words, re
t ferring to the State as whole: 9Th
# ten Vermont towns which voted unde
g the new secret ballot system for the frs
time give the same report of general sat
e isfactiOn which has been heard in othe
=. States, and also special approval. Be
sides giving secret ballot the Law
i brought relief from the evils and annoy
. ances of system never intended fol
Q large places and not adapted to them
The town meeting, which works so ad
mirably in the average municipality OF
the State, is open to very serious objec
S tions when applied to the larger places
l No one familiar with voting machinery
need be told the disadvantages of having
even 1000 voters given but single poll
ing place with no check to the rush, but
yet the machinery of town government
permits only one, let the number of vOt-
ers be what it may, and every one of the
, 10 towns affected by the new law has felt
the full force of the trouble. This law,
by its system of managing tickets, in
practice gave the deliberate and comfort
able voting common in large cities where
polling places are greatly multiplied, and
this alone was very welcome thing and
perhaps the one most considered, al
though only an incidental effect of the
method.
but the law. stands approved all
| around. Voters mado-0 good many mic
takes with their ballots and counting
was slow process, but voters will learn
and counting was certain if Slow
Promptly at ten o'clock, the modera-
tor, Hon. JOHNNY V. Carney, called to order,
and the routine business was transacted,
taking the time until noon. The attend
ance and vote was slim, not more than
one-fourth of the registered voters COM
ing out. The hall was fitted up with 25
booths and four polling places, which
afforded ample accommodations to vote
quickly. The counting, however. was
slow and it was to somewhat late sup
per that the canvassers sat down after
completing their labors. The result are
given below.
The voting of the tax caused the only
excitement of the day. 1t was proposed
to levy special highway tax of Is cents
ON the dollar giving the selectmen 30
cents instead of the statute provision of
10 cents. The auditors had shown that
100 cents on the dollar would raise with
in about $1,000 of estimated expenses for
the coming year, highways included.
The meeting had two proposals to con-
slider: LIST, to raise the 100 cents as
usual, or I'd, to raise So cents and special
highway tax of 10 cents. After consid- |
cradle discussion the vote was taken, and |
the latter plan WIS carried LAT to 1874
votes. In so doing this village was
squarely pitted against the town. This
gives this corporation double its usual
amount of highway money, which it
needs and must have, while the other
portions of the town North Bennington
and the town. double also. North Ben
nmgton does not need the special 10 |
cents and when the town runs short it is |
supplied from the general funds, so that |
the people residing outside these two 1
corporations are well served anyway. |
But as the villages cannot dip into the |
general fund to make up deficiency, they |
must make the highway money go
around or raise more. The vote shows |
that for this year the town is going to |
try the plan of raising double highway |
tax for the benefit of Bennington village,
which pays large share of the total tax. |
The tax matter settled, the usual votes
were passed; to place the tax bills in the
collectors hands July LIST; to pay the
town officers and board of civil authority
50 per day each and the auditors S. per
day; to pay Custer Post 800 for the
Memorial Day celebration; to extend the
jurisdiction of cOnstables over the State,
and to dismiss the article to exempt mill
tiamen from poll tax, and also Article 8.
Had the warning admitted, the town
would probably have voted the Rifles
500, but to exempt part of the com
pany from taxation did not strike the
average voter favOrably it would seem.
Several of the members are under age
and therefore vote to exempt would
not have been a company but an individ-
ual benefit. The Australian method of
was tried with results as follows:
Moderator, John V. Carney, 203; town
clerk, f. A. Booth, 800; 3 selectmen.
Emory S. Harris 36l, Samuel C. Lyons
1872, Frank NJ. Crawford PIP, Franklin
Scott 102, Charles f. Sears 2ll; town
treasurer, Geo. F. Graves, 400: overseer
of the poor, Richard NJ. Houghton, 37l;
Oscar b. Cleveland, 43; first constable
and collector, Francis Guiltinan, 267;
E. I. GriswOld. 1871; second constable,
Germon ID. MattisOn, 279; Henry Roster,
81; listers, John V. Carney 3j4, Milo
c. Huling 1923, Martin V. b. Armstrong
306, II. II. Hurlburt SO, CALVIN W. Evans
81, S. ii. lockwood go: auditors. F. II.
Yelling 81, Emmett B. Daley 315, Irving
II. Gibson $50, NJ. b. Morgan Ga, G. b.
Wall, Jr. 81, Daniel Hurley So; trustee
of public money, EnOs Adams, 2S3; fence
viewers, Aaron f. DEMO 800, Elmer Rudd
3O1, Henry Stafford 299 3 grand jurors,
James Is. Meacham 2S6, Luther B. New
ton 240, Michael Welch 227, James p.
Sibley 70, X. j. Crawford 81, Henry Ro-
sier 62; inspector of leather, Charles Il.
Burt 300, j. w. Williams 2; pound keep
er, Morris Connolly, 3l3; surveyor of
wood and inspector of lumber and shin
giles, Melvin w. Stewart 3I5; town agent,
William B. Sheldon, 1926; town superin-
tendent of schools, DR.. Ii. G. Day 27s, A.
S. Gilbert II.
1t will be seen from the above that the |
only contest lay between Frank NJ. Craw-
ford and Charles +. Sears as to who
should receive the most votes, or rather
the issue seemed to be made on this one
Republican of the nominees for select
men. The outcome will probably be
that two straight tickets win be placed
in the field in the future. Then both
parties will be obliged to recognize all
portions of the town, which is really one
of the issues developed by an analysis of