342 



MADAGASCAR. 



MAIXE. 



Hovas' country, they have heed all slaves. The 

 emancipation proclamation was issued on Sept. 27, 

 1896. The Hova Government compelled the com- 

 mon people to work without pay at all times when 

 the Queen desired their services. This system of 

 forced labor the French have retained in a modi- 

 fied form, requiring the natives to labor on the 

 roads or other public works for thirty days in the 

 year. Besides duties on foreign goods exceeding 

 50 per cent, ail valorem, many money taxes are 

 impoM'd. Duties on French imports are 4 per cent. 

 The Hovas and the tribes in the central dis- 

 tricts who were under their immediate dominion 

 were nominally converted to Christianity before 

 the French occupation. English Congregational- 

 i>m was 'adopted as the state religion, and was 

 professed by the aristocracy generally. The An- 

 glicans, the' Friends, and the American and Nor- 

 wegian Lutherans also established missions, and 

 French Catholics secured 50,000 converts, the num- 

 ber of Protestants being about 450,000. Since the 

 establishment of French rule the English Protes- 

 tant missionaries, who encouraged the Hovas to 

 ie>i*tam-e, have been discountenanced, and many 

 of the natives have embraced the Roman Catholic 

 faith. Through this wholesale conversion of for- 

 mer Protestants by the French priests the property 

 of many of the Protestant missions was forfeited 

 in 1897, but some of their churches have since been 

 restored to the Protestant societies. The mission- 

 aries used to teach 170,000 Malagasy children in 

 1,800 schools. The French have established secular 

 schools, and in 1897 they opened a technical school 

 in which natives are taught to be blacksmiths, 

 tinsmiths, painters, carpenters, tailors, potters, etc. 

 The natives can work skillfully in their own way 

 in metal and wood and weave cloth from cotton, 

 .silk, and rafia fiber. Their principal occupations 

 are agriculture and the breeding of cattle. Rice, 

 sugar, cotton, coffee, cacao, cloves, vanilla, and 

 yams are cultivated. The forests are of vast ex- 

 tent and rich in valuable woods. The most im- 

 portant commercial product at present is rubber, 

 which is shipped to London and Hamburg. French 

 enterprise and colonization are encouraged by free 

 grants of land, and land is offered for sale to for- 

 eigners. Mining companies must be under French 

 management, and some have lost their concessions 

 and American and other claimants to lands con- 

 ceded by native chiefs have been ousted because 

 their rights were not recognized by French law. 

 .Many mining concessions have been granted, but 

 only a few are worked, mainly gold mines. Besides 

 gold, copper, iron, galena, sulphur, graphite, and 

 lignite have been found. The chief ports are 

 Tamatave, on the east coast, and Mnjunga, on the 

 west coast, each with about 6,000 inhabitants. An- 

 tananarivo, the capital, has 70,000 or more. The 

 local revenue of Madagascar is about 10,000,000 

 tin iics. The expenditure of France in 1900 was 

 25,181,048 francs. The debt was converted in 1897 

 into 2|-per-eent. bonds amounting to 20,000,000 

 francs, requiring an annual expenditure for inter- 

 est and amortization of 960,000 francs. By the 

 operation 3,854,478 francs were saved, and the 

 savings were applied to building roads and other 

 improvements. For the construction of railroads, 

 telegraphs, lighthouses, and harbor works a new 

 loan of 60,000,000 francs is authorized. Tele- 

 graphs connect Antananarivo with Tamatave and 

 with Majunga, whence a cable has been laid to 

 Mozambique. Other telegraph lines run to Manan- 

 zary, on the east coast, from the capital and from 

 Fianarantsoa. A railroad from Antananarivo to 

 Tamatave is projected, to be built by a French 

 company which will receive concessions of lands, 

 mining rights, etc. The lagoons running along 



the east coast are to be dredged out so as to form 

 a continuous canal. During 1898 the ports of 

 Madagascar were visited by 6,061 vessels, of 

 879,362 tons, and of this tonnage 734,068 tons 

 were French, 78,053 British, and 39,305 German. 

