The Duluth rip-saw., 1920-02-07

During this winter OF extreme cold
and sugar famine, county commissioner
Naughton has been trying to improve
state highway No. 4, 15-mile section
of the old Rice Lake road, so that it
will be fit for an outlet to the Me-
saba range when the Miller trunk road
is being given hard surface the COM
ing summer.
Of course commissioner Naughton
has not personally superintended the
work Of grading, filling and widening
that highway where needed. Not only
has the hinterland been too terribly
cold for a city man, but the clever
commissioner has been too busily en-
gagged at earning his salary at draw
ing funny pictures for the Evening
Herald to be unduly bothered with
road work in the backwoods. The re-
sponsibility has fallen on the shoulders
of Herr Bert Won Kribsback in general
and Leftenant Andy Mccormick in
particular.
Of course commissioner Naughton has
looked over the work with his eagle
eye a time or two but, on such occa-
sions, the cold was so severe and the
wind so whitening that the beneficiary
of the voters in the Second district
made a bee line for the camp office.
Work has been prosecuted at both
ends of state highway No. 4 during
the crimpy weather. The force at the
lower end is credited with doing very
good work, but citizens, taxpayers and
critical observers out there in the him
terland believe that the force at the
upper end has been neither efficient
nor economical.
In the first place, although the crew
has not averaged more than fifteen
men, there has been a little army of
a staff. Of course Herr Bert Won
Kribsback and Leftenant Mccormick
have been on the payrolls. Two en-
gineering crews have been maintained
much of the time and it has puzzled
them how to kill time. There was a
time-keeper, Of course. Then there was
a cook, a cookee, blacksmith, a stable
boss and a straw-boss. The latter was
one johnson, a former ornament on
the old Bowery in the lively city Of
Duluth. That was some staff, say the
settlers out there and, several times,
there were only about eight real road
workers.
Herr Bert Won Kribsback thought it
would be clever stunt to rent some
teams from the Alger-Smith company,
so he engaged nine of them. When it
came to use those eighteen horses, it
was found that many Of them were so
thin, bony and weak that they could
not pull a real load. They had been
on grass all summer and scanty forag-
ing in the fall had pulled them down
to skeletons. Two Of the teams were
so weak that they could not be used
at all, hinterland folk allege, and very
often the steam shovel man had to
push a wagon Of gravel out Of the pit
with his dipper, the poor horses lack
ing weight and strength to do the
work Of real horses.
Of course old Dobbin got his tummy
filled up with hay and oats, furnished
by the kindly old county, but that
treatment was not given soon enough
to make the animals able to earn their
hire. They looked, felt and worked a
good deal like a British soldier would
after about three years in a German
prison camp.
The Alger-Smith company also for
got to equip the horses with proper
trappings. Some had no halters. 9th
ers lacked proper brides. The har-
ness quite generally was very much
"hay-wire ''-in fact some of it was
held together with the indispensable
haywire.
While the. horses enjoyed the coun-
tvs hay and oats and while the Alger-
Smith company presumably appreciated
the $45 a month rental received for
each and every team, discriminating
hinterlanders declare that they cannot