Hopkinsville Kentuckian., 1895-02-22
THE oTHERssIDE.
A Correspondents who Sees no Good in Free
Turnpikes and Jumps on J..
CRoFToN, KY, Feb, 18th, 1895.
Editor KENrucKIAN:

that y. has planted his artillery and
has thrown few sbombshells at the
Iold fogies andN the fiscal court,
and since you havA been so kind as
to offer the colunihs of the Kentuck-
ian to the war department, ! would
ask short space in your columns;
and if can't seeAs j. sees then /
am old fogy. j 1oaded his gun with
| a barshot and shut both eyes and
| jumped upon tie fiscal court with
both heels and #red away and has
never hit the bo3fd, much less the
mark. No doubN he thinks he has
made a wonderfbl cicatrix upon the
| fiscal court bach with his barshot
that will long ba&emembered by the
old court. Thefshot was aimed to
L hit one of the bdst courts the county
ever had, but fortunately it passed
over and no oneKas hit. Now, if a
progressive mar like j. makes a
statement, andEt is not true, then
his whole articM or argument must
fall and there iii nothing in it. He
says he has loo&ed into the records
and finds that He fiscal court during
last year appropriated $4,000 to FIJI
up pet mudhol3s, and to show the
enormous annu5l outlay they make
each year forx useless work which
the people pay br, he says that every
one admits the emoney is thrown away
and repeated avery year. Then in
the next breath he says to the five
members now III the new court that
he turned his battery loose on, "God
bless you if yVu will only give me
free turnpikes. That is to say if
you will buy my old turnpike stock
that is worth I'D cts. to the dollar and
give me two dollars for every one that
| have invested, that | may be able
to reinvest my money in county pike
bonds and d ffee. pike to my gate,
then God willbless you if the east
ern, western and northern portion of
the county never gets free turnpike,
that we poor devils down here on
Pond river and Trade water can work
over dirt roads 6 days out of the year
or catch fox scalps or dig ginseng to
pay our taxes to give you a free
turnpise or 30 to the workhouse
4 Thissis the iti{1a come of our progress
live turnpike men have OF what il
equal and just to the tax payer. j
says he has just delivered 1000 bush
els of wheat to Hopkinsville, or
which the foliage cost him twelve dol
lars, and that it is burdensome to hin
who holds large stock in these pixies
and says they pay Z per cent dividend
| If this be true, when you paid ST.
foliage on your 1000 bushels of
wheat, you were only taking the $l2
out of one pocket and putting it in
the other. J.says he has been and
looked at the records and found that
the Fiscal Court of 1894 spent $l7, !
600 filling up pet mud holes. If this
be true that you did look at the coun-
ty records then take it for granted
that you know where the $17 600 went
and could have shown the tax pay
ers of the county where every dollar
of it went; and why did you not do
it? No, j. your scheme and figres
won't tally with the facts. | was in
the two last courts all the time and
saw every appropriation made by the
fiscal court, and / know something
about where the money went, and it
didn't go to fill up pet mud holes
either, as you have stated. The fiscal
court last year built eleven new
bridges at cost vi P1,ooo,oI; Tor
poorhouse and county paupers, $4 ,0O0;
poorhouse and jail doctor, $500;
county judges salary, $800; coun ty
attorneys salary, 5000; poorhouse
and workhouse commissioners, $500;
36 members of fiscal court, II days,
S3 per day, $1,296; publishing pro-
ceedings of fiscal court, $50; Board
supervisors, 81 900; total, SIS, ,74267,
leaving 81, ,257 .33 of the $l7 900 that
j. has been bowling about 50 much,
and this ST., ,257.33 went to pay for re-
pairing the county property; buying
lumber for culverts, county tools and
for teams. When you sell your 30
miles of pike to the county and then
build so miles making 80 miles at a
cost of $l75,000, the county will then
have 900 miles of public road bed
still to keep up or throw away, then
what will the tax payers on these
roads do, and what is the relief that
you have for them? If you work
these roads under the present system
then your pet mud holes and the Sl7, !
900 must be met if your statement be
true. Now if any tax payer in the
county wants to know how much the
county will save in building free
turnpikes you can get it from these
figures: You will just save the
working of 50 miles of road bed un-
der the old system at cost OF $l75,-
900, and then these mud hole pets
will be on hand to break rock, haul
rock and to spread the a at fancy
prices. Remember the $l5742 has
got to be pad though every mile Of
public road bed in Christian county