The Brattleboro reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1907-1912, 1909-11-12
The Meddler
~If The coat fits you. paf ii on.

Already Road Commissioner Sargent's
''sidehlP' highway on Linden street is 60
ing the way its critics predicted. The CON
| tinuous wear of teams and automobiles
on the slanting surface OF the highway is
gradually pushing the top dressing into the
gutter on the lower side, and soon there
| will be ditch in the center of the street.
The Meddler is aware that Mr.. Sargent has
very little money with which to do his
winter work, but for all that he ought not
to let the first snow storm arrive before
he repairs the sidewalk in front of j. b.
Manley's house on Main street. The Med
dler has mentioned this place once or twice
before, and described it so infinitely that
Mr. Sargent must know how it looks even
if he has been so busy repairing back roads
that he has not had time to make a per
sonal inspection.
A day or two after excavation for new
water mains had been started on Clark
street little girl went to her father with
the following amusing question: Papa,
how many hydrangeas are they going to
put in on our street,!
The local electric lighting company could
greatly improve the efficiency OF its street
arcs and incandescent lamps by sending a
man around to clean them. casual in
great majority of them to be covered with
fly specks cobwebs and dust. A thorough
cleaning of globes and rehectors would be
cheap way of giving the public improved
service.
Few of us who receive the necessities of
life as a matter of course never stopping
to be grateful for our fortunate circum-
stances, realize what it would mean to go
hon atn ~ hi,,Iy of
may be people in our own town, neigh
bors so to speak, who are forced to de-
prive themselves of things we consider alb
solutely essential The Meddler heard the
other day of local family-a mother and
five young children-to whom milk is a
luxury and butter almost unknown. When
times are good comparatively the young
sters get a little molasses in which to soak
their bread; otherwise weak tea is used
for that purpose With meat and eggs
they probably never had astronomical ex-
perience; even clothes enough to keep
them warm are an uncertain factor IN their
existence The mother works whenever
there is work to be had, but the best she
can do is pitifully little when everything
is taken into consideration. Indeed, the
case seems almost like one where that
great, benefcent institution known as the
Thompson trust could not evade giving
outright. There is no bit of real estate
on which the trustees could secure a lien,
no trivial savings' account to absorb in
part payment, no distant relative on whom
to shift responsibility, unless it be minor
son employed on farm in return for his
board
The experience of father whose son
connected with a sample package cold
cure tablets and devoured them all has
impelled that parent to request The Med
der to call attention to section 1902 of
the Vermont statutes which reads as fol
lows: "A person, firm, or corporation that
distributes or causes to be distributed a
free or trial sample of medicine, drug,
chemical or chemical compound, by leav
ing the same exposed upon the ground,
porch, doorway, letterbox or in
any other MANNER that children may be-
come possessed of the same, shall be fined
not more than three hundred dollars nor
less than one hundred dollars, with costs
of prosecution"