The City’s Refusal to Put Prisoners to Work

We have several times called attention to the wretched and almost impassable condition of Main Street, over which the stage is obliged to pass in reaching Lake Washington. That it can be worked and repaired at once is true, but these repairs will be so extensive and costly before the hill is made decent and passable, that we can hardly hope to see any improvement there now. We are informed, however, that the old County road, the former stage route to the lake, can be placed in tolerable good condition for the paltry sum of $50. The only impediment to travel there now is the slide at the intersection of Mill Street, and which can be effectually removed for the sum mentioned above. Why not do it at once? Of course it never would do for a moment to think of taking some of the light-fingered gentry out of the city jail, and permit them to soil their delicate hands in doing such work. Of course not. They were not created to work, those fellows, and we suppose that is just the reason why they are never made to fulfill the requirements of the law, which says that the fines imposed by the Police Judge in their cases shall be paid either in money or by work upon the streets.