Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1898-11-03

to above as the aliens report is the
report of a committee appointed by au-
! thority of the Legislature of 1895 to
ascertain the number of aliens quarter
| ed upon the commonwealth in the var
ious public institutions thereof. AS a
printed public document it is of no
more value than would be a second
tail to cat. The 565 pages covered by
it contain nothing but the names, sex,
nativity, etc, of the individual aliens
found to be in the various prisons, hos
pitals, almshouses and other like in
st1tutions of the state, each case being
made to consume eight lines, or about
one inch in the length of a column, as
follows:
sennmane' senn sms'h' - .
Nativity-Ka
Number of days treated-Thirteen,
Cost per day-One dollar and thirtv-
one cents.
Total cost-Sixty-one dollars and f1f
ty-one cents.
Any sane private individual having
such thing to print would nut II in
this way:
Jno. Smith, Kamschatka; treated 13
days at $1.31 per day; total, s61.5
But that would have consumed only
two lines, and would have lessened the.
graD or the Legislative Record con-
tractor So out of every "a.
1t Is safe to say that a far more in
telllgible record of the proceedings of
the legislature could be reported and
printed, with comprehensive index
TO the book, for about $4,000 or less
than third of the cost of the present
publication, which is most exasperating
TO all those who have to consult it be-
cause of its cumbersomeness and other
described faults, and that the sum
named would include a fair compensa-
tion for both the reporter and the
printer.
But suppose only half the present ex-
penditure could be cut off, the saving
would still be close to $4,000, and that
sum would materially help in caring for
| the INDECENT insane and other wards
OF the state, now in large part neglect
ed by reason of this and other machine
corruption and waste in the handling
of the states moneys.
Regularly every fourth year the con-
tract price for reporting and printing
the Record has fallen, owing to the
Introduction of improved facilities for
printing. such as machine type setting,
etc. In 1SS3-S5 the price was $685. per
page; in 1SS7-S9 it was $5.72: in 1891 -93
it was $3.50, and in 1S95-97 it was SO.
The contract for the ensuing four years
1S99-1901, has been awarded to the
same parties who have had it for sew
eral years past, at S3.4l. And the
Wilkesbarre Record, Republican pa
per- has this to say regarding it:
hn O.,
lative Record for the next two sessions
has been awarded to the same party
who had it the last four years As the
price will be lower than before the
work is likely to be also worse. pro-
vided that be possible, which is doubt
ed. Parties who have had this con-
tract heretofore and failed to comply
with its requirements should have been
ruled out of the competition. But the
officials who award state contracts are
not in the habit of doing business that
way"
Passing by this Wilkesbarre editors
criticism of the character of the work
done on the Legislative Record, though
1t is even more than justified, it Is
worthy of remark that, though from
1888 to 1891 the contract price fell from
$3.50 to $490 per page, the cost OF the
reporting and printing kept constantly
Increasing. The lower the price the
higher the cost. In 1893 and 1895 there
was small drop in the cost, but not at
all in proportion to the drop in the
contract price. but in 1897, by force of
the successful padding already de-
tailed, it went up again.
If there is an office in connection with
the state government which, under
Republican machine rule, does not in
volve theft or criminal profligacy, the
fact has not yet been made apparent