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 The Delaware & Chesapeake Canal (13 m. long, 66 ft. wide and 10 ft. deep) crosses the N. part of the state, connecting Delaware river and Chesapeake Bay, and thus affords transportation by water from Baltimore to Philadelphia. The canal was completed in 1829; in 1907 a commission appointed by the president to report on a route for a waterway between Chesapeake and Delaware bays selected the route of this canal. The states of Maryland and Delaware aided in its construction, and in 1828 the national government also made an appropriation. Wilmington is a customs district in which New Castle and Lewes are included; but its trade is largely coastwise. Rehoboth and Indian River bays are navigable for vessels of less than 6 ft. draft. Opposite Lewes is the Delaware Breakwater (begun in 1818 and completed in 1869, at a cost of more than $2,000,000), which forms a harbour 16 ft. deep. In 1897–1901 the United States government constructed a harbour of refuge, formed by a second breakwater 2 m. N. of the existing one; its protected anchorage is 552 acres and the cost was more than $2,090,000. The harbour is about equidistant from New York, Philadelphia, and the capes of Chesapeake Bay, and is used chiefly by vessels awaiting orders to ports for discharge or landing. The national government also made appropriations for opening an inland waterway from Lewes to Chincoteague Bay, Virginia, for improving Wilmington harbour, and for making navigable several of the larger streams of the state.

Population.—The population in 1880 was 146,608; in 1890, 168,493, an increase of 14.9%; in 1900, 184,735, a further increase of 9.6%; in 1910, 202,322. The rate of increase before 1850 was considerably smaller than the rate after that date. Of the population in 1900, 92.5% was native born and 7.5% was foreign-born. The negro population was 30,697, or 16.6% of the total. In Indian River Hundred, Sussex county, there formerly lived a community of people,—many of whom are of the fair Caucasian type,—called “Indians” or “Moors”; they are now quite generally dispersed throughout the state, especially in Kent and Sussex counties. Their origin is unknown, but according to local tradition they are the descendants of some Moorish sailors who were cast ashore many years ago in a shipwreck; their own tradition is that they are descended from the children of an Irish mother and a negro father, these children having intermarried with Indians of the Nanticoke tribe. They have, where practicable, separate churches and schools, the latter receiving state aid. The urban population of Delaware (i.e. of Wilmington, the only city having more than 5000 inhabitants) was, in 1900, 41.4% of the state’s population. There were thirty-five incorporated cities and towns. The largest of these was the city of Wilmington, with 76,508 inhabitants. The city next in size, New Castle, had a population of 3380, while the largest town, Dover, the capital of the state, had 3329. The total number of communicants of all denominations in 1906 was 71,251,—32,402 Methodists, 24,228 Roman Catholics, 5200 Presbyterians, 3796 Protestant Episcopalians, and 2921 Baptists.

Government.—The constitution by which Delaware is governed was adopted in 1897. Like the previous constitutions of 1776, 1792 and 1831, it was promulgated by a constitutional convention without submission to the people for ratification, and amendments may be adopted by a two-thirds vote of each house in two consecutive legislatures. Its character is distinctly democratic. The property qualification of state senators and the restriction of suffrage to those who have paid county or poll taxes are abolished; but suffrage is limited to male adults who can read the state constitution in English, and can write their names, unless physically disqualified, and who have registered. In 1907 an amendment to the constitution was adopted, which struck out from the instrument the clause requiring the payment of a registration fee of one dollar by each elector. Important innovations in the constitution of 1897 are the office of lieutenant-governor, and the veto power of the governor which may extend to parts and clauses of appropriation bills, but a bill may be passed over his veto by a three-fifths vote of each house of the legislature, and a bill becomes a law if not returned to the legislature within ten days after its reception by the governor, unless the session of the legislature shall have expired in the meantime. The governor’s regular term in office is four years, and he is ineligible for a third term. All his appointments to offices where the salary is more than $500 must be confirmed by the senate; all pardons must be approved by a board of pardons. Representation in the legislature is according to districts, members of the lower house being chosen for two, and members of the upper house for four years. Members of the lower house must be at least twenty-four years of age, members of the senate at least twenty-seven; members of both houses must at the time of their election have been citizens of the state for at least three years. In November 1906 the people of the state voted (17,248 for; 2162 against) in favour of the provision of a system of advisory initiative and advisory referendum; and in March 1907 the general assembly passed an act providing initiative and referendum in the municipal affairs in the city of Wilmington. The organization of the judiciary is similar to that under the old English system. Six judges—a chancellor, a chief justice, and four associate justices—of whom there shall be at least one resident in each of the three counties, and not more than three shall belong to the same political party, are appointed by the governor, with the consent of the senate, for a term of twelve years. A certain number of them hold courts of chancery, general sessions, oyer and terminer, and an orphans’ court; the six together constitute the supreme court, but the judge from whose decision appeal is made may not hear the appealed case unless the appeal is made at his own instance. Bribery may be punished by fine, imprisonment and disfranchisement for ten years. Corporations cannot be created by a special act of the legislature, and no corporation may issue stock except for an equivalent value of money, labour or property. In order to attract capital to the state, the legislature has reduced the taxes on corporations, has forbidden the repeal of charters, and has given permission for the organization of corporations with both the power and name of trust companies. Legislative divorces are forbidden by the constitution, and a statute of 1901 subjects wife-beaters to corporal punishment. Although punishment by whipping and by standing in the pillory was prohibited by an act of Congress in 1839, in so far as the Federal government had jurisdiction, both these forms of punishment were retained in Delaware, and standing in the pillory was prescribed by statute as a punishment for a number of offences, including various kinds of larceny and forgery, highway robbery, and even pretending “to exercise the art of witchcraft, fortune-telling or dealing with spirits,” at least until 1893. In 1905, by a law approved on the 20th of March, the pillory was abolished. The whipping-post was in 1908 still maintained in Delaware, and whipping continued to be prescribed as a punishment for a variety of offences, although in 1889 a law was passed which prescribed that “hereafter no female convicted of any crime in this state shall be whipped or made to stand in the pillory,” and a law passed in 1883 prescribed that “in case of conviction of larceny, when the prisoner is of tender years, or is charged for the first time (being shown to have before had a good character), the court may in its discretion omit from the sentence the infliction of lashes.” An old law still on the statute-books when the edition of the revised statutes was issued in 1893, prescribes that “the punishment of whipping shall be inflicted publicly by strokes on the bare back, well laid on.”

The unit of local government is the “hundred,” which corresponds to the township of Pennsylvania. The employment of children under fourteen years of age in factories is forbidden by statute. Divorces are granted for adultery, desertion for three years, habitual drunkenness, impotence at the time of marriage, fraud, lack of marriageable age (eighteen for males, sixteen for females), and failure of husband to provide for his wife during three consecutive years. The marriages of whites with negroes and of insane persons are null; but the children of the married insane are legitimate.

In 1908 the state debt was $816,785, and the assets in bonds, railway mortgages and bank stocks exceeded the liabilities by $717,779. Besides the income from interest and dividends