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p;-,' . I , 0;' ABBEVILLE, S. C. r, i The Press and Banner Company j : ft ' | PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY j 1 I" / I * Monday, Wednesday and Friday. j ? f ' l , Telephone No. 10. j ( Entered as second-class mail matter at post office ! ] $? I s in Abbeville, S. C. F . I Terms of Subscription: | ^ r; i t One year ' $2.00 j c &: Six months ; 1.00 * 1 Three months .50 r MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1920. c (THE COST OF DIRT ROADS. I a Some days ago a gentleman who owns property ! in McCormick Oounty exhibited to us his tax re- j ceipt for last year. The rate of taxation in that county, without a court house and without a jail, is J thirty mills?nearly twice the rate of taxation in j this county. What causes the high rate in that county, you ask? It is caused by the fact that same two years ago i ? /-i?VinnHs to the amount of | iMCUOrmiCK i/uuawjr iuucu ? one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars for so-called good roads?roads to be built out of dirt. P . Well, you say, the tax rate is not so large if the ^ people have good roads. But have they? Our un- e derstanding is that only about one-half .the roads proposed to be worked were in fact worked. The ^ f??'j?T work done was grading, bridging, and widening of s the roads where they were too narrow. No kind of a top-dressing was put on the roads, they are just plain dirt roads. The result: Well the roads were improved some- a V/hat last summer, but of course during the present n winter they are rough again, rougher perhaps than e they would hare, been had they not been regraded, v because a new road will more easily cut into, holes v is "> and ruts than an older and longer-traveled road, in i j. two or three years the roads will be just what they were, except that the county will have the benefit of the grading and of the bridges which have been built. The property holders in the conuty will be j paying taxes still for good roads which they have not yet seen, and people will be wiser than they are j today. Perhaps by that time some system of making really good roads will have been devised and c other counties will be building really good roads, ^ while McCormick will be so badly in 'debt and so < thoroughly disgusted with the good roads business t that it will be "Never again" with the good people over that way. All of which warns us that if the people of this ( state desire good roads they should go at it in the 1 -:~U4. Tho funeral Assembly should, in the I first place, make those people who are demanding j i the good roads pay for them. Two hundred and | ( fifty miles of good roads may be built the present j , year out of an adequate automobile license tax, J ( properly graduated as to the different makes of i ^ cars, and with the money thus in hand the State, ! ( without taxing people who are not so much interest- j ed in good roads, may construct enough miles of ^ roads to educate the people in the value of these A roads, and give them an idea of the cost of con- j structing the same. . j Should the people of Abbeville County vote six ? hundred thousand dollars in bonds for the building r of dirt roads, the roads will be widehed, they will r be better graded and when the work is done the j roads will be better perhaps than they are now. f ft But in five years we will be back practically speak- j j ing where we started. Any top-dressing now put j j on the roads will be gone, it will not be replaced, j a * 1 *-1 '* " Raoiffoc nnf lialf I I ana we win oe m iuc iuu? agam. ?,, ? I , the roads called for by the present bill will ever be v completed. The roads will cost so much more than t is now believed that either they will be abandoned 1 because they cannot be constructed at an average j of five thousands dollars per mile, or they will be jconstructed at a much higher cost, and thus fewer miles will be built. j Unless the people are ready to pay for permanent ^ roods we believe that it would be wise to adopt the v 1' suggestion of Capt.