Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1899 — Bus Line. [ARTICLE]

Bus Line.

Henry U. Johnson, the perpetual talk faker and Nickum, the perpetual light faker, are both talking of leaving Indiana and settling in St. Louis. The crank and the crook would make good partners.

People will always criticise and condemn a state legislature, from the force of habit in some cases, and because to do so is thought to be an easy way to gain a reputation for wisdom. But the real truth of the matter is that our present legislature is one of the best the state ever had. The amount of work it has done, and good work at that, in the short time allotted to it, is truly amazing. It has worked into proper shape and passed a very large body of excellent laws, and many of them laws of very great importance. At the same time that it h.as passed so many good and necessary bills, it has worked with equal industry and success in weeding out a vast body of bad or unnecessary bills.

The Newton County seat bill, as it finally passed and was signed by the governor, was amended in the interests of the Kentland crowd as to the provision requiring a court house to be erected at Kentland, after two years, if no other place is chosen, as of course none will be under the 65 per cent, provision. The Kentland amendment requires only 500 voters to petition for a court house there, and onlj; 200 to be freeholders. But still, the bill won’t settle anything, because before the two years have passed before the Kentland petition can be effective, there will have been another legislature, and a chance for a fight for a different law. Furthermore, if the present law does stand the stress of another legislature it is a question whether Kentland will get a court housa under it if the Newton county council, elected in 1900 should be opposed to it. The law binds the commissioners to build at Kentland, but it does not bind the county council, and the council is bigger than the commissioners when it comes to proposing a new court house.

One of the most important features of the new county council law, is to be found in the section which takes away from the county government all power to assist the poor, except those in poor farms and other county institutions. Even the right to employ medical aid for the poor is wholly taken away. Hereafter each township must support or aid their own needy ones, or send them to the poor farms. These features of the new law have no doubt been well considered, and on the whole will probably prove advantageous. The same method of exclusively township aid for the poor prevails in other states, notably in Illinois, and seems to work fairly well there. It stands to reason for one thing, that the “advisory board” and township trustee of any township will be more careful to avoid paying money to any who do not actually need it, when they know that their own township will have to stand the expense, than they would be when the whole oounty paid the bill. There is but little doubt, therefore, that the new plan of helping the poor will save money, but, on the the other hand, there will be danger, in some cases, that township boartlaand trustees will be parsimonious in assisting this class of

people, and thus the saving of money be made at the expense of humanity. But in respent to the matter of providing sufficient medical attendance the new rule is in no danger of working greater hardship to the poor than they suffer already from the contract system, if some cases of neglect of contract doctors to attend the poor that have occurred in this county, are any criterion for a general rule.

You tire easy? Your heart flip flops, you tremble, and think you are getting old, and fear some one will know it. You pretend you aren’t tired. You try to look pleasant, when it fact, you are pulling like a steam engine, and can’t throw a brick across a cow path, without wheezing like a shingle-mill. But you bet you are not getting old. You are all right, but you don’t know it. You have indigostion. You have let it run too long. You can cure it by using Dr. Caldwell’s Syrup Pepsin. It’s a sure shot, at 10c. 50c, or SI.OO bottle. Get it of A. F. Long. Ferguson & Wilson have plenty of money to make allthe loans required in Jasper county. We will give applicant choice from private Funds or eastern funds. Don’t forget to call and get our terms. Dr. I. B. Washburn tests eyes for glasses by the latest methods. The best lenses put in any desired frame. It does not pay to ruin your eyes with improper and cheap lenses. Satisfaction guaranteed when possible.

1. J. Parker’s bus line makes all trains day and night. Calls for or delivers passengers to any part of the city. Headquarters at the Makeever House, or Leopold’s livery stable building, south of town hall. Bus telephone 107 or 135.

I. J. PARKER.