Montrose – The library will be closed next Monday—Labor Day. All of the stores and business places will also be closed throughout the afternoon. This will permit the baseball enthusiasts to get out and root for the home team—and others to mow the lawn, dig potatoes and pull weeds.

Forest City – A man and woman hailing from Freeland were arrested Monday by Constable M. J. Walsh, charged with elopement and larceny. Last November they left Freeland taking $620, a sewing machine and a lot of silverware. They drifted here and lived for nearly three months on Hudson street. Later they took up their abode in Vandling where they were located by the husband, who came here about a week ago. He caused their arrest and they were taken before Squire Buckley, of Freeland, last Monday, by Officer Walsh. The man in the case is the half brother of the husband. ALSO A collision between an auto owned by Keogh brothers, of Carbondale, and a rig of James Richards, of Stillwater, occurred in front of the borough building on Thursday evening at 7 p.m. The shaft of Richard’s buggy was broken, and a lamp of the automobile was torn off. The auto, which has been chartered by a party of young men homeward bound from Montrose, displayed no lights and there was quite a heated debate for some time between the two drivers as to where the responsibility rested for the mishap.

Uniondale – the pupils of Lyon School, Uniondale, with parents and teacher, enjoyed a delightful straw ride and outing at Lewis Lake, through the kindness of Thomas Stark. A lunch which consisted of the good things of the season was served in the grove, and all returned at evening tired, but happy.

Lynn – W. A. Walsh has secured the services of Fred Collins to assist him in his blacksmith shop. Mr. Collins is an expert horse shoer.

New Milford – The building boom seems to have struck New Milford and now if the big heads and little-heads and all the other heads would get together and fix the roads, living would be worth while.

Clifford – Mr. Nelson Spedding, one of our oldest citizens, is suffering with several maladies, but works every day more steadily than most men better able.

Brooklyn – Henry Penny has a curiosity—a cat with twenty-eight toes, seven on each foot. It is a great “mouser” and Mr. Penny’s people are much attached to it. Although Mr. Penny is eighty-two years old, he comes to town occasionally, but his health, we are sorry to say, is not good, and he lets the younger men do the heavy work. Mr. Penny has been one of the valued subscribers of the Democrat ever since the [Civil] war and has a warm place in the printers’ hearts, as he frequently remembers them with some especially nice apples or other fruits.

Susquehanna – The borough will hold a special election to decide whether they will authorize a bond issue of $15,000 to pay its share of paving Main street and a portion of East Main and Front streets. It is expected that it will carry.

Hallstead - Hon. James T. DuBois has returned to his home at Hallstead from a trip to South America. There will be a gathering at his home of distinguished statesmen and diplomatic representatives during the week and it is expected than an amicable settlement of the controversy between this country and the United States of Columbia will take place. The Columbian minister to Washington will be present. Mr. DuBois declares that chances of settlement are good.

South Montrose – A clam bake and dance will be held at the new barn of Louden Hill Farm, on Saturday Sept. 7th, 3:30 p.m. Music by the First Regiment Band of Binghamton. Tickets to the clam bake and dance are $1, to the dance alone, 50 cents. The proceeds are for the Country Club and Dimock Public Library. Tickets are limited.

Bridgewater Twp. – Lightning struck the home of Thomas Houghton one day during the week. The shock of the bolt knocked down one of his daughters besides knocking off some plaster on the walls. Little damage was done to the house. Joseph Kane’s barn, at Forest Lake was struck by lightning and burned Sunday afternoon, worth al its contents, including a fine horse, over 30 tons of hay, and al farming tools. It was insured for $600. Another horse was so badly injured that it will not be fir for work.

Marriage Licenses: George R. Plew, Bethel Hill and Hazel Chamberlain, Susquehanna; John McGraw, Middletown Centre and Jennie Guilfoyle, Forest Lake; Clarence S. Bennett, Jackson and Anna May Belle Cuskilla, Albany, N.Y.; D. Stanley Kline, Lenox and Edna M. Lewis, Gibson; Robert M. Sampson, Scott and Catharine Chaddon, Harmony.

Dimock Camp Meeting – Attendance this year has been the largest within recent years. It is estimated that 5,000 people were present last Sunday. Meetings closed last evening. It is also stated that there were some 60 automobiles on the camp grounds Sunday. A large percentage of the cars were Fords, it is claimed, the popular car in the country regions, where roads are not what they should be.

