Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/490

Rh 456 NEW YORK [STATE.. water carriages. Early in the last century the admirable natural channel of communication which by the Mohawk river and Wood Creek connects the Hudson with the great lakes attracted immigra tion. The fertile valley of the Mohawk was the first occupied. A settlement was made there about 1722 by a colony from the Pala tinate, who constituted almost the entire population until the close of the Revolution. In 1756 there were only ten county divisions in the province, of which but two were west of the Hudson. At the time of the Revolution there were fourteen counties, the most westerly of which lay on the sides of the Mohawk, about 40 miles from Albany. The inhabitants were at this time Dutch, French, English, Scotch, and Irish. The war brought the extreme richness of the western lands to the notice of the troops, and they in turn informed the people. After the war settlements spread with rapidity. The State of New York ceding to Massachusetts about 10,000 square miles of territory, there was before 1800 a large immigration from New England, which extended itself over the interior of the State to its western boundary. This was essentially an agricultural population. The military lands set apart as bounties during the war, to the amount of 180,000 acres, were rapidly taken up by the immigrants who flowed into the western country like a torrent, opening roads and founding villages and towns. Between 1784 and 1800 two cities, three large villages, and numerous smaller settlements were founded, and the population of the State doubled in numbers. The foreign immigration of the last forty years has chiefly settled on the lines of the great railroads, which present an almost unbroken chain of industrial cities. Constitution. The fundamental constitution of the State adopted in 1777 was in its main features after the English model : a chief executive and two separate legislative chambers ; justice adminis tered through local county courts, a probate judiciary, a high com mon law tribunal called the supreme court, side by side with a court of chancery; final appellate jurisdiction in law and equity vested in the State senate. This first constitution of the State declared the people to be the only source of political power. The secret ballot insured the independence of the vote. Religious liberty to all was absolutely secured. In 1821 a new convention greatly simplified the machinery of administration. Under this new constitution the people took to themselves a large part of the powers before delegated to the assembly. The elective franchise was extended by a removal of freehold qualification. In 1846 a new constitution made radical changes in the framework of government. The elective franchise was further extended by diminution of resid ence qualification ; elective districts were established on the basis of population, and shifted with the varying censuses. The elective principle, before confined to part of the executive and legislative officers, was applied also to the judiciary. A court of appeals of last resort was instituted. Local tribunals were invested with the powers and jurisdictions of the supreme court of common law and of the court of chancery. The separation of the legal and political depart ments of government was complete. The question was again sub mitted to the people in 1873, and the election of the judiciary main tained by a large majority. Some slight amendments have been since made. The constitution, as finally matured, completely carries out the principle of a government of the people by its own directly chosen agencies. Elective restrictions upon negroes and mulattoes were removed by degrees. Slavery was gradually abolished under an Act passed in 1799. In 1811 the only discrimination was the require ment of a certificate of freedom. The constitution of 1821 imposed both a residence and a freehold qualification, restrictions which remained until removed in 1870 by the fifteenth amendment to the Federal constitution, when suffrage to males became absolutely free in the State. The constitution of 1777 forbade Acts of Attainder after the close of the war, and provided that no Act should work corruption of blood. Primogeniture and entail were for ever abolished. That of 1846 did away with all feudal tenures of every description. Imprisonment for debt, before limited by statute so far as females were concerned to sums over $50, was entirely abolished in 1831. Married women were secured in their separate rights to real and personal property by statute in 1848. Imprisonment of witnesses was put an end to by Act of 1882. Education. The grant of the West India Company (1629) to the planters of New Netherland required the establishment of a school, and in 1644 the burgomasters of New Amsterdam made a munici pal provision for school purposes in th. colony ; but this proved nominal, and instruction received little attention until after the arrival of Stuyvesant, when an academy and classical school was established (1659). At the conquest in 1664 the English found this institution in high repute, and in addition three public schools and a number of private Dutch schools in the city alone. The academy or Latin school was continued by the English authorities for a few years, but the Dutch schools received no Government contribution. In 1702 a free grammar school was established by Act of Assembly. In 1710 a school was founded by Trinity church, and similar pro visions by other religious denominations