
I have just read the notice in your issue of the 12 inst. that the Commissioners have decided to use the old infirmary grounds for the children’s home, and have instructed the Auditor to advertise to contract for the building thereof, in your papers. I well recollect the noise the Portsmouth folks made over the purchase of the infirmary farm with a good building on it, and 175 acres of bottom land and about 70 acres of hill land, with a good stone quarry, at a cost of $30,000, saying the price was too great. It was said then that the old infirmary grounds were worth $12,000; if that was true at this time, with the railroad projects they are not worth $25,000 now. The plans for building the children’s home as shown by the drawings at a cost of $625 can never be carried out at a cost of 100,000.”
“Not at a time when so much money (tax of the people), has been squandered on roads and bridges, and God knows in what other ways, I don’t think man does, by officers incompetent and dishonest, the county in debt, and tax burdensome, we of the country think the step is wrong. First, we have no reason to think it will be managed any better than other business of the county has been for the past 8 years. Second, the town is not the proper place for such an institution. Third the old infirmary grounds will sell for enough to purchase a building site in the country and put the building on it. But I don’t think it would ornament Portsmouth so much as the one referred to. And us country folks don’t care if it don’t, our taxes are too high and our roads too poor and narrow. -HC”

“The above communication we give place to, but take issue with the writer, who has fallen into more than one error. First that the building will cost $100,000. He must have dreamed on a diet of ‘cold huckleberry pudding’ the night before his genius evolved the extravagant estimate.”
“Second, we are satisfied that a charitable institution like the one referred to, the necessity of thich appeals to the hearts of all, should not be hindered because other departments of the county have gotten behind by extravagances or otherwise. He is a poor reformer who would oppose needed institutions on the grounds that other branches of the county institutions have been mismanaged. The remedy lies in curing the defects and not in turning orphan children in the streets to beg and to steal, or at best only extending them the repulsive charity which is found by associating with the diseased in body, mind and morals in our poor house.”

“Our correspondent does not properly interpret the feeling of our fellow citizens in the country. The location of the home near the avenues of trade, where it can be more economically furnished, and where gas, water, and other articles not obtainable in the country are at hand, certainly commends itself to the best judgement of the thoughtful person.”
“The home is not intended to be an ornament to the city, but a lodging place for the friendless little ones who are alone in the world dependent upon the mercies of heaven, the charity of humane men and living women whose hearts have been opened to deeds of kindness by Him who has said ‘suffer little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven,’ and who has made golden promises to those who give them but a drink of water in his name.”

“That the needs and necessities of a home for the little waifs of society should be obscured by the failure of contractors to realize on the bonds they have taken in payment of work on roads, etc., is out of the question; it is not entitled to a consideration. The Auditor and the Probate Judge may want to transfer or loan the children’s home fund to pay these contractors to better secure their services for electioneering purposes, but it should be kept involate though office seekers suffer. It is a sacred levy. Our women who are now compelled to occupy the old hospital building, a place wholly infit for a home, are doing so without a murmur, only regretting that they are unable to take many littles ones from the poor house and extend them the advantages of such a home as humanity requires they should have, as their misfortune is not their own.”

“They have substantial donations in the way of money subscriptions to help in furnishing the house when it is completed. It should be near at hand where they can have a supervision over it, and aid it by their charities and encourage its inmates by their frequent presence. The tax is trifling, and how many will complain? Not a handful of people in Scioto county. A few may hawk at it, but the misfortunes of a day might pay them more than one thousand fold in the care their own children might receive when they have been thrown helpless on the world.”
“We must educate the children of today to be citizens and not criminals. Crime and illiteracy go hand in hand together.”

“The public schools was the first onslaught upon the schools of the gutter, the first breach upon the bulwarks of crime. Schools of charity will sweep away the last foundation stone behind which vice and ignorance under the shield of poverty sow their insidious seeds to make men criminals, and women harlots. At whatever cost of money the consummation is reached it will be the better for society, better for the community and better for the state. Taxes for such purposes are not burdensome, because they relieve greater burdens in laying the foundation for the reduction of crime.”

“If other branches of county affairs are extravagant, curtail them; if some expenses are prodigal urge frugality; if officers are untrustworthy or incompetent, the remedy is plain- vote them out of office and keep them out. If money has been squandered it is unjust to seek to make a charitable institution, furnish the money to repay the blunder. If your roads are too narrow, you could and should have discovered it in time to remedy the defect; and had you been as earnest, as vigilant, as watchful and as sincere in reforming abuse in the county as the ladies were in securing a levy for the children’s home, and in providing a temporary one for the poor little innocent outcasts of society whose poverty and misfortunes appeal to the noblest impulses of the human heart for help, when it is so much needed, the abuses you speak of would not now be discouraging help to poor little children by pleading the bankrupt law of your county. Go to.”1