Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1894 — The Bridge Still Standing. [ARTICLE]

The Bridge Still Standing.

At Inst, acionnts the bicycle bridge was still standing a'though it gets “sway-back” every time a heavy load crosses it Just think of it. This bridge cost almost one third as much as the magnificent soldiers’ m mument at Indianapolis. And the bonds by which money was raised to pay for it lun twenty years, bear interest at six per cent payable semiannually aid were soldata discount. Will some one please throw on the blue light while the band plays Annie Lauiie.—Delphi Journal. The whole history of the above mentioned bridge, is the history of one of the biggest pieces pF rascality ever perpetrated in northermind; It crosses the Wabash liver near Delphi. It cost about SBO,OOO, and although only just recently completed has been repeatedly dec'ared by the Jourp-il and other Carroll county papers to be so flimsily built as to be actually unsafe to cross with large teams with heavy loads. I's cost, in proportion to the amount of ’ work and material in it, was more than twice us much as the Monon road paid for two new iron br dgts m the same county.

The bridge was built by the Lafayette Bridge Company, and the same man that secured the contract, is also publicly charged with working up a scheme by which the bonds for this bridge, and some others, aggregating in all some SBO,OOO in amount, and bearing six per cent, interest, were surreptitiously sold to one Fienzel and some others, of Indianapolis, fora discount of several thousand dollars, when other counties were selling bonds at the same rate of interest at a large premium. To sum it all up, the people of Carroll county lost at least SIO,OOO on the sale of these bonds, counting the discount-allowed to the buyers and the premium that ought to have been paid, and besides that they have paid SBO,OOO for a very poor bridge, when $40,000 ought to have built them a good one.