1703

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property of the individual Districts. The salaries paid to
clerks and examiners were from the County levy. Our peo-
ple have always paid their school taxes with alacrity; so
willing indeed are they to do so, that when there was actu-
ally no law, through some oversight in codification, to com-
pel them, they voluntarily and unhesitatingly paid the re-
quired assessment.

In this connection I may be permitted to reply to the in-
quiry made in your circular of September 24. " What ac-
tion has been instituted to secure the continuance of the
local tax for prolonging the school terms, and procuring
necessary apparatus for efficient school work?" In ac-
cordance with your suggestion the attention of the people of
the County was called, through the public prints, to the
fact, that after the first day of January, 1867, by provision
of the constitution, all local laws for the collection of taxes
for the support of schools would be abrogated, and that the
proportionate share of Talbot County of the fund derived
from State taxation would be sufficient to keep the schools
open but one half of the year; that, in order that County
taxation might be authoritatively made, it would be neces-
sary for the people to express their assent through the bal-
lot box. I requested that the tickets to be used upon the
day of the election should have upon their face such expres-
sions as should indicate the views of the voters upon this
subject, and they were so printed. The result showed that
there was no opposition worthy of consideration in any other
than one district, and there, I feel sure, the opposition origi-
nated from a misconception of the nature of the question at
issue. The majority in the whole County was 967 in a vote
of 1531, only 282 ballots having been cast against author-
izing the Legislature to pass a law for Local Taxation to
support the schools.

III. " Your opinion of the general intelligence of the peo-
ple of the County, and whether there are many who
cannot read and write."

I think we can compare favorably with any of our sister
Counties, in general intelligence. There is no evidence that
we are lacking in that faculty called by some metaphysi-
cians and known by common people as common, sense,—the
faculty which makes us to do our part in the work of the
world successfully and well. We are all farmers, and it is
said by strangers, very successful farmers; not inapt to seise
hold of all advantages, and by applying mind to matter,
work out our good. We are secluded from the rest of the
world, bnt only so far secluded as to escape the mental and
moral epidemics which pass over other communities. Our
people, like all others purely agricultural, are not so bright
and smart as the residents of towns and cities, whose wits