THE AUSTIN PAPERS 201 the one built by Cooper which would have cost about three hundred dollars to serve as a court house or office for the Alcalde-- The law requires that there should be a jail and it was intended to try and put up a small one- this is the extent of wha.t was contemplated provided funds could be raised- The plan that was adopted as to raising funds, was to make an estimate of all the expences, including every thing, under the supposition that the buildings would all be put up, and 4700 dolls was _the highest estimate. of this sum 100 would be raised by the ferry and it was calculated that about 1500 could be raised by the tax on s_tores, groceries, Lawyers and doctors, and out of the sale of town and out lots in this place making a sum of 1600 dollars, without calculating anything from fines on drunk- ards, a law by the bye which I will insist shall be inforced with the utmost rigor not because I delight in punishing a drunkard but because it is time to stop the confusion and disorder they have hereto- fore produced, agreeably to this calculation there would have been about $3000 to raise by taxes on property, but it was not intended to raise this sum all at once- .The System that was intended to pursue was_[to] raise enough first to pay off the old debt and to meet the common current expences; and then to make an exhibit of the same to the people- to procure the best data tha.t could be obtained as to t-he expence of a small building for the records and another for a court house, or for only one of them, and also for a small jail, and if it was found after making an experiment that the funds could be raised to builcl them, it was intended to raise them nnd not otherwise, and never to raise them n.11 at once, but gm.dually as they were needed- and if from the unproductiveness of some of the sources of revenue that were calculated on, it was.found that the tax on prop- erty would be oppressive, it was intended to lowc1: it and only to raise as much as was necessary and no more- I did believe that enough could be raised to defray the .common expences and -to build the office for the records ·this year and the jail could be built next year but I am now induced to think nothing can be raised and that the ~funicipal Govt must totally-stop and be suspended- arrange- ments were made to procure a secre~ary- but they are broken up- there will be no secretary and the only way I see of getting along is for me to do all the writing that has to be done in Spanish- it is a much heavier burden than is supposed, but it seems that when I undertook the colony I inlisted myself for life- I am getting weary and less patient thnt I once was, tho I will not "give_up the s¥p" while I live and the people shnll have the ·use of my time and labor so long ns I can be of use to them in any way ewcept one I never will be Alcal~e if I can avoid it for if I ever tn.ke the oath required by that office I ~ill rigidly execute it, and if I do I can hope for noth- 88370-28-14
Powered by FlippingBook