D E L A WARE persons of negro descent; and they maintain separate churches and schools, the latter receiving State aid. Delaware is an agricultural and manufacturing State. Much of it is in a high state of cultivation. Besides wheat, maize, and other grain, peaches are grown in immense quantities and sent over the country. Strawberries, raspberries, and other small fruits are raised for transportation. Increased attention has lately been given to dairy products. The canning of fruits, vegetables, meats and poultry, is carried on extensively. The kaolin mines were among those first worked in the United States, the product in 1899 being 10,500 tons, valued at $91,500. The forests, which afforded excellent timber, including white oak for the building of ships, have been greatly reduced by constant cutting. In the northern part of the State there > are numerous and important manufactories. Wilmington and its suburbs have large machine shops, whose products, including marine engines and boilers and paper and pulp machines, are justly renowned; cotton, cotton-finishing, paper, morocco, patent leather, vulcanized fibre, car-wheel, carriage, and silk factories; rolling-mills and bridge works. Cars, for steam and street railways, are manufactured on a large scale. Upwards of 400 iron steamships have been built in Wilmington, exceeding in number and in aggregate tonnage those constructed in any other American city. The flour-mills on the Brandywine, founded in 1762, are famous, and the Dupont Gunpowder Works, 6 miles from Wilmington, are the oldest and largest in the country. There is a petroleum refinery at Marcus Hook. According to the census of 1900, the number of manufacturing establishments in the State (excluding 169 having an annual product of less than $500 each) was 1417, in which was invested a total capital (including land, buildings, machinery, tools, &c., but not including capital stock) of $41,203,239. There were 1327 salaried employees receiving salaries amounting to $1,422,831, and an average number of 22,203 wage-earners receiving $9,263,661 in wages. The cost of materials used, including mill supplies, freight, fuel, &c., was $26,652,601, and the miscellaneous expenses (including rent, taxes, &c., but not including interest on capital invested) $2,158,350. The added values of the products in the different establishments amounted to $45,387,630. If from this gross value be deducted, in order to avoid duplication, the value ($15,849,388) of materials purchased in a partly manufactured form—-where the finished product of one industry is used later as the raw material for another—the net value is found to be $29,538,242. If the steel and rollingmills, car shops, foundry and machine shops, and shipbuilding be grouped as the iron and steel industry, there were in this industry fifty-three establishments having a capital of $14,929,935, employing 8536 wage-earners, paying $4,265,670 as wages, and having a gross product of $13,953,379. The leather industry ranks next in importance, with twenty establishments, a capital of $5,178,804, 2457 wage-earners receiving $1,044,903, and gross product of $9,400,504. The Delaware and Chesapeake 'Canal connects the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, and affords water transit for produce between Philadelphia and Baltimore. The Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Bailroad, and the Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad run through the northern part of the State; the Wilmington and Northern Railroad communicates with the Pennsylvania coal region; the Delaware Railroad runs through the whole length of the State below Wilmington, connecting with various railways that reach either the' Atlantic Ocean or the Chesapeake Bay; while another line, running directly
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across the lower part of the State, connects, at Queenstown, Maryland, with steamers for Baltimore. The financial condition of the State is excellent, the assets, in bonds, railway mortgages, and bank stocks, exceeding the liabilities. Besides the income from assets, the State revenues are derived from taxes on licences, on commissions to public officers, on railway and banking companies, and to a slight extent from taxes on collateral inheritances, and on investments, as bonds, mortgages, notes and stocks, the investment tax yielding in 1899 only $1,311.35. There are county taxes, on land and live-stock, for the care of the roads and the poor ; local taxes, levied on the rental value of land and on live-stock, towards the support of the public schools ; town taxes, and, in same places, ditch taxes. The vital statistics of the State are of little value, not having been systematically kept. A State Board of Health was organized in 1879, and there are now local boards in various towns. There is in each county a jail and an almshouse. Under recent legislation there is to be established in Newcastle county a workhouse, where persons under sentence must labour for eight hours each secular day, pay being allowed for overwork, and credit given, by reduction of sentence, for good behaviour. There is a State hospital for the insane. A certain number of persons are maintained out of the State School fund at outside institutions, such as the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, and the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Children. There are various private charities, particularly in the city of Wilmington. Education exhibits progress. Delaware College, at Newark, with the support of Federal grants, steadily increases in efficiency. The maintenance of a system of public schools is rendered compulsory by the State Constitution. The State School fund, ranging from about $130,000 to $140,000 a year, is apportioned among the school districts, and is used exclusively for teachers’ salaries and free text-books. In the apportionment no discrimination is allowed on account of race or colour ; but separate schools tor white and coloured children must be provided, and there is a State college for coloured students. Besides the State Board of Education, there is in each county a School Commission and a Superintendent of Public Schools, and in each district a School Committee chosen by the voters of the district, with power to levy taxes. At school elections women as well as men may be qualified to vote. The Constitution now in force was framed in 1897, superseding the Constitution of 1831. Following the precedent recently set elsewhere, it was published and put into operation by authority of a resolution of the Constitutional Convention, without submission to the people. In the General Assembly the number of Representatives is raised from 21 to 35, and of Senators from 9 to 17, equal county representation being done away with. The State is divided into 35 representative districts, Newcastle county having 15, and Kent and Sussex each 10 ; and 17 senatorial districts, Newcastle having 7, and Kent and Sussex each 5. Of the 15 Newcastle Representatives, Wilmington has 5 ; of the 7 Senators, 2. The sessions of the General Assembly, held at Dover, the State capital, are still biennial. The members receive an allowance for each day of the session not exceeding sixty, after which they get no compensation. At a special session the daily allowance is limited to thirty days. Legislative divorces are prohibited. The Governor’s appointments to office must, except in certain cases, be confirmed by the Senate. He has a suspensory veto on legislation. Certain State officers, including the AttorneyGeneral, and various county officers, formerly appointed by the Governor, are now elected. The judges are still appointed, but only for terms of twelve years. Ail persons coming of age, or becoming citizens of the United States, after 1st January 1900, must, in order to vote, be able to read the State Constitution in English and write their names. The payment of a polltax as a prerequisite to voting is abolished, and all eligible persons are registered on payment of a fee of one dollar. Persons charged with bribery at elections are triable by the court on information and without a jury. A Board of Pardons, consisting of the Chancellor and certain administrative officers, is created, and no reprieve for more than six months, or commutation of sentence, or pardon, can be granted by the Governor unless on the written recommendation of a majority of this Board. There is also established a State Board of Agriculture. The Judicial power of the State is vested in a Supreme Court, a Superior Court, a Court of Chancery, an Orphans’ Court, a Court of Oyer and Terminer, a Register’s Court, and Justices of the Peace. There are six State judges, namely, a Chancellor, a Chief Justice, and four Associate judges. The Chancellor, Chief Justice, and one of the Associates may be appointed from and reside in any part of the State ; the other three Associates may be appointed from any part of the State, but must reside one in each county. The five law judges compose the Superior Court, Court of General Sessions, and Court of Oyer and Terminer, but not S. III. — 51
