NEW JERSEY. 



563 



all tho rest of the State is sought to be absolved by a 

 proviso often grotesque in its complications. 



By this method not only have all the old evils been 

 retained, but there have been added to them the 

 doubts as to what localities the laws are intended to 

 aud do apply ; and, further, whether they are them- 

 selves constitutional. 



As it is now, after the lapse of but a very few years, 

 neither a common council, a town committee, nor 

 their legal advisers can possibly tell what they are 

 authorized and what they are forbidden to do until 

 the whole mass of seemingly general legislation shall 

 be carefully gone over, and the applying acts culled 

 from the chaos which fills the books of the past five 

 years. 



When that has been done, there still remains tho 

 by no means trivial question as to how many of them 

 have been either directly or by implication abrogated 

 by the courts as evasions of the Constitution. 



Were this the result of accident, it would not be so 

 bad, but the practice has been of general adoption ; 

 and it has more than once happened that acts have 

 been passed which had, previous to their enactment, 

 been declared by the legal adviser of the Legislature to 

 be unconstitutional. 



It is proper to say that there was at first a desire to 

 comply with the Constitution, but, as difficulties arose, 

 the policy of evasion was inaugurated. One success 

 paved the way for others, and each succeeding session 

 has gone a step further than its predecessor, until the 

 above culmination has been readied. 



There seems to bs but one way out of this labyrinth 

 of doubt and uncertainty, so long as the requirement 

 of the Constitution remains as at present ; and that is, 

 by the passage of a general law or laws under which 

 municipalities can act, and then compelling them to 

 do so. 



Much of the difficulty of the position will disappear 

 on the mere resolution to overcome it, and to abide by 

 the law. If it is known that a city can not get author- 

 ity to spend money for a Fourth-of-July celebration, 

 or to open some particular street in some peculiar way, 

 or to take away from or give power to some particular 

 officer unexpectedly elected, by a special act of the 

 Legislature, the act will not be applied for; much 

 time and money will be saved both to the city and to 

 the State, and nobody will really be the loser. And 

 yet it will be found that much of the special legisla- 

 tion for which the directions of the Constitution have 

 been disregarded, has been of a character and grade no 

 more important than these. 



The report of the commission on prison-labor 

 approves the employment of convicts in pro- 

 ductive labor and in skilled trades in order that 

 they may be self-supporting while in prison and 

 as well qualified as possible for earning their 

 living when released. In the New Jersey 

 Prison 368 convicts were employed in manu- 

 facturing shoes, in which trade over 6,000 free 

 laborers are employed. The recommendations 

 of the commission were as follows : 



1. That the Supervisor and Inspectors be instruct- 

 ed to employ the convicts in the State Prison in as 

 manv different industries as the facilities at their dis- 

 posal and a due regard for the proper maintenance 

 and support of the prison and prisoners will admit. 



2. To enable this to be done, and for the urgent 

 needs of the State Prison in other respects, herein- 

 before mentioned, that the present State Arsenal, .and 

 the grounds pertaining to it, be added to the prison and 

 fitted for its uses. 



3. That in order to prevent the labor of the con- 

 victs in our State Prison from becoming injurious to 

 free labor in future periods of depression for it is 

 only in periods of financial and industrial depression 

 that the competitive labor of convicts can be injurious, 

 or sensibly felt the Legislature should empower the 

 Governor to confer with the Executives of the other 



States, proposing the appointment of a commission, to 

 consist of two or more members from each State, to 

 devise a plan by which the convict-labor of all the 

 States may be so distributed and employed among the 

 various productive industries as to be just and fair to 

 each one ; and that the Governor be also empowered 

 to appoint commissioners to represent the State in such 

 commissions whenever the proposal shall have been 

 accepted by a majority of the States in which convict- 

 labor is an important competing element. 



4. That the Legislature provide for the establish- 

 ment of an Intermediate Prison, where convicts be- 

 tween the ages of sixteen and thirty years, sentenced 

 to imprisonment for the first time, may be kept sepa- 

 rate from old and hardened offenders, trained to useful 

 occupations and regular habits, and, so far as possible, 

 reformed. 



The number of persons of school age in 1880 

 was 330,685, an increase of 2,867. The aggre- 

 gate enrollment was 204,961, an increase of 

 1,393. The average attendance was 115,194, an 

 increase of 3,124. There were 3,477 teachers 

 employed, 991 males and 2,486 females. The 

 total number of schoolhouses was 1,585, of 

 which 26 were newly erected and 65 rebuilt. 

 The average time -that the schools were open 

 was nine months and twelve days, a decrease 

 of two days. The percentage of attendance to 

 the school population is as follows : Attending 

 public schools, 62 per cent. ; private schools, 

 13 per cent.; attending no schools, 25 percent.; 

 attending ten months, 8 per cent.; between 

 eight and ten months, 21 per cent. ; between 

 six and eight months, 19 per cent. ; between 

 four and six months, 18 per cent. ; less than 

 four months, 34 per cent. ; percentage of aver- 

 age attendance, 56 ; percentage of the school 

 census that the schools will accommodate, 57; 

 in the cities, 41. The proceeds of the two-mill 

 school-tax have decreased steadily, and will 

 show a further decrease in 1881 ; but in 1882 

 and thereafter there will probably be an in- 

 crease. The increase of the school census in 

 1881 counterbalances the increase in ratables, 

 and leaves the per capita apportionment about 

 the same. The total value of school property 

 is $6,244,139; the average value of school- 

 buildings, $4,108. The average cost of educa- 

 tion per pupil, based on the total school census, 

 was $4.66, a decrease of five cents. The aver- 

 age cost on the average attendance was $13.39, 

 an increase of fifty-two cents. 



Although the total amount of money raised 

 for school purposes was greater than in 1879, 

 in the majority of districts the revenue was 

 smaller. The cities and towns raise a consider- 

 able local tax, while the rural schools depend 

 solely on the State funds, which have decreased 

 from $4.49 per capita in 1875 to $3.41 for 

 1880. In most of the districts the salaries of 

 the teachers were cut down in 1880. The 

 average monthly salary of male teachers was 

 $55.82, a decrease of $1.12; the salaries of 

 female teachers averaged $32.90, a decrease of 

 eighty-three cents. Governor McOlellan's an- 

 nual message contained the following references 

 to the subject of keeping up the standard of the 

 efficiency of public-school teachers, and rais- 

 ing the rates of remuneration in order to at- 



