PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. 



PRINTING, PkufiltKSS OF. 



561 



Tobacco Legislation. By the terms of a 

 measure introduced in the Legislature, any person 

 who directly or indirectly sells, gives, or furnishes 

 cigarettes, cigars, or tobacco in any form, to a 

 minor under sixteen years of age is subject by 

 summary conviction to a penalty not exceeding 

 $25, with or without costs, or to imprisonment 

 with or without hard labor, for a term not ex- 

 ceeding thirty days, or to both fine and imprison- 

 ment, at the discretion of the convicting magis- 

 trate. The youth who is found smoking or pos- 

 sessing cigarettes or tobacco was also made liable 

 to a penalty not exceeding $5, or to imprison- 

 ment for a period not exceeding seven days. The 

 subject was debated in the house on March 25, 

 when Mr. J. F. Whear declared that the use of 

 tobacco was increasing among the young, and 

 expressed his strong belief as to its detrimental 

 effect upon the mental faculties and nervous sys- 

 tem. Mr. Gordon thought the law could not be 

 enforced, and would tend to encourage smoking 

 rather than restrict it. A. J. McDonald consid- 

 ered the whole thing a farce and an injury to 

 trade. Mr. Hughes was afraid of the influence 

 this legislation would have upon the tobacco 

 trade, when profits were now very small. He was 

 in the drug business, and could testify to the 

 increase of the habit of smoking cigarettes. The 

 measure finally passed and became law. 



Agriculture. At a meeting of the Charlotte- 

 town Board of Trade on March 7, 1901, a reso- 

 lution was passed recapitulating the dependence 

 of the province upon its agricultural resources; 

 the suitability of the soil and climate for raising 

 the best kind of beets, as demonstrated by ex- 

 periment and analysis; the fact that a company 

 had been formed for the development of this in- 

 dustry and had announced its intention to estab- 

 lish a factory in the island, provided the Federal 

 Government would pay them a bonus of 1 cent 

 .a pound; the benefits which would accrue to the 

 farmers, laborers, and business men from such a 

 policy as well as from the expansion of trade, and 

 the consequent increase in transportation over the 

 island railway. It was therefore resolved : " That 

 in view of securing to the island the establish- 

 ment of a beet-sugar factory, we urge upon the 

 Dominion Government the necessity of a bounty 

 of 1 cent a pound for a term of three years 

 on the beet-sugar manufactured within this prov- 

 ince." But the Federal Government would not 

 go further than the admission of machinery free. 



On April 4 the Hon. Mr. Rogers, Commissioner 

 of Agriculture, presented the following motion to 

 the Legislature : " Resolved, that it is desirable 

 to introduce a bill to provide for the appointment 

 of a professor of agriculture, with annual salary 

 to be fixed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, 

 and for the organization of agricultural societies 

 throughout the province, and for the encourage- 

 ment of the various branches of the farming in- 

 dustry of this island by an annual grant of public 

 money to be distributed to such societies in pro- 

 portion to the number of their paying members." 

 Each agricultural society must have a member- 

 ship of 50, paying a fee of 50 cents, before the 

 Government grant of $50 was paid. Their esti- 

 mate was that 39 societies would ask for this 

 grant, involving an expenditure of $1,950. The 

 Professor of Agriculture had already been ap- 

 pointed at the Prince of Wales College, and his 

 duties would be the giving of instruction in the 

 college, management of the Government farm, lec- 

 turing throughout the province, the improvement 

 of stock-breeding, and filling the post of secretary 

 of the department. 



Meanwhile, in March, official statistics were 

 VOL. XLI. 36 A 



heese and 



,, showed 



4,4:j|,739 



i(,,. 



ot 



made public of the work <lor;e i.v ih< 

 butter 'factories of l!00. 'I \\<.' linn 

 59,901,455 pounds of milk receive.! 

 pounds of cheose made, .^ I !<;,(>:, l a-, 

 value of the cheose; 578,720 poii/ni 

 made, and $123,052 as its gross value. 



Road System. Perhaps the most import ;mt 

 legislation of the session was that, nhiim-.; \<> 

 public roads. On April 15 the Hon. Mr. CununiH- 

 key moved a resolution declaring that it wa.- <;,-- 

 sirable to repeal the public road act of IsTK, mid. 

 to provide for the carrying out of the: system in 

 a more efficient manner. He declared that people 

 throughout the province were crying out for a 

 change. He gave statistics of expenditure upon 

 the roads not including the value of statute 

 labor during the Conservative rule of 1881-'90 

 as having been $236,728, or an average of $23,672 

 a year. Under Liberal government, between 1891 

 and 1900, the amount was $238,489, or an average 

 of $23,848. In place of statute labor, where the 

 indolent man either threw the work upon his 

 neighbor or made himself and his neighbors suf- 

 fer from bad roads, it was proposed to impose 

 a small tax on men and horses now subject to 

 perform statute labor. Contracts for road con- 

 struction and repairing were to be thrown open 

 to public tender. Mr. Cummiskey estimated the 

 number of men subject to the new tax at 15,766, 

 and the horses at 20,055. The proposed levy of 

 75 cents on the former would bring a revenue of 

 $11,824, and on the latter of $5,013. The cost of 

 operating the roads under the new system, by 

 which road machines were to be used wherever 

 practicable, he placed at $20,860, while the aver- 

 age expenditure of recent years had been $23,848 

 without including statute labor. One machine 

 and 2 men could do the work of 50 men in the 

 ordinary way. 



As finally passed, the measure defined with care 

 the duties of road inspectors, contractors, over- 

 seers, justices of the peace, and stipendiary mag- 

 istrates. 



Education. The annual report of the Chief 

 Superintendent of Education was issued in April, 

 1901. The number of schools was given as 468, 

 the school districts as 471, and the school depart- 

 ments as 586. There were no schools vacant 

 during the year. The number of teachers em- 

 ployed was 586, of whom 314 were men and 272 

 women. There was an increase of 13 woman 

 teachers and a decrease of 9 man teachers over 

 1899. The number of pupils enrolled was 21,289, 

 a decrease of 261 from the previous year, and 

 the smallest number since 1882. The percentage 

 of attendance showed an increase. The expendi- 

 ture by the Government was $129,113, the largest 

 in the fifteen years with the exception of 1898. 

 The amounts voted at school meetings was $34,- 

 055. The average salaries of men showed very 

 little change, and included $774 as the highest 

 down to $180 as the lowest. The salaries of 

 women ranged from $357 to $130. The average 

 time spent in teaching was only four years, and 

 as soon as teachers could see their way to " law, 

 medicine, or husbands " they left the profession. 

 The superintendent summed up with the state- 

 ment that the close of the year 1900 marked 

 " the highest point yet reached " in the educa- 

 tional progress of the province. 



PRINTING, PROGRESS OF, IN RECENT 

 YEARS. Nearly all the improvements that have 

 been made in printing belong to the nineteenth 

 century. In 1800 there were printers in all the 

 large cities of the world, but they were using 

 practically the same rude tools and slow methods 

 that marked the work of Gutenberg, Caxton, and 



