Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1908-12-12

CARELESS of whether he held the tue
of county physician or not. TO go even
farther the physicians think that all
should be treated alike in the county
patronage, and il they We're called upon
to treat cases in which the patients
were unable to pay. that the county
settle the bill at some specified rate
AS it is at present no physician could
possibly afford to care for the county
poor the way they should be attended
to for the small sum of his bid The
other doctors, while they would not
stand out for q regular fee on county
work. would insist on pay that was
somewhere near adequate for the serv-
ices performed. The busy physician can
hardly be blamed for not caring to
answer calls for county cases when the
county physician can not be secured,
for the board of supervisors has al
ready gone on record as refusing to
pay the bills of physicians on the
ground that the county has a physician
Of it's own, and that he should nave
been called.
Another phase of county policy is
quite geenrally criticized, and 1t does
seem as tho there should be
remedy and an entirely new precedent
established. The county of Marshall
town, with an average yearly deposit
in the banks Of $4,000, pays not one
penny for the burial of the county
poor. This is also due to competitive
bidding, and the history runs back
several years. Because one undertaken
wanted to get the work away from
another. he bid rdiculously low price.
The other undertaken became aware
Of the proposed cut, and decided that
he would do 1t for nothing. His bid
was one millonth of one cent per
DEATH That is what the county of
Marshall is now paying, and what 1t
has been paying for several years. A
more recent effort of the undertakers
to get together on the county burial
work, and establish a uniform price,
was not considered by the board, which
doubtless considered the present meth
cd more economical The competitive
burial business was tried out by the
state ait the soldiers home a few years
ago, and found to be unsatisfactory.
Now the state pays certain sum for
each death, and the undertaking firms
share alike on the business, rotating
year after year. The only way in
which the county undertaken can more
nearly come out even on his contract
is when the relatives Of u county charge
prefer to bear their own expense of
burial, and take the interment out of
the county's hands.
z
That the Marshalltown public schools
system is far ahead of the capital city
of the state was shown this week when
the announcement was made in Des
Moines that, after six years agitation,
1t had been decided to establish a
manual training department for the
East Des Moines high school. base
ment room is to be fitted up for quar-
ters. The city of Marshalltown has
fine $4,000 building built exclusively
for manual training, and is the only
city in Iowa maintaining a building
used solely for manual training. Mar
shalltown might adopt a lesson from
the east side school, however. which
has established the first domestic SCI
ence department for girls in the city OF
Des Moines. That girls should learn to
cook, somewhere If not at home. Is be-
ing more generally recognized every
year, and the study of domestic sci
ence is now being carried on In most
of the big colleges. asaak
Marshalltown continues to receive
publicity as the result Of its milk Ing.
spectipn ordinance. The Council Bluffs
Nonpareil, editorially in AuotngsDr.
u Hanchett a member of the state.
boari of health. says: "Marshalltown
has done exactly what Council Bluffs
and every other city in the state should
do. What Marshalltown has done is di-
rectly in line with what the state board
has advocated" 1t is Marshalltown for
the standard and other towns. to do
likewise.