of the justices of the peace, and validated contracts against
which judgment by default had been secured. Qualifications
for suffrage are: the age of twenty-one years, citizenship in the
United States, residence in the state for one year and in the
township for six months preceding the election, a good moral
character, and ability “to read in the English language any
article of the Constitution or any section of the Statutes of this
State.”[1] Women may vote for school officials. The right to
decide upon a citizen's qualifications for suffrage is vested in
the selectmen and clerk of each township. A property qualification,
found in the original constitution, was removed in 1845.
The Fifteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution was
ratified (1869) by Connecticut, but negroes were excluded from
the suffrage by the state constitution until 1876.
The jurisprudence of Connecticut, since the 17th century, has been notable for its divergence from the common law of England. In 1639 inheritance by primogeniture was abolished, and this resulted in conflict with the British courts in the 18th century.[2] At an early date, also, the office of public prosecutor was created to conduct prosecutions, which until then had been left to the aggrieved party. The right of bastards to inherit the mother's property is recognized, and the age of consent has been placed at sixteen years. Neither husband nor wife acquires by marriage any interest in the property of the other; the earnings of the wife are her sole property and she has the right to make contracts as if unmarried. After residence in the state for three years divorce may be obtained on grounds of fraudulent contract, desertion, neglect for three years, adultery, cruelty, intemperance, imprisonment for life and certain crimes. The Joint Stock Act of 1837 furnished the precedent and the principle for similar legislation in other American states and (it is said) for the English Joint Stock Companies Act of 1856. The relations between capital and labour are the subject of a series of statutes, which prohibit the employment of children under fourteen years of age in any mechanical, mercantile or manufacturing establishment, punish with fine or imprisonment any attempt by an employer to influence his employee's vote or to prevent him from joining a labour union, and in cases of insolvency give preference over general liabilities to debts of $100 or less for labour. A homestead entered upon record and occupied by the owner is exempt to the extent of $1000 in value from liability for debts.
The government of Connecticut is also notable for the variety of its administrative boards. Among these are a board of pardons, a state library committee, a board of mediation and arbitration for adjustment of labour disputes, a board of education and a railway commission. The bureau of labour statistics has among its duties the giving of information to immigrant labourers regarding their legal rights: it has free employment agencies at Bridgeport, Norwich, Hartford, New Haven and Waterbury. A state board of charities has supervision over all philanthropic and penal institutions in the state, including hospitals, which numbered 103 in 1907; and the board visits the almshouses supported by seventy-eight (of the 168) towns of the state, and investigates and supervises the provision made for the town poor in the other ninety towns of the state; some, as late as 1906, were, with the few paupers maintained by the state, cared for in a private almshouse at Tariffville, which was commonly known as the “state almshouse.” The institutions supported by the state are: a state prison at Wethersfield, the Connecticut industrial school for girls (reformatory) at Middletown and a similar institution for boys at Meriden,the Connecticut hospital for the insane at Middletown, and the Norwich hospital for the insane at Norwich. The state almost entirely supports the Connecticut school for imbeciles, at Lakeville; the American school for the deaf, in Hartford; the oral school for the deaf, at Mystic; the Connecticut institute and industrial home for the blind, at Hartford; Fitch's home for soldiers, at Noroton; ten county jails in the eight counties; and eight county temporary homes for dependent and neglected children.
Education.—Education has always been a matter of public interest in Connecticut. Soon after the foundation of the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven, schools similar to the English Latin schools were established. The Connecticut Code of 1650 required all parents to educate their children, and every township of 50 householders (later 30) to have a teacher supported by the men of family, while the New Haven Code of 1656 also encouraged education. In 1672 the general court granted 600 acres of land to each county for educational purposes; in 1794 the general assembly appropriated the proceeds from the sale of western lands to education, and in 1837 made a similar disposition of funds received from the Federal treasury. The existing organization and methods in school work began in 1838, when the state board of commissioners of common schools (later replaced by a board of education) was organized, with Henry Barnard at its head. In 1900, 5·9% of the population at least 10 years of age was illiterate. All children between 7 and 16 are required to attend school, but those over 14 are excused if they labour; every township of more than 10,000 inhabitants must support an evening school for those over 14; and textbooks are provided by the townships for those unable to purchase them. In 1907–1908 the total school revenue was $5,027,877 or $22·35 for each child enrolled, the enrolment being 78·51% of the total number of children enumerated of school age. Of the school revenue about 2·81% was derived from a permanent school fund, 10·96% from state taxation, 80·43% from local taxation and 5·8% from other sources. The average school term was 186·73 days (in 1899–1900 it was 189·01 days), and the average monthly salary of male teachers $115·07, that of female teachers, $50·5. Supplementing the educative influence of the schools are the public libraries (161 in number in 1907); the state appropriates $200 to establish, and $100 per annum to maintain, a public library (provided the town in which the library is to be established contributes an equal amount), and the Public Library Committee has for its duty the study of library problems. Higher education is provided by Yale University (q.v.); by Trinity College, at Hartford (non-sectarian), founded in 1823; by Wesleyan University, at Middletown, the oldest college of the Methodist Church in the United States, founded in 1831; by the Hartford Theological Seminary (1834); by the Connecticut Agricultural College, at Storrs (founded 1881), which has a two years' course of preparation for rural teachers and has an experiment station; by the Connecticut Experiment Station at New Haven, which was established in 1875 at Middletown and was the first in the United States; and by normal schools at New Britain (established 1881), Willimantic (1890), New Haven (1894) and Danbury (1903).
Finance.—In the year ending on the 30th of September 1908 the receipts of the state treasury were $3,925,492, the expenditure $4,741,549, and the funded debt, deducting a Civil List Fund of $325,513 in the treasury, was $548,586. The debt was increased in April 1909 by the issue of bonds for $1,000,000 (out of $7,000,000 authorized in 1907). The principal source of revenue was an indirect tax on corporations, the tax on railways, savings banks and life insurance companies, yielding 70% of the state's income. A tax on inheritances ranked next. There is a military commutation tax of $2, and all persons neglecting to pay it or to pay the poll tax are liable to imprisonment. A state board of equalization has been established to insure equitable taxation. More than 130 underwriting institutions have been chartered in the state since 1794. The insurance business centres at Hartford. The legal rate of interest is 6%, and days of grace are not allowed.
History.—The first settlement by Europeans in Connecticut was made on the site of the present Hartford in 1633, by a party of Dutch from New Netherland. In the same year a trading post was established on the Connecticut river, near Windsor, by members of the Plymouth Colony, and John Oldham
- ↑ The constitution prescribes that “the privileges of an elector shall be forfeited by a conviction of bribery, forgery, perjury, duelling, fraudulent bankruptcy, theft or other offense for which an infamous punishment is inflicted,” but this disability may in any case be removed by a two-thirds vote of each house of the general assembly.
- ↑ See an article, “The Connecticut Intestacy Law,” by Charles M. Andrews in the Yale Review, vol. iii.
