734 



PAPER ENVELOPES, BAGS, ETC. 



receives an annual appropriation from the 

 State of $5,000. The State Agricultural Col- 

 lege at Corvallis has 5 instructors and 52 

 students. There are normal schools at Ash- 

 land, Monmouth, Drain, and Weston. There 

 were reported in 1886, 44 colleges and acade- 

 mies. The State has a school for the educa- 

 tion of the blind and also a school for educating 

 deaf-mutes. 



Penitentiary. The following is a statement of 

 convicts received, discharged, and remaining: 

 Number remaining Dec. 31, 1884, 274; received 

 from Jan. 1, 1885, to Dec. 31, 1886, 251 ; escapes 

 recaptured, 1 ; returned from insane asylum, 

 1 ; discharged, 241 ; highest number confined, 

 298 ; lowest number, 268; daily average num- 

 ber, 278-71. The total appropriation for 1885 

 and 1886 was $58,420 ; total expenditure, $57,- 

 172.26. The cash earnings for the two years 

 were $36,063.82. In addition, nearly 4,000,000 

 of brick were manufactured by convict-labor 

 for the State. 



Constitutional Amendments. The last Legisla- 

 ture proposed three amendments to the Con- 

 stitution, one relating to the salaries of State 

 officers, one relating to prohibition, and one 

 changing the time of State elections from June 

 to November. Action upon those proposed 

 amendments is required at the session of 1887, 

 and, if they are agreed to, it will be its duty to 

 submit them to the voters of the State for 

 final action. The suggestion has been made 

 that a convention should be called to revise 

 the Constitution. ."But it is not at all neces- 

 sary," says the Governor, " that a convention 

 should be called. We have a safe conservative 

 Constitution now, and the necessary changes, 

 if any, can be made by the slower and better 

 way that of legislative suggestion." 



Registry Law. Both parties having declared 

 for it, the Legislature at its last regular session 

 passed a general election law, among the pro- 

 visions of which was one requiring the regis- 

 tration of voters preceding each election. At 



the special session following, some imperfec- 

 tions in the law were remedied, and another 

 act was passed, definitely describing the man- 

 ner in which registration should be made, and 

 the necessary steps were taken for carrying it 

 into effect. A few days preceding the time 

 mentioned in the law, in which registration 

 should be made, the various officers appointed 

 to carry it into effect abandoned all further 

 compliance with its provisions in regard to 

 registration, and as a consequence the opera- 

 tion of the law in that regard was suspended. 

 This condition of affairs . was the result of a 

 suit brought before the courts by a citizen of 

 Multnomah County, in which it was demanded 

 of the court that an injunction be issued against 

 the county commissioners of that county re- 

 straining them from auditing and allowing bills 

 against the county incurred in the execution 

 of the registration law. The Supreme Court 

 commanded the issuance of the injunction 

 prayed for, for the reason, as alleged by the 

 court, that that part of the statute relating to 

 registration was not the law of the State, it be- 

 ing, in the judgment of two of the three judges 

 of that court, in conflict with u provision of 

 the State Constitution. 



Statistics. The following figures are from the 

 census of 1885, Baker County missing: Pounds 

 of wool, 9,165,830; number of sheep, 1,636,- 

 929; of hogs, 202,612 ; "horses, 165,909; mules, 

 3,591; cattle, 373,247; acres under cultiva- 

 tion, 1,243,904; bushels of wheat, 8,933.718; 

 oats, 6,247,300 ; barley and rye, 1,694,614; 

 corn, 273,497; tons of hay, 377,822; pounds 

 of butter and cheese, 3,287,923 ; bushels of 

 flax-seed, 14,262; pounds of hops, 2,547,378; 

 bushels of potatoes, 2,650,284; of apples, 2,- 

 005.373; prunes and plums, 150,306; tons of 

 coal, 29,600; pounds of silver, 100; ounces of 

 gold-dust, 14,965; feet of lumber, 169,135,- 

 726; pounds of tobacco, 13,207; of salmon, 

 3,316 barrels, 483,594 cases, and 404 kits; 

 3,155 baskets of oysters. 



PAPER ENVELOPES, BAGS, Etc. Prior to 

 1830 envelopes w.ere unknown, and they were 

 not generally adopted in this country until 

 about 1850. Letters were written on large 

 sheets of paper folded so that the writing 

 could not readily be seen, and were secured 

 with sealing-wax or wafers. The introduction 

 of cheap letter-postage in England in January, 

 1840, largely increased the volume of corre- 

 spondence by mail, and created a demand for 

 some quicker and easier method of folding and 

 sealing. An English stationer named Brewer 

 is believed to have been the first to introduce 

 to the public the paper envelope substantially 

 as it exists to-day. That such envelopes, made 

 of leather, parchment, or even of paper, have 



been used for special purposes from time im- 

 memorial, goes without saying. 



The popular history of envelopes is closely 

 identical in Great Britain and in the United 

 States, and in both countries it dates from the 

 introduction of cheap letter-postage. Until 

 1839 the British Post-Office charged double 

 rates for two pieces of paper, no matter in 

 what shape, which, of course, prohibited en- 

 velopes. The postage-reform act was passed 

 on Aug. 17, 1839, and on the 10th of January, 

 1840, the penny-postage letter-rate went into 

 effect. Envelopes soon began to make their 

 appearance in the mails, but were not very 

 generally used until the introduction of stamps 

 and stamped envelopes by the Government, 



