St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1902-11-12

in promulgating and protecting them
has actuated him in introducing an ON
nibus bill ostensibly designed to lesser
. state expenses. This it sets out to ac
complish to the tune OF 100000 a year
by aboishing lot of boards and com
missions, consolidating others, read
Justing" salaries and slashing right and
left in every direction. The bill contains
here and there good idea, but generally
is crude, uneven and impractical 1t
stands no chance whatever of becoming
a law, of course.
Some member of the house has dis
covered that there is probable deficit of
about $4,000 somewhere, and so in
PRODUCES bill 10 raise the rates of taxa
ton of insurance companies sufficiently
to cover that amount That seems to
be the modern method of taxation. First
find out how much you want. and then
60 out and hold up some corporation
until it gives down enough to make
good. Certainly | am, as you are, in
favor of every corporation doing business
in Vermont paying its right and just per
cent of taxation, but the idea of some
corporate taxation bill is only legal rob-
berry for emergency purposes and does
not pretend to be anything else. The
bill spoken of is case in point, as well
as the Others under consideration which
almost double the rate of corporate
taxation. More especially is the bill to
largely increase the salaries of the rail-
road commission, case in point. The
salary of the chairman is made $4,000
per year and the two other members
$500 instead of So per diem as now,
and the especially neat provision is con-
tanned that the railroads are taxed to
make up the salaries They are COM
PEELED to hire men for whom neither they |
nor its people Of Vermont have the
slightest use, and are assessed to pay |
them eXorbitant salaries admit that
this tendency toward brainless anarchy
in Vermont legislation is repugnant to
my ideas of justice.
The bills concocted by Judge Ross for
the revision of the railroad commission
were killed without a plea for mercy
from anybody, but the railroad com.
mittee itself is said to have hot card up
its sleeve in the shape of a committee bill
which is guaranteed to help things won
derfully. The general understanding is
that Judge Ross will be left off the next
board, and that only one of the present
members, Bingham OF Bennington. will
be retained. One of the two new men is
likely to be Bailey of Newbury, while the
governor is said to be looking tor the
right kind of a lawyer, satisfactory to
erybody, tor chairman of the board
A compulsory arbitration bill prepared
by Hon. L. E. Pelton of Highgate, the
oldest practicing lawyer in the state, has
much merit. 1t provides for a board of
three who shall have power to compel
the attendance and subsection Of both
employer and employee, and whose find
ngs shall be final and unappealabe.
This wouldn' be bad idea, either in or
out of Vermont, but that is no argument
in its favor here.
The bill to incorporate the city and
town of st. Johnsbury is going through
with neatness ard dispatch, also the
electric charter bill. In
union there is strength, and in harmony
there is success; same old story. An
other charter wants road from Water
bury to ST. Adams, or, more properly,
St. Adams to Water bury. This seems
step in the right direction, doesn't it
The house voted overwhelmingly to
abolish the six inch limit in the trout
law and close the season August 18th.
1t has also agreed to the senate bill al
lowing women to hold the office of town
treasurer and killed the bill requiring en-
gineers of portable engines to pass an ex-
animation and secure a license. In the
list of killed is also the bill to make town
superintendent of schools appointive by
the selectmen, the bill to compel land
owners to cut and burn flowers, weeds,
shrubs and bushes alongside the high
way. This latter was an utterly sense.
less and impractical scheme for desolating
the highways and destroying their
beauty.
In accordance with a resolution
adopted two years ago the state has at
last received the originals of the surveyor
generals papers, and these are now
located in the office of the Secretary OF
State. Here are some eight or ten large
volumes in one, in which the original
maps, plots and surveys, drafted on
white silk, are carefully pasted. The
work is beautifully done, and and every
line, figure aud letter is as clear cut and
distinct as when they were made. The
is beautifully neat and
distinct. The surveys include every town
and hamlet in tie state as they existed
in those days, during the administration
OF President John Adams and Gov. Itch