SUMMERSIDE 



5623 



SUMTER 



system, are owned by the municipality. Okana- 

 gan College, which was temporarily closed in 

 1917, is located here. 



SUMMERSIDE, sum' er side, a town in 

 Prince Edward Island, the county town of 

 Prince County. It is on the south side of the 

 island, on Northumberland Strait, and is on 

 the Prince Edward Island Railway. The har- 

 bor is large and deep enough for ocean-going 

 vessels. Summerside has an export trade in 

 lobsters and oysters, the latter coming from the 

 famous Richmond Bay fisheries, three miles 

 away. The town is also noted as the center of 

 the fox-raising industry on the island. Popula- 

 tion in 1911, 2,678; in 1916, estimated, 2,800. 



SUM'NER, CHARLES (1811-1874), an Ameri- 

 can statesman of the period of the War of Se- 

 cession, one of the most outspoken and fearless 

 of the antislavery leaders. Lincoln spoke of 

 him as "my idea of a bishop," because he so 

 courageously de- 

 nounced whatever 

 he thought to be 

 wrong. Sumner 

 was born in Bos- 

 ton. After com- 

 pleting a course 

 at the Harvard 

 Law School he 

 was. admitted to 

 the bar (1834). 

 Between 1837 and 

 1840 he traveled 

 in Europe, and on 



his return home Senator of the United States, 

 began actively to oppose the extension of 

 slavery. In 1851 the Free-Soil party of Massa- 

 chusetts, by combining with the Democrats, 

 brought about his election to the United States 

 Senate, and he was a member of that body 

 until his death. 



Sumner's zeal as an antislavery leader led 

 to an assault upon his person. In 1856 he de- 

 livered a fiery speech entitled The Crime 

 Against Kansas, in which he severely criticized 

 one of the Senators from South Carolina. In 

 retaliation a Southern congressman, Preston 

 Brooks, attacked him with a cane while he was 

 alone in the Senate chamber, injuring him so 

 seriously that for three years he was unable 

 to appear in public life. Late in 1859 he re- " 

 sumed his place in the Senate, and for ten years 

 following 1861 he served as chairman of the 

 Committee on Foreign Relations. He was an 

 ardent worker for enfranchisement of the negro, 

 and he approved the impeachment of Johnson. 



CHARLES SUMNER 

 For over twenty years a 



In 1872 Sumner joined the Liberal Republic- 

 ans, whose candidate for the Presidency was 

 Horace Greeley, for he disagreed with Grant 

 on the latter's home and foreign policies. It is 

 especially to the credit of Sumner that he was 

 one of the first to advocate civil service reform. 



SUMPTUARY, sump'tuari, LAWS. The 

 word sumptuary, like sumptuous, comes from 

 a Latin word meaning expense, and sumptuary 

 laws are regulations to limit the amount of 

 money spent on private luxuries. Modern 

 political economy does not consider such laws 

 legitimate because they interfere with personal 

 liberty; but the idea in the past was that by 

 checking extravagance authorities could lessen 

 poverty and crime. 



The sumptuary laws of ancient Greece and 

 Rome forbade elaborate funerals, costly ban- 

 quets, and gold and silver embroidery on wom- 

 en's robes; at one time, indeed, there was a 

 Roman edict punishing guests as well as hosts 

 if the entertainment was more lavish than the 

 laws permitted. Similar laws have been com- 

 mon at various times in England, France, Scot- 

 land, Spain and Italy. From the time of Ed- 

 ward III until the Reformation the English 

 Parliament regulated the number of courses to 

 a meal two except on holidays and the dress 

 expenditure for each class of society. Only the 

 very wealthy might wear silk, this restriction 

 being intended in part to encourage woolen 

 manufacture in England. 



The nearest approach we have to-day to 

 sumptuary laws is found in legislation covering 

 the liquor traffic, such as license and prohibi- 

 tion laws. However, as their primary purpose 

 is to protect public health and morals, they are 

 generally considered as coming under the head 

 of police regulations. See BLUE LAWS. 



SUM'TER, FORT. See FORT SUMTER. 



SUMTER, S. C., the county seat of Sumter 

 County, is centrally located in the state, forty- 

 three miles southeast of Columbia, the state 

 capital, and eighty-three miles northwest of 

 Charleston. It is on the main line and several 

 divisions of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, 

 and on the Carolina, Atlantic & Western road. 

 Sumter is a center of cotton trade and has cot- 

 ton compresses, cotton and cottonseed-oil mills 

 and manufactories of furniture, telephones, golf 

 sticks and other commodities. The place was 

 settled in 1800 and became a city in 1887. In 

 1913 it adopted the commission form of gov- 

 ernment. The population in 1910 was 8,109; in 

 1916 it was 9,639 (Federal estimate). The area 

 exceeds three square miles. 



