Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1892-01-14
a COUNTRYNAN'S VIEW.
Things that Hs Thinks the Legislature
Should Do For the People.


Should Do For the People.
To the Editor of ne Dispatch:
The Legislature, having completed the
business of filing the Offices. no doubt to
the satisfaction of those who occupy them,
may now turn its attention to the enact
ment of laws calculated 10 benefit the peo-
ple who are not office-holders. As one OF
that number venture to make some sug-
gestions:
1. The Auditor of Public Accounts should
be required to publish, ut least semi-an-
nually, in the most widely circulated
newspaper published IN Richmond state
ment of the standing, both with his coun-
ty and with the Commonwealth, OF every
treasurer in the State. This statement
should appear in at least three issues OF
the paper.
q. All supervisors should be required to
keep a minutely itemized account OF all
claims allowed by them, the same to be
printed on leaflets for distribution among
the people at the end of each year. A sur
ticlent number of these leaflets to supply
rhe voters who can read should be sent to
each voting place by the chairman OF the
Board of Supervisors The cost OF print
ing and mailing these leaflets TO come out
of the county treasures.
The people should be- guarded against
loss by defauiting treasurers, and they
have right to know how the money paid
'by them in taxes Is spent.
3. The recommendations OF the late State
Temperance Convention, held in Rich-
mond, should be adopted. and the
necessary laws enacted to carry them
into effect. The convention advo-
Gated no extreme measures, adopted
no radical resolutions. Compliance with
its moderate and courteous requests IS
surely as little as could be asked by the
thousands of people IN the state who be-
lIeve the liquor traffic to be an evil and
who desire at least to abate It, The two
mile law, law taxing distilleries, o law
forbidding the sale Of liquor on court
DAYS, and law restricting applications for
license to one day in the year. and for
bidding the granting of license for q
shorter time than one year should, at the
very least. be enacted. IL Is TO be hoped
that the wishes and interests OF others
besides the liquor-dealers will be consider
ed by the Legislature IN enacting laws to
regulate the liquor traffic.
4. The present road-laws should be re-
pealed. Even II they were faithfully exc
cuted they would make Door provision for
keeping the roa Is in order. But they are
not executed ut oil. With the exception
of portions of the old stage road leading
from Richmond to Washington, there Is
scarcely ROAD III the county III which tue
writer resides that is as wide as the law re-
quires, and most Of the roads CONSIST OF a
single track on which, in some places, the
bushes have so encroached that they
throw the mud from wheels over buggles,
carriages. and drivers. When trees are
blown across the roads they are permitted
TO lie there-sometimes for weeks--until
the topmost boughs have been worn OF by
vehicles passing around them, or until
somebody volunteers 10 cut them out.
The idea Of presenting the surveyor of a
road before grand jury for dereliction in
duty hes long since become obsolete.
This state Of things is not peculiar 10
this county. The time and money ex-
pended under the present system % are
thrown away Let the present road laws
be repeated end # the present Legislature
hasn't backbone enough 10 raise the
money necessary to make roads which
shall not be disgrace to q civilized CON-
munity then let us have no road laws and
let the people take care OF the roads as TO
them may seem best. CAEoLISus.
January 9th.