Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-02-10

To talk about a new workhouse is
undoubtedly to thresh over old straw.
1t is a problem and a question that
dates back for at least twenty years,
and was no nearer a solution In 1909
than it was in 1882.
The past and gone generation of
newspaper men used tc writ stories
anent the proposition on dull days, and
Bob" Woods, HAL" Black, Charlie
Howell and VIII Faris, to say nothing
of Beach, and Whitmyer. and Johnson,
and Dick" Robertson, P. l.. Walter Che
of the bombazine cloak), Pat 1hmsen,
and all the rest of the old boys who
used to know Jim" Bulger by sight
and T. Lamarie by reputation, have
worked off" columns of stuff" having
for the basic idea the proposition that
there should be a new and improved
municipal penal institution. 1t will
thus be seen that the notion is not
new. On the contrary it is as old as
the period when the newspaper gang"
gathered about the hospitable board OF
the late Father Kreusch, on the east
face of Wheeling hill, or whiled away
a few spare moments at the Mt. Belle
vue Hotel, under its original manage
ment, or would call upon Col. Thomas
Hornbrook, or mine host Seibert or
that most hospitable of caterers Will
liam Stamm, out the pike. @
The time to make a movement for
a new city workhouse, however, in an
entirely new location, has evidently
fully come. The site it has occupied
for twenty years past vas never a
good one, and the alleged building is
~unspeakable. Lately the subject has
been discussed by quite a number OF
prominent people, and one OF these
talked thus to a Register reporter yes
terday:
Il am not only in favor of a new
workhouse, but of a new location. i
favor a site in the around the hill dis
trict, somewhere close to the intersec-
ton of Baker and McCulloch streets.
The city might very easily and cheaply
acquire sufficient rights there, erect a
suitable building, largely by the priso-
ners themselves, and then | would turn
all impecunious offenders against city
ordinances, tramps and vags into a
tunnel in the hill, and keep the whole
outfit digging until they came out
somewhere in the vinicity of Tenth
street and alley C. That would take
time, but time and a little otherwise
useless elbow grease will accomplish
wonders. INSTEAD, for instance, OF
~harboring a lot of vags at the City
Hall, | would shelter all such people
at my proposed workhouse, and keep
the homeless as long as they We're con-
tent to give a fair days work for a
bed and board. That would be better
for these unfprtunates themselves, and
the city would reap some benefit. The
regular prisoners from Police Court,
of course, have regular terms to serve,
and during the winter there might be
a force of from forty to sixty men
available. The progress might be
slow, but it would count in time, the
material ~excavated would be of some
value, and the tunnel would ultimately
be the first step in the l~ong-talked of
roadway through the hill-something
which will have to be made sooner or
later, and probably at large public ex-
pense.
"A little energy and action on the
part of Council would result in a de-
cided benefit in this matter, and it
would not cost a great deal, and be-
sides the expense could be divided
through a series of years. The site
might he acquired this year, for in
stance, with all necessary rights, a
couple of thousand dollars expended
upon a proper building next year, and
so on, until the plant was adequate
and well equipped, with a capacity suf-
ficient to meet all reasonable wants.
This thing of endeavoring to keep
prisoners in a shanty, and the effort
to work them as they have been. is all
wrong. We ought to take a step for
ward, and / hope the new Council will
do better than a number of its pre-
decessors and take some action after
such consideration as may be called
for"