The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1903-01-15
Residents 0! the Lake Districts OF the
County Seek the Aid of Assembly
man SIade in the Legislature.
PROTECTION FOR ICE CUTTERS.
People Demand Better Laws for the Pro-
lection of the Thousands of Men Work
ing on the Ice Harvest.

Assemb1yman Slade of this county
has been asked by many of his con-
stituents residing in the lake districts
of the county to seek the enactment of
laws by the present session of the state
Legislature to provide for the better
protection of the lakes during the ice
cutting season. There are already
laws on the statute books for this pur-
pose but their construction seems to be
of such nature that it is difficult to
enforce them.
In some parts of the county the
frozen lakes have been for years been
used as roadways but with the coming
Of the ice companies from Chicago
and Milwaukee these roadways have
been made impossible for travel on
account of the fact that the ice cutters
have cut great holes in the ice. When
the ice has been taken away from the
lakes these traps in the way of holes
are left unguarded and in many cases
people have walked into the traps and
met with death. The holes left on
one evening during the cold weather
are closed up by thin sheet Of ice by
the following morning and when the
snow is drifted over the thin ice it is
impossible for the travellers across the
ice to know of the treacherous trap.
For some time the district attorney
has been seeking to force the compan-
les to provide proper protection by
fencing in the holes in the ice but his
warnings and threats seem to have
had little effect and the great holes
are still unprotected. During the past
three years three deaths from drown.
ing have been reported,sas the direct
result of this negligence on the part of
the companies and last year one of the
managers of one of the big ice COM
panies narrowly escaped death while
one of his employees went to watery
grave in Twin Lakes. This lesson
seems to have missed the mark for the
same pitfalls are being left this year.
The cold weather of this year has
made ice cutting on the lakes of Ke-
nosha county most profitable bust
ness and hundreds of men are daily
risking their lives to bring into the
big houses a summers supply of ice.
The crop will bes'suficient1y large to
allow the companies to reap a great
profit and they should not neglect to
furnish this small protection for the
lives of the men who make the profit
of it possible.
IcegCutters Healthy.
The scourge of smallpox which was
feared among the hordes of men en-
ployed in the ice fields has failed to
develop and it is stated,that not
single case of disease of any con-
tagious nature has been discovered
among the men employed on the lakes.
The town clerks of Salem, Randall
and Wheat1and have3akept a close
watch on the men who sare being
brought in from thesdifferent cities for
the ice harvest but upsto the present
time not single case of disease has
been discovered. by these officials.
Strictest sanitary measures are be-
ing taken and the huts in'which the
ice cutters live about the shores of the
lake haye been thorouhly cleaned and
the men are forced to keep them clean.
Nearly all of the companies have de-
manded that the men, .entering their
employ submit to vaccination and with
this precaution it is almost impossible
for smallpox or any .other disease to
become epidemic in the ice fields.