-Shaw and levy a little more ^ taxes, raise the commutation tax, and employ a cer tain amount of the taxes thus raised in widening the roads and grading the more difficult places. I Permanent roads are coming in our judgment. It j ? were better, we believe, to wait and build the best. ! c Until then we should make the best possiDie use ox v what we hare. ^ JUGGLING THE FIGURES. [ Quite recently the following misleading compari- t son appeared in several of our exchanges, which v comparison to those not familiar with actual conditions in South Carolina, may have caused them to j v wonder why we, and others, are raising such a howl j about increasing th salaries of our teachers. "The averag Der cent increase in the salaries of | t |? teachers in South Carolina from 1908 to 1918 was j The average per cent increase in the salaries ot" i teachers in California from iyu? to iyi? was a*. I Since South Carolina has given its teachers 46 per cent increase in salary and California only 34 per cent increase for the same period, one might ! juggle the figures and claim that South Carolina is r doing well, comparatively speaking, in increasing ;eachers more than twice as much as does South Carolina. The reason for the misleading comparison is that he average salary of a school teacher in California ii 1908 was $797.66, while the average salary of :he South Carolina teacher that same year was only J298. So with the respective per cent increases * ' 1:- : - 1 ncf voar was Daid iclcieci, tne u^ii-i-uniid icatuci mav ^-w*?. ? 1,068, while the South Carolina teacher, who really lid get a 46 per cent increase in ten years, had to vorry along, buy Liberty Bonds, help support the lied Cross, and so forth, on the princely sum of 5422.46?eight dollars a week. Why this great difference in the treatment of eachers by South Carolina, one of the original thireen colonies, and that of one of our younger itates? It cannot be that the cost of living in Caliornia is more than twice as great as in this state. The real reason is that California quite a while ago ealized the value of her teachers and began to pay hem. South Carolina must wake up and so ade[uately provide for her teachers that they may be ible to live comfortably and lay up a little for old ge. AVVVV vvvvvvvuvv vvv V , ' THE OPINION OF OTHERS. V V A WW w vw vv v\ v\ vvv ! THERE LET HIM BE! Literalism prevails in the Netherlands. That is he interpretation of the Dutch Government's reusal to turn William Hohenzollern over to the Powrs for trial. It is quite logical. It is indisputably awful. It is in accord with ancient precedent, 'here are few if any nations which have not at ome time asserted and insisted upon the right of sylum for political offenders and for fugitive beligerenfcs. This right has been maintained even gainst the demands of the country from which the ugitive fled. Of course it is much stronger against ny third Powers or group of Powers. If the Gerlan Government should demand Hohenzollern's xtradition a different case would be presented, in rhich the Netherlands might yield. It could do so /ithout the slightest inconsistency with its refusal n the present case. The Dutch Government- is entirely logical in its eply to the Powers' citation of the Treaty of Verailles as providing for,the arraignment and trial of lohenzollern. That provision is nothing to it, beause it was not and is not a party to the Treaty, t is not only logical but it is also decidedly causic?by implication?in its denotement of the eirumstances in which it would be willing to surrenler fugitives. Down to that point it refers to the Towers"; then it refers to the "Society of Na;ions." It would have been impossible more neatly nore deftly, or more effectively, to rebuke the Powers for discrediting, as they have done, theii jwn League of Nations by ignoring it and making the demand not in its name but in the name oj just a few of the Powers allied together in the jld fashioned way. The Dutch Government says ir sffect to them, if we read between the lines, "Gel pour much-vaunted League of Nations in working jrder, and we may do business with it; but until ;hen, nothing doing!" To that it will be mightily lifficult for any League members to make reply. There will, however, be irrepressible regret at ;his triumph of literalism and formel legality. It vill be a strange reflection upon the organized " " l J )ower of civilization tnat wnne some nunureus m lis underlings are to be brought to trial and probibly punished for obeying his orders to them, the nan who is by common consent regarded as the nost abominable criminal the world has ever known s to go free. There will be regret that the Govirnnient