The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-11-05
Chapel Hill. n. c., Oct. 20, 1902
THE LEGISLATURE AND THE CON
VTC'TS

Chanel Hill, n. c., Oct. 90, 1902.
THE LEGISLATURE AND THE CON
VICTS.
The General Assembly of North Caro-
lima. which will convene at Raleigh in
January. will consider the ways and
means of lettering the States social, in
dustrial and educational condition. One
subject that will occupy the minds of
some of it's most progressive members
will be the disposition of the States
convicts in such manner as will affect
our section most beneficially. There is
strong sentiment in favor of putting
all of the convicts to wsrk upon Om
public roads and in preparing stone and
other road material in order that the
counties of the State that are so anX-
ious TO progress along this line may
have some encouragement from the
commonwealth. This will be an invest
ment yielding a handsome return both to
the present race and to posterity.
The following clipping shows some OF
tho advantages of such a system of con-
Wet employment:
Short term inmates of the local peni-
Tertiary are being, employed at break
ing stone for road building. One result
is that the county is saving 20 cents on
each cubic yard of metal. Another is that
the number of tramps and other petty
offenders in Erie county is growing
beautifully less, the sons OF rest not
relishing work in the quarries. A third
is that there is a very perceptible i'm
provement in the physical and moral
condition of the cOnvicts, because of
their systematic employment at health
full occupation.
"Unhappily. it has to be recorded that
such employment of the convicts is
strongly opposed by the labor unions,
and their employment on the highways
in the actual work of road building has
through such influences been prevented
Such an attitude on the part of the labor
unions is difficult to understand, save on
the principle of the dog in the Manager.
Work on the public roads is something
which free workingmen, as a rule, are
most reluctant, if not positively unwill-
ing. to perform. A serious obstacle to
good road construction in some places
has been the difficulty of finding men
willing to do the work. Just why this
should be so we cannot tell, but so it
is. Surely it is unreasonable for men in
the labor unions to object to convicts
doing work which they will not do them
selves.
There is, moreover. the general prin-
ciple of the desirabilityl of giving the
convicts systematic work, and preferably
hard work in the open air, such as that
at road building. 1t is desirable to do
so for their physical mental and moral
welfare. Surely, the labor unions do
not wish to have the inmates of peni-
tentiaries still more degraded in body
and mind. That would be a revision to
medieval barbarism. The humane
modern principle is that the penitentiary
is. as far as possible, to be a reforma-
tory. rior is the question of expense to
be ignored. Is it conceivable that labor
unions would rather be taxed TO support
prisoners in idlcness than have the lat
ter set to earning their own living?"
HOW AN IMPOSSIBLE CLAY HILL
WAS FIXED IN WILSON COUNTY,
n. c.
The following note from the chairman
of the Wilson County Board of Com
missioners will be interesting to the
jewellers in the Eastern part of our
State:
THE hill had given our county COM
missioners much trouble and was espe-
cialy dreaded every winter, as it was
no unsual thing to see wagons to their
hubs in the mud. One set of commits
sioners made a plank bed about ten feet
wide that was unsatisfactory.
"IIpon the moder nidea of wide road
construction our supervisor graded the
hill and made it so easy that one can trot
from the base to the top. He made the
road 40 feet wide and in cutting down
and widening the road he took all of the
top soil and banked it up. After the
grade was completed he then put or 10
inches of top soil on the clay and he has
a highway now that makes horses caper
like men free from care. This impas-
sable hill passed through last winter
without even getting muddy. And | am
sure it is fixed for years to come"
For years the students of social and
industrial problems have been viewing
with alarm the fact that the sons of
men employed in agricultural pursuits
do not as a rule follow in the footsteps
of their fathers. The bad roads of the
country are in part responsible For this
why do these boys leave the farm"
is the question they ask. Well, it may
he the boys leave the farm because they
don't wish to take the mean old thing
with them when they go to the city.
Bright boys may prefer to live in the
city rather than on the farm for the rea-
SON that with the miserable roads found
in most communities, to be removed a
few miles from town means almost COM
pletes isolation from the centres OF
thought and activity.