 Of the imports, amounting to 21,641,000 francs, 

 17,030,000 francs were French, 1,048,000 francs 

 British, and 435,000 francs German. Of the ex- 

 ports, amounting to 4,960,000 francs, 1,867,000 

 francs went to France, 823,000 francs to Great 

 Britain, and 1,052,000 francs to Germany. The 

 legal coin is the French 5-franc piece, which the 

 people formerly cut into pieces to be used for 

 fractional currency. The Government has forbid- 

 den this practice and redeemed the cut coins, al- 

 lowing 5 francs for 30 grammes of the silver, the 

 weight of the 5-franc piece being 25 grammes, and 

 now fractional French coins, silver and copper, are 

 coming into use. The military force maintained 

 by France in Madagascar in 1900 consisted of 

 9,187 infantry and 2,118 artillery and engineer-. 

 There were 375 French officers, 764 French and 

 285 native noncommissioned officers, and 2,700 

 French and 7,215 native privates; total, 11,305 of 

 all ranks. The French budget appropriated 22,- 

 375,482 francs for military expenses in Mada- 

 gascar. 



About the beginning of 1900 the plague broke 

 out in Tamatave, and in spite of the enforced 

 isolation of the town, entailing much hardship, it 

 spread to other places. The gold mines in 1!H)() 

 yielded three times as much as in the preceding 

 year. The Transvaal war interfered with trade 

 to some extent. Fortifications were erected at 

 Diego Suarez, and two artillery batteries were 

 sent out. A total force of 4,100 men was dis- 

 patched to Madagascar, comprising besides these 

 100 French gunners, 2 battalions of the foreign 

 legion of Algiers, 1 battalion of Soudanese and 

 1 of Senegalese sharpshooters, and a battalion of 

 marine infantry. 



MAINE, a New England State, admitted to 

 the Union March 15, 1820; area, 33,040 square 

 miles. The population, according to each decen- 

 nial census since admission, was 298,269 in 1820; 

 399,455 in 1830; 501,793 in 1840; 583.169 in 1850; 

 628,278 in 1860; 626,915 in 1870; 648,936 in 1880; 

 661,086 in 1890; and 694,647 in 1900. 



Government. The following were the State 

 officers during the year: Governor, Llewellyn 

 Powers; Secretary of State, Byron Boyd; Treas- 

 urer, F. M. Simpson; Attorney-General, William 

 T. Haines; Adjutant General, John T. Richards: 

 Superintendent of Schools, W. W. Stetson; Bank 

 Examiner, F. E. Timberlake: Insurance Commis- 

 sioner, S. W. Carr: Liquor Commissioner, Jamen 

 W. \Vakefield; State Librarian, Leonard D. Car 

 ver ; Land Agent, Charles E. Oak ; Commissioner 

 of Fish and Game, H. O. Stanley: Railroad Com- 

 missioners, Joseph B. Peaks. Benjamin F. Chad 

 bourne. Frederic Danforth : State Topographical 

 Survey. Leslie A. Lee, William Engel, Charles S. 

 Hichbom: State Board of Health, C. D. Smitli. 

 President ; Inland Fish and Game, Leroy T. Carle- 

 ton; Commissioner of Labor and Industrial Sta- 

 tistics, Samuel W. Matthews: Pension Agent, E. 

 C. Milliken: Chief Justice. John A. Peters; Su- 

 preme Court Judges, L. A. Emery, Thomas II. 

 Haskell, Andrew K Wiswell, S. C.' Strout, A. K. 

 Savage, William A. Fogler; State Detective, Fred 

 A. Porter; Clerk, W. S. Choate; Census Super- 

 intendents. Elmer P. Spofford, James A. Place 

 all Republicans except Justice Strout. 



Population. The population in 1900, by coun- 

 ties, was as follows: Androscoggin, 54,242; Aroo?- 

 took, 60,744; Cumberland, 100,689; Franklin, 18,- 

 444; Hancock, 37,241; Kennebec, 5!).! 17; Knox, 



