Jasper County Democrat, Volume 16, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1914 — Brown County Citizens Very Law Abiding. [ARTICLE]

Brown County Citizens Very Law Abiding.

Ninety-one of the ninety-two counties in the state of Indiana spent, during the fiscal year 1913, $47876.33 for the care of drunkards and vagrants confined in the county jails. The ninety-second county, which had no share in this expenditure, is Brown, whose jail is a inudplastered log cabin, and whose jailer has few official duties to call him away from his farm. The ninetyone counties that spent nearly $50,000 last year, report that nearly two-fifths of the forty thousand persons sent to the various workhouses and jails were convicted on charges of intoxication and vagrancy. Marion county led, with Vigo county a close second. Brown county's record was unequaled, although in twenty-nine counties the number of vagrants and drunkards arrested was fewer than twenty-five to each jail. Brown county comprises one of the most attractive and interesting regions of the state. Its county seat, Nashville, is as quiet a little town as one could find almost anywhere outside of Arcadia. Its present jail is the same structure that met the needs of the county years ago. Although old, and perhaps a bit ohllly in the winter time, It is substantial, and might, under pressure, serve as a genuine jail were the prisoner inclined to respect his sentence. A story is told in Nashville that illustrates Brown county’s manner of law obedience. A resident was found guilty of violating one of the laws, and received a jail sentence, It was learned that the man’s family —and his crops—would suffer were he to serve continuously, so the authorities determined to put the man on ihlis honor. They gave him a key to the log jail and ordered him to lock himself in over night, but granted him permission to leave the jail during the day time, provided he went to work on his farm. The story has a happy ending, in that the man every day went to work and every night locked himself in ihlis cell. We have always entertained the opinion that Brown county is an excellent county in which to live, and now we are doubly sure. It is the “scenic county” of the state. Its woods, its hills and its corn and fruit bearing valleys offer charming opportunities to the artist and photographer. In spring and autumn the scenery is particularly pleasing. Of course, some of the counties with a heavy “drunk” and tramp record may explain that Brown county is poor, and inaccessible, which Ik partly true. No vagrant—unless he makes an awful mistake- —will “hike” over the dusty hills of Brown on the chance of getting a meal at the next farmhouse. And, too, there are far livelier counties in which to get drunk than Brown. All whictfi redounds to its honor and glory.— Indianapolis News.