588 



MARYLAND. 



tion and inspection of tobacco, which have be- 

 come a losing investment, and their transfer 

 to private individuals is proposed. The aver- 

 age amount of tobacco received and shipped 

 for seven years, ending September, 1878, has 

 been 52,758 hogsheads per annum, or an aggre- 

 gate of 369,306 hogsheads. The money ex- 

 pended for labor alone to handle and inspect 

 this tobacco has amounted during this time to 

 $532,532, or an annual average of about $76,- 

 000. 



The number of insane patients in the hos- 

 pital at the end of the year was 329. The in- 

 crease for the last two years has been 18 per 

 cent, per annum. There has been a marked 

 improvement in the condition of most of the 

 almshouses and jails in the counties, which 

 were so severely criticised two years ago. 



The total number of committals to the House 

 of Correction up to the end of the year was 

 493, of whom 310 were males and 183 females. 

 The cost of maintaining the institution to the 

 end of the fiscal year was $17,918. The male 

 prisoners have been employed principally in 

 grading the land around the building, and the 

 females in making up the uniforms and other 

 suitable clothing. A large number have also 

 been engaged in sewing upon contract work, 

 from which the sum of $791.60 has been real- 

 ized. During the year the section of the law 

 which authorizes justices of the peace to com- 

 mit " habitually disorderly " persons to the 

 House of Correction was called into question, 

 and the claim was set up that it was unconstitu- 

 tional. Several persons were brought out upon 

 writs of habeas corpus, and some were released. 

 A test case was finally made, and argued by the 

 Attorney-General before the Chief Justice of 

 the State, who gave a formal opinion sustaining 

 the validity of the law. 



In the State Penitentiary the highest num- 

 ber of prisoners during the year was 929, and 

 the average number 813, of whom 693 were 

 kept constantly employed on contract work. 

 There were only 18 deaths during the year, 

 about two per cent, of the inmates, and the 

 loss of time from sickness was two and a half 

 days in the year for each man. The total cost 

 of the support of the penitentiary for the year 

 ending December 1st was $85,541.40, and the 

 receipts from all sources for the same time 

 amounted to $98,543.25, showing a balance to 

 the credit of the prison and due to the Trea- 

 sury of $13,001.85. In addition to this, there 

 has been earned by the prisoners for overwork 

 the sum of $8,280.62, of which they will get the 

 benefit as they serve out their time. 



The whole force of the State militia consists 

 of one full regiment in the city of Baltimore, 

 and a number of companies in the various coun- 

 ties, aggregating 1,400 men. This organization 

 is thoroughly armed, equipped, and disciplined. 

 The cost of the force has been reduced to $15,- 

 000 a year. 



The estimated production of the Clearfield 

 coal region for 1879 was about 1,600,000 tons, 



as against 1,270,262 tons for 1878, showing an 

 increase of about 330,000 tons. The Cumber- 

 land region shipped 1,702,993 tons, an increase 

 for 1879 of about 52,000 tons. 



The latest published report of the condition 

 of the public schools made by the Board of 

 Education is for the year ending July 31, 1878. 

 As compared with the school year 1877, the 

 number of schools in the State shows an in- 

 crease of 33, numbering in all 1,989, and the 

 pupils an increase of 5,998, an aggregate of 

 156,274 for the year. The highest enrollment 

 in any term was 127,455, or 7,169 more than 

 in 1877, and the average attendance was 81,- 

 829, an increase of 6,103. The teachers num- 

 bered 8,071, an increase of 175. In the city of 

 Baltimore the schools were open ten months in 

 the year, in the counties 8'7, giving an average 

 of 9'1 months for the whole State. The total 

 expenditures for school purposes for city and 

 counties during the fiscal year amounted to $1,- 

 593,259.66, an increase of $48,744.12 over 1877. 

 The total expenses for county schools in 1878 

 were $915,283.64, showing a decrease from 

 those of 1877 of $12,941.40. The Secretary 

 of the Board states that of 69,303 children 

 between the ages of six and eighteen years, 

 as shown by the school census of the city of 

 Baltimore for 1876, only 44*5 per cent, were 

 in public schools, 12 per cent, in private schools, 

 and 34'5 per cent, in neither. He admits 

 that a compulsory law for school attendance 

 has been tried elsewhere and failed, and then 

 proceeds to suggest a different class of schools 

 for the " neglected," based on the idea of pe- 

 cuniary advantage to such as the incentive. 

 He is firmly persuaded that the judicious 

 expenditure of $15 a year per capita would 

 bring a majority of the neglected children 

 within the reach of instruction, and proposes 

 the following plan for such schools : 



As to hours : Two hours a day instead of six at first. 

 As to attendance: Irregularity no cause for loss of 

 privileges at first. As to dress : Bags no objection ; 

 even dirt tolerated at first. As to methods of teach- 

 ing : Oral and objective as far as possible. As to stud- 

 ies : Hand- work made prominent ; memory- work 

 diminished ; music and drawing in large doses. As to 

 other occupations : Callisthenic exercises ; gymnastics 

 and military drill ; also some form of industrial oc- 

 cupation leading finally to the acquisition of a trade. 

 As to rewards : A pair of shoes to the shoeless when 

 they are earned, and not sooner ; no charity given, 

 but payment made on a given scale for work done. 



Technical education has many strong advo- 

 cates in the State, but nothing has yet been de- 

 vised to secure it. In Baltimore the colored 

 voters held a series of meetings for the purpose 

 of agitation on the subject of colored teachers 

 for colored schools. One speaker said : " If 

 the white teachers who have been teaching 

 our children all this time have not been able 

 to turn out one teacher among them all, what 

 kind of teachers must they be ? It is not rea- 

 sonable to suppose that a white teacher will 

 try as hard to push a colored child as one of 

 his own race. They will not throw their 

 hearts into it. The white people are not very 



