UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. (RHODE ISLAND.) 



793 



Lieutenant-Governor, George L. Shepley; Secre- tended that their restrictive rights and " negative 



tary of State, Charles P. Bennett; General Treas- easements" were destroyed; and furthermore if 



urer, Walter A. Reed; Attorney-General, Charles AU ~ TT - :A ~ J a**- -- 

 F. Stearns; Auditor and Insurance Commissioner, 

 Charles C. Gray; Commissioner 



of Education, 



Thomas B. Stockwell; Adjutant-General, Fred- 

 erick M. Sackett; Railroad Commissioner, E. L. 

 Freeman; Commissioner of Industrial Statistics, 

 Henry E. Tiepke; Record Commissioner, R. Ham- 

 mett Tilley; Factory Inspectors, J. Ellery Hud- 

 son, Helen M. Jenks; Surgeon-General, George 

 H. Kenyon; Inspector of Beef and Pork, James 

 R. Chase; Inspector of Lime, Herbert Harris; 

 Commissioners of Sinking-Funds, John W. Daniel- 

 son and Henry B. Metcalf ; Inspector of Cables, S. 

 B. Hoxsie, Jr.; Inspector of Scythe Stones, W. 

 H. Comstock ; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 

 John H. Stiness; Associate Justices, Pardon E. 

 Tillinghast, George A. Wilbur, Horatio Rogers, 

 W. W. Douglas, Edward C. Dubois, and John T. 

 Blodgett; Clerk, B. S. Blaisdell. All the State 

 officers are Republican^. 



Charles Dean Kimball, elected Lieutenant-Gov- 

 ernor, succeeded Gov. William Gregory, who died 

 on Dec. 16, 1901. George L. Shepley, having duly 

 qualified as the Deputy Chief Executive of the 

 State, took the oath of office as Lieutenant-Gov- 

 ernor on Feb. 18. 



The State officers are elected annually in No- 

 vember, the term beginning in the following Jan- 

 uary. The Legislature holds annual sessions, be- 

 ginning in January. The length of the sessions 

 is not limited, but the legislators can draw pay 

 for only sixty days. 



Legislative Session. On the last day prior 

 to the recess, April 4, the following laws were 

 passed : A ten-hour law for street-railway employ- 

 ees, a free transfer-ticket act, a fifty-eight-hour 

 law for women and children. 



A law was passed providing for the building of 

 State roads, and in pursuance thereof the State 

 Board of Public Roads was organized on April 16. 

 The " merger " bill was passed, creating the Rhode 

 Island Company, which is expected to acquire and 

 control the local traction, gas, and electric -light- 

 ing corporations. 



The divorce law, as amended by the General As- 

 sembly, went into effect on July 1. It requires of 

 petitioners a domicile in the State of more than 

 two years, instead of one year as before, and con- 

 tains several other provisions tending to render 

 divorces more difficult. 



Amendments of the Constitution were submit- 

 ted to the electors, the most important of which 

 were Article XII, relieving the Governor and Sec- 

 retary of State, respectively, from the duty of pre- 

 siding over and keeping the records of the Senate, 

 and Article XIII, securing to the minority party in 

 the city of Providence a representation in the Leg- 

 islature through the election of Assemblymen by 

 wards or voting districts, in the same manner that 

 aldermen or councilmen are chosen. These arti- 

 ticles were defeated at the November election. 



Judicial Decision. One of the most important 

 opinions from the United States Circuit Court for 

 the district of Rhode Island in recent years was 

 given by Judge Arthur L. Brown on the subject 

 of the condemnation of lands in the town of 

 Jamestown for Government purposes. The plain- 

 tiffs, James W. Newlin and Annie Ruff, owned 

 neither the land taken by the United States nor 

 the land adjoining it. But as the restrictive pro- 

 vision of the deeds of land in the Ocean island 

 plat (including their lands and the lands appro- 

 priated for military purposes) forbade the location 

 of any slaughter-house, forge, places for selling or 

 compounding liquors, etc., on the plat, they con- 



LUCIC8 F. C. GARVIN, 

 GOVERNOR OF RHODE ISLAND. 



the United States should abandon its use of 

 the lands taken and convey its title to private 

 individuals, its grantees would have the right 

 to carry on any of the offensive trades men- 

 tioned in the Highland deeds. The claim for 

 compensation was about $350,000. Judge Brown 

 held that the 



claimants had no HHHIMHM||MMH^^BH 

 property rights j 

 under their deeds 

 to prevent such 

 a use as the Uni- 

 ted States intends 

 to make of the 

 lands. " There is a 

 clear distinction," 

 he said, " between 

 injurious acts 

 done by private 

 individuals for 

 their own benefit 

 and working inju- 

 rious conse- 

 quences, and acts, 

 perhaps equally 

 injurious, done for 

 a public purpose 

 in the execution 

 of a public duty." 



Industries. The Providence Ice Company, 

 which was organized over a year ago, and which 

 took up the active operation of the majority of 

 the ice interests in Providence about Jan. 1, has 

 been absorbed by the New England Consolidated 

 Ice Companies, the capitalization of which is $14,- 

 000,000. The new company is made up, to a con- 

 siderable extent, of the same men who were iden- 

 tified with the organization of the Providence Ice 

 Company. 



The American Screw Company, of Providence, 

 has absorbed the Massachusetts Screw Company,, 

 of Holyoke, Mass. The new plant will be re- 

 moved to Providence and run in connection with 

 the two large plants that the company already 

 operate there. The producing capacity of the 

 new plant will be at least 200,000 gross daily, 

 though it is far smaller than either of the plants 

 already in operation. 



The largest foundry in the State is being erect- 

 ed by the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Com- 

 pany. The buildings will cover an area 380 by 

 380 feet. When the foundry is completed, 300 

 men will be added to the 2,000 already employed. 



The census report shows Providence to be first 

 in jewelry, silverware, and screws, and second in 

 worsted goods, oleomargarine, and files. The other 

 towns of Rhode Island compare favorably in spe- 

 cial industries among the leading manufacturing 

 centers of the nation, Pawtucket ranking seventh 

 and Warwick tenth in cotton goods, Attleboro 

 fourth and North Attleboro fifth in jewelry. 



Coal. Coal was discovered at Phillipsdale, East 

 Providence, some years ago. But the mine was 

 neglected until the recent high price of coal made 

 mining in this locality advisable. The mine has 

 been proved to contain an abundance of good hard 

 coal, and mining will be undertaken on an exten- 

 sive scale as soon as the engine which has been 

 erected has pumped out the water. 



The Cranston coal-mine, which has been worked 

 at intervals since 18(>4. is also about to be devel- 

 oped by the New England Briquette Coal Com- 

 pany, which has erected an extensive plant. All 

 Rhode Island coal findings are said to develop bet- 

 ter coal the deeper it is obtained from the surface- 