followed. In 1754 King s College (reorganized in 1784 as Columbia) was established by char ter. Here many of the men who became distinguished in the annals of the State received their education. Its departments- were fully organized when the Revolution put an end to all instruc tion, and the building became a military hospital. The legislature of the State in 1795 granted an appropriation of $50,000 for five years for common school purposes. A general school system was. organized by commissioners in 1812. District libraries were insti tuted in 1838, and a State normal school established in 1844. In 1849 a free school law was enacted, but its unequal operation caused its repeal. In 1867 a free school law was again enacted. The schools of the State are noted for their efficiency. All the common schools are free, and are supported by the income of a school fund and by a State, city, and district tax. A superintendent of public instruction has general supervision. School commissioners elected by the people have charge in each district, and there are boards of education in all the cities. The expenses for the fiscal year ending; September 30, ]880, were $11,181,986-55. The attendance for the same year in public schools was 1,041,089 scholars, in normal schools 6156, and in private schools 115,646. 1 The number of volumes in school district libraries was 705,812. The result of this admirable system appears in the census of the United States^ for 1880. The number of the inhabitants of the State who were unable to read was reported at 166,625, or 4 2 per cent, of those unable to write at 219,600, a percentage of 5 - 5. Charities. The public charities were by Act of 1867 placed under the charge of a board of State commissioners of public charities, who are paid expenses but receive no salary. The institutions, wholly or chiefly maintained by the State are asylums for the insane, inebriate, deaf and dumb, blind, and idiots, and establish ments for reform of juvenile delinquents. In the counties, cities,, and towns there are public poorhouses and asylums, besides, hospitals, dispensaries, and homes in great variety. The official report of January 1883 states the expenditures for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1882, for orphan asylums and homes for the friendless, at $4,486,204-21, the total number of persons sup ported being 46,985, of these 24,868 remained at the close of the year. The expenditure for hospitals the same year was $1,503,283 68, the number of patients treated 27,850. During the same period the dispensaries treated 276,323 persons, at an expenditure of $102,834-20. There were in the several asylums and almshouses,. October 1, 1882, 10,443 insane persons. The number of persons supported and temporarily relieved in the county poorhouses and almshouses during the year ending November 30, 1882, was 57,895; in the city almshouses 69,875; total 127,770, of whom there remained at that date 16,507. The amount expended for support and relief of the poor and other charities was $4, 71 5, 065 62. Com parison with previous statements shows that there had been no- actual increase in pauperism in the State in twelve years, and a decrease in proportion to the population. A State board of com missioners of emigration has until recently had charge of the immi grants landed at the port of New York. The arrivals in 1882 were 476,086. The expenses of this board were met by a head- money tax, but, the Act under which it was levied having been declared unconstitutional, its functions have virtually ceased. A resort to the old system by which shipowners were compelled to give bonds to relieve the city from the care of pauper immigrants- is the only alternative for State appropriation. Correction. The superintendent of prisons reported the number of convicts confined 30th September 1882 at 2937, the total ex penses at $415,662-10, and the earnings at $421,916-95, showing a. surplus of $6254 85. The strong and increasing jealousy of artisans has led to an abandonment of some of the most profitable kinds of convict labour. Wealth and Taxation. The aggregate assessed valuation of the wealth of the State was in 1882 $2,821,549,963, of which amount $2,482,012,682 was real and $339,537,281 personal. The amount of taxation was $47,573,820-07, of which $3,757, 971 47 was State, $30,429,458-62 county, $10,324,339 16 city, town, and village, equal to 1 709 cents on one dollar ($1) valuation. Finances. The fiscal affairs of the State have been ^managed on correct principles, and its credit has been maintained unimpaired. To this its payment of the interest and principal of its bonds ire coin during the temporary suspensions of specie payment which preceded the civil war and the long national suspension which followed its outbreak greatly contributed. The total funded debt ot the State, 30th September 1882, was $6,385,556 30, over 6 millions of which represents the canal debt. The receipts of the State treasury during the fiscal year ending at same period were $17,735,761, and the payments $13,898,198 21, leaving a balance of $3,837,563-38. The rate of taxation for the year 1882 was fixed at 2-45 mills on the dollar, which is estimated to yield a revenue of $6,820,022-29. The revenues of the canals for the year ending September 30, 1882, were $659, 970 35, and the expenditure $653,510-01. The canal system is for the future to be maintained by direct taxation. i In 1881-82, of 1723 Indian children of school age reported, 1169 attended school. The State pays $8500 for their education.