The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-05-29
TAXPAYERS SMELL FAT CONTRACT FOR SOMEBODY
 IN ASH BOX AGITATION
Ashes Are Not Unsanitary and Board of Health
 Properly Nothing to Do With Them
Present System of Removal Costs One Property Own CT $375-Planned System Would Cost Same Owner $9.33-War Cry is Remember the Crematory '

The smelling committee sent out by the Board of Health for the purpose of ascertaining if there are in Bridge port any door yards in an unsanitary condition, has devoted so much of it's time to ashes that the tax payers have themselves been driven to form a smelling committee and they smell a rat Ashes. it is declared. by the mem berS of this self constituted tax payers smelling committee, are not unsani- tary. They are on the contrary highly asceptic, having been once and some times twice, purified by fire. There fore, tt is asserted, ashes are some thing with which the Board of Health has nothing to do, and inasmuch as the Board of Health is not a village improvement society and concerned with the merely aesthetic side of nun 1c1pal life, it is further asserted that it ought to butt out of the ash question.
 Said a tax payer to-day. Reading the reports made by the inspectors oe the Health Board, I have reached the conclusion that they are gentlemen of artistic temperament to whom the un- decorated ash box is an exquisite pain. There are delicate souls like that. I am surprised that they do not recom- mend ash boxes of approved architec- ture, as early Gothic, late Roman, mixed Gothic and Romanesque to SUI perSede the early tigertown and late Willard street patterns in such general use. But, no. Therefore I scent a contractor, who wants a contract to remove the ashes. It is the same plan they handed us a few years ago, with trimmings, ready to be put forward again." Said another taxpayer to-day:
 'I notice some agitation is being started in favor of the public collection of ashes and I am glad that such an independent paper as the Farmer has not published some of the statements given out by the Board of Health rela- tive to the dirty conditions of the yards of the city. The board has the power to clean up the yards without talking about the public collection of ashes. It looks to me like scheme to tie the city up with another big con- tract that will take more money out of the pockets of the taxpayers. and I say this for the purpose of calling the attention of other taxpayers to the scheme and to ask them to compare their figures with mine.
 'I own a piece of property where there are three families domiciled It is separate ash box for each tenant. A teamster5 empties the three boxes for me for SIPS and he comes three times a year. This means that I pay $3.75 a year for the removal of ashes.
 What would it cost me if I paid through direct tax? I learn from a teamster contractor that no one who knows anything about the carting business would undertake the contract for less than $1O0,000. On our present grand list this would mean a tax of one and one-third mills.
 -On my $7;OO0 valuation would pay $9- B for what am getting for 8 75. If some contractor would hazard the task for $75,000, and skimp the job, would be paying $7.50 a year or nearly