Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1880 — It's Not Our Fault. [ARTICLE]

It's Not Our Fault.

WMJrtTTttO.Faa.m . Editor Rrmtbuoan: ‘‘Whv don’t the Republican come? Teacher! ii week"”” 1 Throelre rome w!“M^oTanswthem*far soi»e time we received the paper op Mon dav, and for the last three weeks have had none come. Tongue cannot express the disappointment of the teacher and children at its non-arrival. Whether ft is the fault of the malto or poetman I do not know, but please send us the Republican, which is as necessary to my happiness as the bread of life. Madge Hemphill. Really we cannot immagine, Miss Madge, why you do not receive your copy of the Republican regularly. We print every Thursday forenoon, commencing promptly at 8:30 o’clock, and the packages, with printed direction*, are mailed to all parts of the county before noon. The names of subscribers are put on the margin of the papers after they are folded, by a machine that can’t make mistakes, and if a subscriber fails to get every copy of the Republican the fault is not ours. We hope you may have better luck hereafter.

The Democratic party have originated about as many farces as all the balance of the world combined, and not the least of them are what they are pleased to term the exodus investigation. Senator Voorhees, since his advent into the Senate, had fallen inio such nonentity that he felt he must d ) something to again bring himself into prominence. The people were about to forget him, and as he had always been possessed with a hatred of the negro, he imagined he oould satiate that stab at the Republican party and again call the attention of the people to him. He saw his opportunity and grasped it. Like the war horse of old, he sniffed the bat. tie from afar, and in imagination he saw himself dangling at his belt the scalp of the poor negro and the Republican party of Indiana. Once more he would have himself called the champion, not of liberty, not of progress, not of legal rights, but of bigotry, proscription and hatred. He moved, and the Democratic majority of the Senate sustained him, for a committee to search around and find out why American citizens were leaving one State and remov* ing to another, as the constitution gave them the right to do. For weeks his investigation has been going on, coaling thousands of dollars, and has resulted in nothing. There is not even a respectable Democratic paper that gives him anything but sneers;—Logansport Journal.

A bill I-as been introduced in the Ohio Legislature to provide for the support of wives and children of persons confined in the penitentiary of that State. The bill provides, in substance, that part of the proceeds of the labor of convicts shall inure to the benefit of the wife or minor child or children, residents of that ; Slate, with whom he was living, who were dependent on bis £abor for support at the time of his iqrrest and conviction. Il is made incumbent on the judge of the court who sentences a convict to ascertain whether he is a married man having a wife who sustains a good moral character, child or children, and certify the facts to the warden ot the penitentiary. There is to be a record kept of the earnings of the convict under contracts for prison labor or labor for the State, and all above twenty-five cents a day,which is to pay for his food and clothing, is to be paid on the warrant of the State Auditor in favor of the wife (unless she has applied for a divorce in consequence of the husbands imprisonment), or if there be no wife entitled to the money, in favor of the guardian of such child or children. So far as we know, this is a new idea in prison punishment, and it seems to be a good one. la the first place, the appropriation of a part es a prisoner’s wages to the support of his family would tend to prevent pauperism, and to this extent relieve the people who pay taxes. In the second place, the effect would be good on the prisoner himself, by encouraging his better feelings with the idea that he is not altogether cut, off from the world, and that he is contributing to the support of those who have a natural claim On him. Much can be said in favor of such a measure, and it would seem that with proper safeguards it might be safely adopted in all the States.—lnd. Journal.