The weekly herald. [volume] (Amarillo, Tex.) 1906-19??, 1908-06-25
GRAND JURY
MAKES REPORT
Recommends New Policies in
Maintenance OF Some Of
the County Affairs
(From Fridays DallyJ


yislng that the auditing Of county
books be made thorough business
proceeding by the employment of ex-
pert accountants for the work, om-
phatcaly recommending changes in
the polk street school building
which will render the structure safer
from fire risk to the children who
attend school in that building and
advising the discontinuance OF the
trusty" system for Jail admlnlstra-
ton, the grand jury for the spring
term of court, after having been in
session about five weeks made its
final report to Judge Browning this
morning and was discharged. The
report, in the main, is as follows:
1--WE have been in session nine
teen days in the aggregate and have
returned nineteen true bills as fol-
lows: Felonles 10, misdcmeanors 4.
We have grounds for believing that
crimes had been committed in
great many instances where the evil
dence obtanable, in our judgment
was insufficient for convictions to
be had, and in these cases We have
not returned true bills as We have
tried to return bills only in such cases
as VIC believed convictions could be
had
Advise Securing an Account.
ION account Of the statutes only
providing five days pay for an au-
diting of the accounts of the various
officers and 1t being our opinion that
such time was and would be entirely
inadequate for anything like a salts
factory performance Of this work,
We have refrained from appointing
such auditing committee. We re-
commend that the county commits
sioners employ a competent expert
accountant to check up all accounts
of all officers and that such time as
may be required for this, work be
paid for out Of any Of the county
available funds for such purposes"
Reporting on the condition of the
courthouse and jail, the jury states
that the two buildings were in the
main clean and well kept but that
the sanitary condition at the time Of
their investigation, owing to the poor
pressure in the water pipes, were far
from satisfactory,
Criticize Polk Street Building.
In our opinion the polk street
school building should be provided
with ample fire escapes affixed to
the exterior Of said building and that
the attic OF said school building
should be abandoned as school
room, as in our judgment, children
Of tender age, or as to that matter
Of any age, should not be subjected
to such grave risk of cremation as
would be caused should a fire start
in this building while this attic,
which is so poorly provided with
means of ingress and esress, is being
occupied by some fifty or sixty younA
Texans. We wish to emphasize our
objections to this condition Of af-
fairs being allowed to continue at
this building, and We hope some def
mite and satisfactory as well as safe
steps will be taken to remedy this
before the opening of the fall term
of the schools.
1--WE found the johnson street
building to be in much better condi-
tion than the POLK street building
and for this building We have only
to suggest that in our judgment it
would be better il the screens over
the windows were hung on hinges,
instead of being tackled to the win
dow frames, so that in case of panic
or fire, the heavy screen wire would
not prevent egress through the win
dows."
Il