Bridgeton pioneer., 1916-09-07
ROAD CAMP
A SUCCESS
Salem County Is Pleased
With Effort.
KEEPSTRAMPSOFF
Road Camp Has Been Operated a
Year and Will Be Con-
tinued.
Especial correspondence

Daretown, n. j., Sept. With the
state overrun with tramps at this sea-
son of the year, Salem county is pro-
tected at its border from the invasion
of the idle army by the secret code of
the knights of the Road, who have
put their mark of a spade and pick ON
roads entering the county to warn
away other members of the fraternity
who might find themselves luckless
enough to land in the county prison
road camp.
Taking a cue from the state prison
road camps which have been estab-
llshed for some years past, Salem
county has set the pace for other
counties of New Jersey is removing
its county prison system from the
class of sinecure in summer and
soft snap in winter for petty offend
ers and vagrants.
Established a little more than a
year ago, the county prison road
camp is proving it's greatest efficiency
in keeping away from the county the
undesirable class such as fill most OF
the other county jails. The old Gus
tom was to send tramps and other
petty offenders, comprising chiefly
drunk and disorderly cases, to the
county jail to serve out their senten-
ces in idleness. This custom has for
years, been severely criticised as
breeding colony of veritable jail
| boarders and leaving the prisoners
worse off morally and physically af-
ter they have finished their short
terms than they were before.
Now the offender who faces Judge
e. E. Waddington, in the Salem coun-
ty court, has his dream of thirty or
sixty or ninety days of card playing
! and petty gambling and other diver
slons common to county jalls, shat
tered when he has a stiff fine placed
upon him in addition to the regular
jail sentence, and is told that he can
proceed at once to work out his fine
in the county road camp at the rate
of so cents a day. He is also told
that he will have to remain in Jail
until the fine is paid.
The county road camp idea had it's
birth in the Pennsgrove powder boom
which filled the old prison at Salem to
overflowlng with the riffraff of for
tune seekers who were sent up for
disorderliness, drunkenness and 9TH
er offenses. Judge Waddington and
the board of freeholders found that
they couldn't pack prisoners any
tighter in the ancient prison. and they
hit upon the idea of establishing a
portable prison camp and filling it
with the overflow prisoners.
This camp was built early in the
summer of 1915. 1t consists of a
large bunk house, cellroom and office
combined, and smaller structure used
for a kitchen and messroom. The
bunkhouse is solidly built. Planks
are laid both waps in the floor and
ceiling, and walls are lined with stout
woven steel wire, while iron bars run
the full heighth from floor to ceiling
at the sides and ends, where there are
small windows, thus forming substan-
tial gratings.
Rows of hunks with a window at
the head of each bunk for ventilla-
ton, line each side and afford accom-
modations for twenty men. 1t requires
eight teams of horses to pull this
portable prison when the road camp
locations are changed.
During the last year the prison
camps have been located ii various
parts of the county and prisoners
have done lot of work on the gravel
roads and bridges. Most of the oper-
ations have been in this vicinity, but
during the winter the men were kept
at work on roads near Alloway, in
the other side of the county, and a
squad of them are now engaged in re-
pairing roads near Pennsgrove. while
the rest are at work here building a
new road and helping with bridge
work at Fox's pond.
! Thomas Waddington, who was for