CRITICISE CONDITIONS
AT THE COUNTY JAIL.
FEDERAL PHYSICIANS DECLARE
PLACE IS UNSANITARY.
Pardon Recommended for Woman,
That Her Life May Be Pro-
longed -- Feed Prisoners
Too Cheaply?
Conditions at the Jackson county jail, Missouri avenue and McGee street, are criticised by physicians who care for the federal prisoners there.
One of the prisoners is Mary Cook, serving a sentence for six months for counterfeiting, who has become seriously ill. In order to save the woman's life, the United States court officers here have recommended a pardon. This step is most unusual.
The county marshal, in charge of the jail is not held blameworthy by the department of justice, nor by the physicians.
"It is the impossible way they are trying to make the jail cost the tax payers next to nothing," said Dr. Eugene Carbaugh, one of the federal physicians.
When at jail attending the Cook woman, Dr. Carbaugh and Dr. Lapp, an alderman, who is one of the federal physicians, made a casual examination to find the cause for sickness. The declare it is largely due to defective plumbing and neglect of ordinary sanitary precautions.
Without exception, they say, the prisoners complained of the food. The government pays 50 cents a day to the county for boarding its prisoners. The county is feeding the prisoners at a cost of 11 cents a day, which is 2 cents a day more than the bill had been.
When asked what remedy could be proposed, the government representative said "the doctors tell us it would be necessary to tear out every bit of plumbing in the place, and then keep trusties or other intelligent men constantly at work watching the prisoners, to see that they help keep the place in order. More money is needed for better food."
Judge John F. Philips has never spoken of conditions in the Jackson county jail, but he never sends a prisoner there to serve out a sentence. He called a special grand jury last week to take two boys out of the jail and to give him a chance to send them to some place where conditions are at least sanitary. The Cook woman, who is ill through hereditary trouble, was sent to the jail here at her own urgent request.
