OCR Text |
Show CONVICT LABOR ON ROADS IS SUCCESS State Highway Commission in California Cali-fornia Makes Report of Good Work Done. The difficulties of building roads In the mountains are many. The transportation of supplies to the workmen, the construction con-struction of satisfactory quarters and the execution of the work under the conditions condi-tions of weather and topography existing In the mountains are so troublesome that contractors require stiff prices for auch roads. In the mountainous counties of California the atate highway commission is now building highways very successfully success-fully with convicts. All through the snows and rains of last winter two gangs of 125 convicts, without with-out armed guards, living In camps of un-equaled un-equaled character and living on food of unsurpassed quality for such work, labored la-bored away on a difficult road through a mountain canyon. When the bad weather ended It was found ttiat the eight miles thus built cost one-rourth less than the engineer's estimate and a little more than half what similar work In the same locality had cost when done by contract. With the advent of good weather the cost became less. "There is no longer a question that convict labor la not only successful as a humanitarian measure," the commission reports, "but that it will make possible the construction construc-tion of many miles of mountain roads that otherwise could not be built." |