News Brief: The Department of Agriculture experts are administering the “jag cure” to an inebriate cow. The once decorous animal, owned by a Virginia farmer, recently attracted her master’s attention by leaning wearily against the pasture fence and bawling “moo’s” in a hilarious tone, at the same time flirtatiously waving a maudlin front foot at some steers in the next pasture. Investigation showed she had been fed on fermented ensilage. ALSO Six thousand men are at work on the highways which the State of Pennsylvania has taken over for the establishment of the State road system, and already the preliminary work on repair and maintenance of highways is beginning to show. Dirt is flying in every county in the state and roads which were neglected are being put into condition for easy and safe traveling by wagons and automobiles. In some districts transformations have been made of roads which were notorious for their condition and on which little or no work has been done for over a year because of expectation that the Commonwealth would take them over.

What ever happened to the chain gang? Over the years, several people have asked me that question. I am not sure that they ever actually saw a real-life chain gang. I know that I have never seen one except for the ones depicted in movies where the inmates are chained together wielding picks and shovels as they work on clearing some ground under the watchful eye of a corrections officer, who normally is wearing some dark reflective sunglasses and cradling a shotgun in a manner that suggests he cannot wait to squeeze off a round.

No, I have never seen one of those chain gangs – but I have seen plenty of litter crews where inmates help to pick up trash around highways as a beautification process. These crews have more freedom of movement as there are no chains attached to them – and the only tools they seem to have are little devices to pick up the garbage and put them into garbage bags that they are holding. No picks, no shovels and no axes. While there must be a correction officer watching them, he or she is rarely as obvious as the imposing authority figures that the cinema likes to portray.

Still, as Americans, we believe that work builds character – and part of rehabilitation has to be changing the defendant’s attitudes and lifestyle. We want our correctional facilities to release rehabilitated offenders who are ready to be productive and responsible. An integral part of that process has always been having an inmate work while incarcerated. Prisons have innumerable tasks that inmates can assist in performing – and inmates are normally paid a nominal wage as part of that process from which they are able to purchase small items from the prison commissary account. It is a small model of the responsibility expected of a citizen, but it is also an important step in rehabilitation – you work, you get paid, you save, and you make purchasing decisions based upon your needs and budget.

Finbar McGarry was arrested in connection with a domestic situation where he allegedly fired a gun in his home after he had lost his job. While he was incarcerated pending trial, the prison required McGarry to work three-days a week for 14 hours a day in the prison laundry. He received the generous compensation package of 25 cents per hour – or $10.50 per week to help wash the dirty underwear (and other garments) of the other inmates. McGarry did not have a choice – it was rehabilitative labor. When McGarry attempted to refuse to work, he was threatened to be placed in the “hole,” i.e., solitary confinement, which was apparently sufficient to motivate McGarry to help wash some clothes.

The problem for McGarry was that he was not convicted or sentenced. He was a pre-trial detainee. But he was still required to work – until the state decided not to prosecute his case and he was set free. McGarry did not forget the interminable labor he was forced to endure in the prison laundry room. In response, he filed a civil rights lawsuit contending that his constitutional rights had been violated as a result of the “forced” labor and that the prison’s “rehabilitative” labor policy violated the 13th Amendment’s prohibition against slavery. Initially, a district court threw the case out, but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed and set the matter back for trial for a jury to determine whether McGarry’s rights to be free from slavery (or involuntary servitude) were violated.

The biggest issue in the case involves the fact that McGarry was not a sentenced inmate. The ability to force a sentenced inmate to work as part of the punishment and rehabilitation process is common. A pre-trial detainee, however, is different – there has been no conviction, no sentence and, as such, no authority to punish and rehabilitate the offender. In his complaint, McGarry sought $11 million in damages as a result of his 6-week stint of forced labor in the laundry room.

McGarry was not a chain gang participant, but if I had been him I would have opted for the pick and shovel over the dirty underwear. Given that he was not sentenced and had not made bail, however, it is unlikely McGarry would have been given the chance to leave the facility except for court proceedings. It will be interesting to see where this case ends up – though there is a good chance it might resolve itself with a quiet settlement and a nice check that will probably be a lot more than 25 cents per hour.

Please submit any questions, concerns, or comments to Susquehanna County District Attorney’s Office, P.O. Box 218, Montrose, Pennsylvania 18801 or at our website www.SusquehannaCounty-DA.org or discuss this and all articles at http://dadesk.blogspot.com/.