The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1895-02-09
TOPICS OF THE TIMES.
Pertinent. Paragraphs From the heRepOrters'


Pens and Pencils.l
There is hardly any device of a dis
honest character and that is intended to
promote dishonesty that is not practiced
nowadays, and housekeepers-women we
mean-are very frequently victimized by
them q There are certain classes OF
peripatetic dealers and so called artisans
who should be sedulously avoided-in
word, not permitted to put foot inside
private houses. Among them are those
who repair broken furniture. Observa'
tion and experience have satisfied us, first,
thatsin majority Of cases they are simply /
botches that the work they do is gener-
ally done in the most bungling manner,
and that they should not be permitted |
to enter private residences. We feel it |
duty to caution housekeepers against |
another class of peregrinating artists. We
mean lockslniths; of whom, of late years, |
quite a number have made their appear
ance in the town. They should be avoided;
first, because they are not, as general
thing, competent for the performance of
| the work they undertake to perform and,
second, it is far from being safe thing
! to have them inspect, and il they see
proper take impressions in wax of front
door or back door keys, to be used, IL they
so conclude, in getting into the houses.
There are good workmen in the town,
whose services can he had at any time,
and whose work can always be relied
upon, and who have a reputation for
honesty and charges that fully warrant
their employment.
The complaint made to the Borough
! Council that great trouble is being caused
by people allowing their hydrants to run
at all hours should not pass unheeded
Property owners should take action in
this matter and use some influence with
thoughtless and negligent tenants, as in
creased bills of damages against the
borough imust surely, sooner or later,
result in increased taxation against the
owners of property.
There are murmurings that trouble is
expected in the spring from the reservoir
of the I ublic water works at Fowler's
Run, but to what extent no one will
venture to predict. and contemporaneously
| with the murmurings a New York paper
publishes the following, which is of
general interest: Reservoirs that won't
hold water are among the notable pro
ducoions of the United States, character
istic of its climate and territory as figs
are of Smyrna and truffles of Dordogne
and bores of Boston. Brooklyn's new
and costly receptacle leaks like a lobster
pot, and the contractor is suing the city
for consequential damages. Philadelphia
is in like case so is Pittsburg. Where
ever there is a reservoir there is a shrewd
contractor and a shrewd gang of politi
clans behind him. In easy political times
the job goes through, giving rise to other
jobs for repair and reconstruction which
breed their successors forever, but there
is occasionally trouble and Inquiry and
investigation, compelling the contractor
to take his case into court 1t must be
said, however, that he generally wins in
the long run, not because his case is
good one, but because the public interests
are not always vigilantly protected while
private ones always have persistent and
unsleeping force behind them. There
ought to be way of getting good sound
reservoirs as there is of getting substan-
bldl hOIk VI bNuCl HOItEi Duh ~ SNShio hoS
yet to have been discovered" The quota
tion does not apply in whole to the public
water works of this place, but tits ger
name to the extent that the people of this
place may have the consolation of know
ing, if in the future the borough should
find that its works has cost 100000, or
more, that in almost every town or city,
where such works are constructed by the
municipality, the cost is always double and
som shines treble the amount of the orig
inal estimate, and that the governing
body of municipality that engages in
the construction of the plant under the
impression that it knows jnst what 1t is
doing learns only after costly and sleep
losing experience that it really knew
nothing. The Shenandoah lesson is not
ripe yet