DELAWARE. 



249 



Another important project carried forward 

 during 1871 is the Chesapeake & Delaware 

 Ship-Canal, which is to connect the Chesa- 

 peake River and Delaware Bay, and which was 

 projected many years ago. It is proposed to 

 begin somewhere about Bombay Hook, on 

 Delaware Bay, near Smyrna, and cut through 

 to the Sassafras River. The Sassafras now has 

 a depth of seven feet, which it is claimed can 

 easily be increased to twenty-five, and by this 

 route the canal would only be thirty-two miles 

 in length. 



The canal between Salem Creek and the 

 Delaware, begun nearly a century ago, was 

 completed in the fall of 1871. By this the rich 

 interior region will be open to drainage and to 

 navigation. 



The condition of the Junction & Break- 

 water Railroad, at the close of the year, was 

 precarious. It had no funds to meet the inter- 

 est on the State lien due on the 1st of January, 

 amounting to at least $12,000; a petition had 

 been filed in the United States District Court, 

 by a Philadelphia firm of locomotive-builders, 

 holding a note for about $11,000, protested 

 some months before, asking that it be declared 

 a bankrupt under the general act ; and other 

 proceedings against it were pending. This 

 road is a branch of the Delaware Railroad. 

 It extends from Harrington, a station of the 

 Delaware road, about sixteen miles south of 

 Dover, the capital of the State, eastward to 

 Milford, then south to Georgetown, then again 

 eastward to the Delaware Bay at Lewes, near 

 the "Breakwater" hence its name. Its ob- 

 ject is to furnish transportation of freights, 

 chiefly fruit and oysters, from the interior to 

 Lewes, there to be transshipped to New York. 

 It was built mainly by the State, which loaned 

 it $400,000, payable in 1890. The stock sub- 

 scription amounted to only about $150,000 in 

 cash, of which parties in New York subscribed 

 nearly one-third. It has encountered, from 

 the start in 1867 to the present time, all man- 

 ner of obstacles. Anticipating the possibility 

 of its sale for default of interest payment, a 

 general law was passed by the Legislature, 

 authorizing the State Treasurer to bid on be- 



half of the State at public sales of railroads 

 or of railroad stocks. 



In 1864 an act was passed by the Legisla- 

 ture, levying a tax of ten cents per head upon 

 every passenger travelling by steam-routes in 

 the State. The collection of this tax the Phil- 

 adelphia, "Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad 

 persistently resisted, on the ground of its un- 

 constitutionality, and a suit of the State Treas- 

 urer to recover it from the Company has long 

 been pending. At length the case came before 

 the Court of Errors and Appeals, the highest 

 tribunal of the State, and a unanimous decis- 

 ion against the act, so far as it imposes a tax 

 upon passengers travelling through, into, or 

 out of the State, was rendered. The court, 

 accepting the decision of the Supreme Court 

 of the United States, in the case of Crandall 

 vs. State of Nevada, as settling the principle 

 that a tax by a State upon what is known as 

 inter-state travel is invalid under the Federal 

 Constitution, concluded that the tax imposed 

 by the act in question was a tax upon the pas- 

 senger, to be collected by the carrier, and not 

 merely a tax upon the business of the carrier, 

 to be measured by the number of passengers, 

 as was urged upon the part of the State. The 

 Chief Justice also delivered an opinion fully 

 concurring in the conclusions above named, 

 but adding thereto his dissent from the grounds 

 upon which the majority of the Supreme Court 

 had based their decision in the Nevada case 

 preferring, with the minority of the Supreme 

 Court, to basethe principle, by which both that 

 case and the present one are settled, upon the 

 " commercial clause of the Constitution " giv- 

 ing Congress power to regulate commerce be- 

 tween States. The amount involved was about 

 $75,000. Notwithstanding this decision, the 

 tax was not repealed by the Legislature of 

 1871 ; and a bill was passed exacting a tax, in- 

 cluding this ten cent capitation tax, from the 

 Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Rail- 

 road Company, amounting to about $55,000. 



The following table gives the population of 

 the State for the year 1870, together with the 

 assessed value of all property, school attend- 

 ance, etc. : 



Of the whole number attending school in 

 the State, 1,195 were colored. Of those 21 

 years and over who cannot write, 3,466 are 

 white males; 4,566 white females ; 3,763 col- 

 ored males; 4,205 colored females. Value of 

 farm productions, including betterments and 

 additions to stock, $8,171,667; 58,316 pounds 



of wool were produced. True value of prop- 

 erty, $97,180,833. 



Wilmington, the only city in the State, had 

 at the close of 1871, according to the statistics 

 of the Board of Trade, about 35,000 inhab- 

 itants, an increase of more than 2,000 during 

 the year. The real estate in the city and sub- 



