town, a distance of 6 miles, and opened for business 

 in the summer of 1897. Authority to construct the 

 section in New Hampshire, 2 miles in length, was 

 granted by the Supreme Court after the board had 

 determined that the public good required it. Stock 

 to the amount of $12,000, which represents the cost 

 in this State, has been authorized by the board. The 

 road connects one of the most flourishing villages 

 in Vermont, which has heretofore had no railroad 

 accommodations, with the Boston and Maine, and 

 has a large traffic, much of which is freight. 



" The Dover and Somersworth road, about 8 

 miles in length, which was sold by order of the 

 court for $105,000, passed into the possession of the 

 purchasers, who were the bond owners, Feb. 1, 1897. 

 It was a wreck when they received it, and the pur- 

 chase price represented little more than the fran- 

 chise. They have reorganized the corporation and 

 with the approval of the board capitalized the in- 

 vestment in stock to the amount of $100,000 arid 

 issued $50,000 in bonds, the proceeds of which are 

 being applied to the reconstruction of the road, in 

 which they had expended $40,719.78, June 30. 



" The Nashua road reconstructed 13,286 feet of 

 its track. 



" The Manchester road was extended 16,750 feet 

 during the year, and 7 cars were added to its equip- 

 ment. 



" The 7 street railroads that were in operation 

 on July 1 last have an aggregate length of about 

 60 miles, with about 8 miles of double track and 

 sidings. They are capitalized at $1,358,500, of 

 which $740,000 is stock and $618,500 bonds, and 

 having a floating indebtedness of $91,719.23. They 

 earned last year $282,820.97, and expended for 

 operation and fixed charges $262,839.28. None of 

 them charged anything for depreciation of track or 

 equipments, and only one of them, the Manchester, 

 paid a dividend. The net earnings were 1 per 

 cent, of the stock and debts." 



The volume of traffic, though slightly larger than 

 in 1897, was below that of 1896, and the returns of 

 the steam railroads throughout the State do not 

 show a business recovery. The earnings in 1896 

 were $34,108,364.43: in 1898 they were $33.241,- 

 290.26, a loss of $869,074.17. 



The permanent improvements on the Concord and 

 Montreal have been completed. A new passenger 

 station and signal towers were built at Manchester. 



Road Building'. The New Hampshire College 

 of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts has been 

 making experiments in road building. For this 

 purpose they chose a section of what they term 

 " average country road " about a mile long. It was 

 66 feet wide and nearly straight as laid out ; but 

 masses of rock upon the sides in many places forced 

 the travel out of the direct line, and in other places 

 the same result was caused by ravines requiring 

 heavy fills. The traveled way was built 22 feet 

 wide in the middle of the laid-out 66 feet, and the 

 sidewalk was rebuilt on the north side of the laid- 

 out road. They reached the conclusion that there 

 is need of a lai'ge amount of rock work upon the 

 average country road ; that the steam drill is abso- 

 lutely essential for handling large rock masses, and 

 is capable of doing exceedingly economical work 

 that the ownership of the necessary plant, with 

 boiler and forge omitted, is within the means of a 

 large number of towns; that it may save the cost 

 of the entire plant in the first season; that it is 

 simple in construction, is made to stand banging, 

 and less liable to get out of order than ordinary 

 farm machines. 



Education. The State spent during the year 

 $5,939.25 for the Department of Public Instruction, 

 this amount being for the salaries of superintend- 

 ent and clerk, printing, and incidentals. The 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



485 





Teachers' Institutes received $2,233.41, and Dart" 

 mouth College $5,000. The latter graduated 71 

 men from the academic department. We quote 

 from Gov. Rollins's message to the Legislature of 

 1899: 



" The master of the State grange, Mr. N. J. Bach- 

 elder, in his annual address, says : ' The concentra- 

 tion of wealth has drained many rural towns of 

 their means of supporting schools, and it is mani- 

 festly the duty of the State to provide respectable 

 means of education for the children of the State r 

 irrespective of their location.' The movement 

 which the grange advocates is being taken up in 

 other States, and is a movement to increase the 

 size of the unit for educational purposes. In New 

 England our unit has always been the town. The 

 proposition now is to make it the State, or at least 

 the county. It is a broad question, and one merit- 

 ing careful examination, and will probably meet 

 with some antagonism from the wealthier commu- 

 nities ; but the possession of wealth brings with it re- 

 sponsibilities which may not be avoided. I doubt 

 if any State in the country is called upon for so lit- 

 tle direct aid for education as New Hampshire. 

 The appeal that comes to us from the rural sections 

 of the State for greater consideration is one which 

 will enlist your assistance if it can be given without 

 injustice to other localities. The State has assisted 

 Dartmouth College and the Agricultural College at 

 Durham in a desultory way." 



Law-and Order League. The State Law-and- 

 Order League held its annual meeting in Concord, 

 June 20, 1898. The report of the Executive Commit- 

 tee was in part as follows : " At the time of holding 

 the annual meeting of the league one year ago the 

 Legislature was in session and our prohibitory laws 

 threatened by the liquor interests of the State. Bills 

 were introduced by the liquor interests to repeal the 

 moiety clauses of the statutes, the nuisance act, and 

 to repeal all the existing prohibitory laws and substi- 

 tute a license law. Probably there was never a more 

 determined effort on the part of the liquor frater- 

 nity to repeal the laws. All attempts to weaken 

 the law were defeated by large majorities. The 

 final vote to repeal the prohibitory law and enact a 

 license law showed the largest majority in opposi- 

 tion to its repeal that has ever been known since 

 the law was placed on the statute books. 



il This, we think, has had a good effect, and has 

 led many of our people to feel that the laws on this 

 subject are likely to remain upon the statute books, 

 as stable as the granite hills. 



" A great gain has been made, especially in Chesh- 

 ire County. There are less than half as many 

 saloons in that county as there were one year ago. 



" A great effort has been made to accomplish 

 something in Hillsborough County. This is the one 

 county of all the ten in the State where it is ex- 

 ceedingly difficult to obtain a grand jury composed 

 of men who dare not violate their oath. It has 

 therefore been found necessary to take some course 

 whereby the use of the grand jury could be avoided. 

 Some of the members of the league obtained peti- 

 tions of more than 20 legal voters in the city of 

 Manchester asking the court to enjoin the owners 

 and proprietors of more than 40 liquor saloons in 

 that city under the nuisance act." 



The following is a list of the officers : President, 

 Hon. David H. Goodell, Antrim : Vice-Presidents, 

 Prof. E. W. Bingham, Derry ; Col. Daniel Hall, 

 Dover; Rev. Mr. Allis, North Conway ; Rush Chel- 

 lis Claremont ; Hon. Alvin Burleigh, Plymouth: 

 Rev. C. L. White, Nashua : Rev. J. P. Jordan, La- 

 coma ; Rev. Elihu Snow, Concord ; Dr. A. W. Wark, 

 Lancaster; Rev. E. J. Smith, Marlborough. Exec- 

 utive Committee. Rev. D. C. Babcock, "Dover; D. 

 C. Remich, Littleton ; Rev. J. H. Robbins. Con- 



