“BONDS SELL WELL.”
JOBE haint got that tax money yit. Times seem awful hard. But Jobe says
they jist seem that way; they haint hard at all. “Times are never hard
under a gold basis,” Jobe says.
Jobe was a argyin last nite that “times is better than they was jist
arter the war.”
[Illustration: “‘Hadent we all ort to be satisfied so long as bonds
sells well?’”]
Says he: “Hadent we all ort to be satisfied so long as bonds sells
well?”
Now, I dont know. Maybe we had.
[Illustration: “‘Times are never hard under a gold basis,’ Jobe says.”]
But Jobe and me have been a keepin house for nigh onto thirty-six years,
and of all the crops we have raised to try to make a livin at, Ive never
seen Jobe plant a single government bond at seed-time nor harvest one at
harvest time; so whether government bonds bring high prices or low, good
prices or bad, I cant see what benefit it is to Jobe and his likes so
long as they haint got any to sell. And if government bonds are like
bridge bonds, I think the lower they are, and the fewer of them that are
sold, the better it will be for him and his likes.
I guess it is really so that them iron tubes under the Dover bridge cost
the taxpayers of this county jist what stone butments would a cost.
I hear the contract was fust let for stone butments, and then the same
contractors persuaded the county commissioners, “by word of mouth or
otherwise,” to let them put in them little iron tubes, and was paid the
same pay as if they had put in stone butments.
They dont do things that way down in Pennsylvania. My aunt Jane’s son
Charles is a workin down there. He sent me a paper from his town, and
here is the way they do it down in that State:
“COURT WOULDN’T RELEASE THEM.
“HOLLIDAYSBURG, PA., June 24.—The Blair County Court, this afternoon,
declined to order the release from custody of County Commissioners John
Hurd and James Funk on a writ of _habeas corpus_. The accused officials
were required to furnish bail in three different prosecutions for
malfeasance in office. The grand jury reported to court this afternoon
that the two commissioners had unlawfully let two important bridge
contracts to the Groton Bridge Company at a loss to the county of
$1,490. The jury requested that the court interpose its power to prevent
such loss.”
You notice that it would be dangerful for county commissioners to let a
bridge contract, like the Trenton bridge, contrary to law, without
advertisin, if they were down in that State.
Jobe hasent time to discuss this bridge question now, nor wont have till
arter tax-borrowin time is over. He is bizzy.
[Illustration]