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Show People And Things By Rex Hill CROW OF A PHEASANT The fall hunting season is here. My dog is feeling the urge to run in the fields and flush some birds. It's time to get out the old twelve guage and clean the barrel to a -diiny brilliance. It's great sport to get out on a cool, dewy- morning ind start out . across the fields expecting ex-pecting to flush a covey of partridges, par-tridges, or hear the crow of a proud oheasant rooster. To the housewife it's no thrill for the men folk's to icome home '.aden with birds if she has to clean hem and pick feathers. We hearti-.y hearti-.y recommend to all hunters that they clean their own birds if they want to 'keep their wives happy. Idaho is really a hunter's paralyse. para-lyse. Wild .game birds in profu-don profu-don at our back door step. Big same is plentiful. It's not expensive expen-sive to take advantage of all this. There are hundreds of men ana women in Idaho who enjoy it. A ot of people come in from other states. Have you ever thought how many of the common run of people peo-ple had a chance to enjoy such things in Europe? Pondering suich a condition can cause a person t& think a whole lot. Over there it's only the higher bracket of society that ean enjoy such privileges as we expect as a matter of course. We've got an awful lot of things to be thandful for; let's take more interest in this democracy of ours ;o that we can continue to enjoy such a life. Talking ana thinking about shooting and guns brings to my mind the men who are in prison for misusing guns or doing some oilier thing which won't fit into our society. Our Idaho state penitentiary peni-tentiary has a lot of such men in it. These men receive little from the public except vengeance. They have brought this upon themselves. SHORT ON CASH Worst thing about the penitentiary peniten-tiary is that the legislature always seems to have trouble appropriating appropriat-ing enough money to run it. They seem to treat it as something that can be ignored and chucked into a darn corner, forgetting all the while that there are about 400 convicts con-victs locked up behind gray walls who have to be guarded, fed and a program of work devised for them. At the present time the penitentiary is without funds to finish out the biennium. The same thing happened in 193S. The legislature legis-lature was called together at that . time and appropriated $4,800.00 which was enough to finish out the biennium. expense and waste of calling the legislature amounted to more than was appropriated to run the penitentiary. Whether the legislature will be called this year or whether the constitutional prison pris-on board may have the power to issue deficiency warrants against the state treasury is, we understand, under-stand, to be decided soon by the courts. LEGISLATORS ATE DINNER No one is to blame for such a condition except the legislature itself. it-self. In 1939 the legislature was predominantly Republican prison administration was in charge of Democratic officials. Reported efforts ef-forts we are told were made to get the legislature to appropriate sufficient money. A special legislative legis-lative committee was appointed tc investigate. Apparently all the committee did was to have dinner with the warden and look the walls over, for nothing was done. After a little research the writer has found that in 1935-30 $140,125.00 was appropriated for prison ad ministration.. In 1937-3S $140,470.00 was alloted, plus $4,800.00 (special session) and for 1939-40 biennium a total of $146,870.00'. The important faict to bear in mind is that during this period the num. ber of convicts in the prison increased in-creased from around 300 inmates to 400. The present prison population popula-tion is over 400. In 1937-38 it was around 325. Yet, in view of these facts the 1939 legislature appropri ated only around $1,600.00 more for the 1939-40 two year period than for 1937-38. Over half of these legislators are running for re-election in their respective counties. Let's. - look these men over and ask them spe cifically if they believe in such monkey-business. Ask them whether whe-ther or not they propose to come to Boise and play partisan politics at the expense of the Idaho taxpayer. tax-payer. This method is the only way any legislator can be influenced influ-enced to respond to the wishes of those he represents. Let's stand for efficiency and sensibility in om state government. |