A Luxurious Institution - A Correspondent's Look at It
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To the Editor of the Dayton Journal:
As the pitcher that often goes to the well and the growler that is often rushed is finally broken, so the County Infirmary ring has been going on, and it should be broken for the benefit of tax payers. The Superintendent, Mr. John A. Miller's salary is $100 per month, his wife, Mrs. Ella Miller's salary is $20 per month as matron. They are a gentleman and lady in every respect, both being young do remarkably well, taking in consideration the kind of people they have to deal with, and as the institution has run itself for lo! these many years, making it very hard to manage. Mr. John A. Miller is handicapped and can not run it as he would wish to. Mr. George Rentz is one of the Infirmary Directors. Mr. Gussler, proprietor of the Phoenix clothing house in Dayton, is Miller's brother-in-law, and the Superintendent must necessarily buy clothing of his relatives. So it is a very profitable institution for that one family. The inmates number 340, of which seventy-two are in the insane department and thirty in the female department of the Infirmary proper. Subtract the insane and female department, which is 102, from total number of inmates, 340, and you will have 238 males. Some are not citizens of the United States, and will not take out their papers to become citizens. The laws of this country do not suit them, but they are willing to be supported by their idleness by the tax payers. Others, again, are not residents of Ohio, or Montgomery county.
Rules and regulations governing the County Infirmary, passed April 1, 1886, by the Infirmary Directors, pertaining to inmates and employes of the institution, provide first, that every person offering for admission must be in possession of legal papers, showing cause of disability, and have been in the county one year without public support, under no consideration shall an able-bodied person be admitted. There are very near 200 able-bodied out of the 238 inmates. There should be no complaint on the part of our inmates, as the building is all heated by steam. We ventilate to say that one-half of the laboring classes of Dayton do not have as good food to eat. One inmate was telling down in Miami City, to a man and wife, how they lived at the Infirmary, and the woman made the remark to her husband that they had better sell out and move to the Infirmary. Every Sunday morning at the breakfast table each inmate is given a ten-cent plug of tobacco, or the same amount of smoking. Those that do not chew or smoke think they should have ten cents cash out of the money drawer. Any way, they do get their tobacco and sell it to some one else for a nickel. As they do not intend to get left. They all have a good time. Some of them complain that the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States are making too large appropriations for custom houses. Men in here who can go out and sleep in a fence corner with nothing but the canopy of the heavens over them, complain in here if a small draft of fresh air blows in on them; some again, who never bought underwear for themselves (in fact, never had time to do so) after being in the institution twenty-four hours will want them immediately for fear they will suffer; some go out to work for some of the farmers around here; some go to the city of Dayton to beg; some to steal; some manufacture door rubs out of corn husks, and some make walking canes, for which there is a great demand. It all goes to Dayton and is invested in houses and lots--that is coffee houses and lots of whisky. Sometimes, I think, it worries them to eat, and some one should be employed to feed those kind of people (the tax-payers are rich). Some would like to become members of the Knights of Labor (providing they would not have much to do).
The Directors
would rather give a man from Chicago, Ill., an order (for it would advertise the place away from home, so they would get more boarders), and they would be more than a person who had been a tax-payer and a respectable citizen one day, but had met with reverses of fortune and had to come "over the hills to the poor house."
Engineer,
Salary, $55 per month and board. He is a married man, and lives about 500 yards from the institution. The bell is rung at 4 a.m. for all paid help to go on duty. He generally gets here after the inmates have the fire started and steam up. He is not very punctual about time, as he well knows the inmates will attend to business. The inmates do all the work; he draws his salary as a matter of form. The engine room is full of inmates arguing how the outside people in the world should make a living. The question is never brought up how they should do to make a living, as the subject is too deep.
Night Watchman,
Salary $30 per month and board. He is a married man. What are his duties? I give it up, unless it is to see that foreign boarders do not get away. They come in drunk all hours of the night and he never knows anything about it.
The Insane Department
is managed by two males and one female; the two males get respectively $50 and $40, and the female $20 per month. That part is sanely managed.
Laundry Man,
Salary $45 per month and board. He has charge of all the washing of the institution, and also the issuing of all under-clothing. All able-bodied men get good under-clothing but old men, who are feeble, cannot get them as they cannot destroy them fast enough, as there must be a great demand for them.
Baker,
Salary $30 per month and board. He has charge of all the baking for the institution, and also to receive all meat and weight it. As a baker he is first class; no one can beat him; but as a meat inspector he is a failure.
Cook,
Twenty-five dollars a month and board. He could improve his cooking if he would attend to it.
Farm Hands,
Twenty-five dollars and $20 per month and board.
Infirmary Physician,
Salary $500 per year. He does all he possibly can for the inmates.
There is an assistant female matron. Salary $20 per month and board. Also another female who takes charge of the women's department; salary $15 per month and board. Also a cook, milk-maid, and other females in the laundry department.
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