Build A City Lockup

Por every tramp put into the county jail it now costs the county of Wasbtenaw $4.40, and within a few months it will cost $5.90. This is not the average cost, which is much higher, but the minimum cost, the cost for a vagrant who is locked up in jail one night, gets his breakfast in the mornintj, is taken before a justice of the peace, receives the lightest sentence, one day, and is immediately discharged. The way this cost is figured out is as follows : For the first night the jail and sheriff's fees are arrest 50 cents, turnkey fees 3 cents, one day's board 50 cents. For the next morning the fees are one day's board 50 cents, travel to and from justice court 20 cents, one half day in court 50 cents, turnkey fees 35 cents. This is a total of $2.90 for the sheriff. The justice, at present, gets $1.50 if the tramp pleads guilty and more if he does not. This runs the cost up to $4.40. Under a new law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, the justice will get an extra $1.50. This law goes into effect 90 days after the legislature adjourns and will run the cost of putting a tramp in jail over night up to $5.90. The Argus calis attention to the cost of putting a tramp in jail over night as an argument for the immediate ei-eciion of a city lockup by the city of Ann Arbor. It would give us a means of having better pólice protection at a greatly decreased expense. The share of the cost of keeping a tramp in jail over night borne by the taxpayer of Ann Arbor is much less than the entire cost of keeping him in a lockup would. Exactly the same reasoning applies to a drunk or disorderly. The Argus would have the pólice lock up every night every vagrant found on our streets in the city lockup. There would be no cost for arrest, turnkey fees or lodgings, excepting the annual cost of maintainingthe lockup. It woulcl have vagrants released in the rnorriing with a light breakfast, provicling they iirst earned sueh breakfast by sawing wood or doing some other work which would not be suited to ramp nature, with the knowledge that f cauglit begging they would be at once locked up without food excepting such as they earned by work. The city lockup would enable the city ofllcers not only to lock up all traunps with less expense to the city than the present system, but it would do away with the great source of irritation feit towards the city by the country members of the board of supervisors, tor it would simply be doing justice to our neighbors. The Argus asks the council to take this matter up at an early meeting as it is high time Ann Arbor was in line with other cities, and even villages, with a station house or lock up.