at The Hague did not have the vision, the magination, the conception of equity, to perceive hat this case far transcended all technical bounds md literal conditions and was to be treated as quite ui generis, so that-Hb surrender Hohenzollern vould not be in the least degree inconsistent with he otherwise invariable practice of inviolable asyum. Had it acted upon that enlightened principle, t would not have impaired its honor, but would lave added to it new lustre and distinction. Since, however, the decision is made, and is not ikely to be reconsidered, the world will not find it '- ?C?1A 1? -<rr.;+Vi aniionimitu if indeed [1IIIUUIU LU dtUCpt 1U VT 1 1/11 CljUUJumiwjj ..v* vith a measure of relief. It is impossible to set orth too strongly the guilt of the Amerongen furtive. It would be impossible to inflict upon him my punishment at all commensurate with his desirts. Nor could any testimony, verdict or sentence trengthen the world's conviction of his turpitude, ir make more execrable the status in history to vhich he is doomed. Since, then, any punishment vould be grossly inadequate, it matters little from hat point of view, whether any at all is imposed ipon him, save that which he already suffers in his lumiliation, his baffled rage, his unspeakable sense >f ignominy and degradation. If he goes otherwise inpunished, let this be the record, read and known >f all. the world, that he escaped because of the 'ery enormity of his crimes, which placed him berond the power of man to deal with fittingly. For him no longer, and never again, to be able o lord it over his fellows, never again to strut and Jose before the adulating gaze of fear-stricken nultitudes, never again to exult in being one Whose word can arm a million men, Whose nod can hurl them on to death, ?for him there can be no deeper hell than that; nothing more poignantly to make him cry and to nake him feel "Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell!" There let him be!?Harvey's Weekly. I I ' E5 | Haddon-W YOUR OPPC . r%f y To buy Laces ai at your prices. ? iO 11 i | Lall early as our s We can't re] at double t \ I it 11 w; naaaon- w ./ i i i wm i 11 I IMP : | "Special Low Prices i v ' ' I have eleven Player Pianos no i tive prices. I gave the order for t\ offering them upon the price basis Prices on Players have advanced j about one hundred and twenty- gST 'llJII'lil I? five dollars on each instrument, ||j l' and the next players I get will Hg be much higher than I can sell jn 'l'lj 'l| them for now. s I have three Exceltone Players, I 'ii.B? at $775.00 each: Five Estey ^8 I w .,,1 Players at $775.00 each, and flj > three Remington players at , H 1 iJML i ,.i r $750.00 each. H L,W ' ! The Exceltones and Esteys are I' illllillllllliitrffTJ in the foremost rank in quality E====== of material, workmanship, touch H tb and tone, and their durability is |l second to no other piano on the D ji j^oflKfuR I have just received nearly 300 1 || || \ new player rolls, having now on "I 11 , ? i /?AA -?U? ^?nm urViipVl Ji | I [J] |y |l |(| l|| nana over ouu ivm uvu . .. . to make a selection. ^ I give 25 player rolls, a bench and a scarf with each instru- \Rr ment. With one of these elegant players in your ho suggests. The work of the masters that are most dil the players as easily as the simplest piece of music. B phrasing, shading and expression can be produced. If you contemplate buying a p splendid offer, for you will not ha sented to you for a long time to c< Each instrument is fully guaran 4-liat mav nnssihlv arise. UCI tvl V1I(4V ^ ^ Reasonable terms of payment ] Call, write or phone, and I am ? John A. rivrionwrkrtfl JL 11*^ V_>a wai vv Ref:?The Bank of Greenwood, 0 Greenwood County. !' I llson Co. j >RTUNITY . ;: 1 id Embrodery I i f 2 ; itock is limited. J blace them M he price. I ... * xilf llson Co. I | t HSnBHnHHHHHi I m iy ? Uiamaa on ridyei nanus w in stock at unusually attraclese players last June, and am ; at which I bought them. ijjirei! j Ijjii ?u. !!! * .1 _r nnu. fon/>v me you may nave any ciass ui musn. jum [ficult to render with the hand are rendered by iy a little study and practice the most delicate layer piano, do not neglect this ve such an attractive price preome. teed, and I will make good any may be arranged. at your service right now. Holland Piano Man. 11 ^? /-I /TI-Z-Vo4- Dowi/ i-n MtieSl ttlJU OUUUgcoi uana m