CIIARITADLE AND PENAL. INSTITUTIONS. The following is a list of the correctional and charita ble institutions of the State, with their situations: The average number of inmates in the ehari table institutions for the two years ending in June, Dam, was 9015. The ordinary expense to the state for the last year was 81.416,000, being an average pc r capita cost (gross) of $158.71. The above charitable institutions, together with the county jails and almshouses, and every asso ciation receiving dependent, neglected, and delin quent children, are subject to inspection by the State Board of Charities, consisting of five un salaried members. While the board exercises a great influence its power is merely advisory, and not executive. The paupers in the alms houses of the State in 1900 numbered nearly ta)00. Inf these, 311)0 were insane. The county system of outdoor relief is in vogue, and as it result the township Aker distributes alms with rather more generosity than judgment, making an average county expenditure of 20 cents per capita. while in several counties the combined outdoor and indoor relief consumes half the total county tax. to some respects the State has been exceptionally progressive. Especially noteworthy is the establishment of a juvenile court in coun ties exceeding 500,000 population. and a system of unsalaried parole officers, the working of which has resulted in a large number of children being cared for outside of prisons or institutions to which they would otherwise have been doomed. Reform methods have also been introduced in the penal institutions, supplemented by a wise parole system.
Illsroay. in 1673 Father Marquette ascended the Illinois River. and two years later established a Jesuit mission at the Indian village of Kas kaskia. La Salle entered the river in MD, named it Illinois from the tribes inhabiting the region, and built Fort CrTvecceur at the foot of what is now called Lake Peoria. his explora tions were continued by Tonty, whom lie left behind in l680 when lie returned to Canada. Fort Saint Louis on Starved Rook was built in and between 1683 and 1690 French traders ostablished themselves at Kaskaskia. Cahokia, and other Indian villages, though the actual of Kaskaskia, the oldest town in Illi Lois, probably dial not occur before 1700. By 1751 there were six important settlements within the present limits of the State. The French showed a remarkable aptitude for controlling the Indians and adapting themselves to their mode of life. Intermarriage between French and In dians was common, aid ties of friendship were established which lasted after the power of France had passed away. Pontiac's rising pre vented the English for two years from taking po,snssion of the Illinois country ceded to them in 1763. In general, conditions remained unal tered after the English occupation. but many prominent French settlers fled from English rule to Saint Louis. Natchez, and other towns in the valley of the Mississippi. in 177S-79 a force of Virgigians under George Rogers Clark (q.v.) captured Kaskaskia and subdued the provinee. Virginia ceded it-, claims to the southern part of region in 1784, .Massachusetts and Con necticut gave up their rights in the following year, and in 1787 the region became a part of the Northwest Territory. Ohio was set off in 1600, Indiana in 1602, and Michigan in 1805; what remained was organized as Illinois Territory on February 3, 1809. The hostility of the Indians prevented rapid settlement in the north. On August 15, 1812, the garrison at Fort. Dearborn (Chicago) was massacred. On August IS, ISIS, the first Constitution was adopted. On December 3 Illinois was admitted into the Union with boun daries so extended to the 110011 aa, to include the port of Chicago. By 1605 most of the Indian titles to land within the Territory had been extinguished. Tlicre ensued 11 period of wild land speculation, marked by stupendous frauds. The early immigrants, who came chiefly from the South, brought with them a decided predilection for slavery. The first Legislature passed strin gent laws to protect the few slaveholders in the State, and from ISIS to 1865 a harsh code of anti-negro laws, known as the 'Black Laws,' was in force. In 1824 an attempt was made to call a convention for the purpose of legalizing slavery in spite of the ordinance of 1757, but the pro ject was quickly and definitely defeated. The murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy (q.v.). at Alton, in 1837, however, showed the persistence of strong pro-slavery sentiment. After 1820 the people were hurried into an unhealthy state of precarious prosperity. Banks were established
at Edwardsville and Shawneetown, entirely on paper credit, and an elaborate system of internal improvements was begun. As the northern part of the State, after the Black Hawk War, com menced to till up with immigrants from New England and the :Middle States, the process of eemmunie development was accelerated. The Illi nois and _Michigan Canal was begun in 1834, and was built with the proceeds of the sale of public lands granted by Congress. The inception of other public improvements was followed by a panic in 1842, when the State bank suspended specie payments. The people, however, recovered quickly, and in 1850 Congress made an extensive cession of public lands to aid in the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad, an enterprise which contributed greatly to the development of the State. In 1840 the Mormons, who had im migrated from Missouri and founded Nauvoo, be gan to figure in the politics of Illinois. Wel comed at first, they became in the course of a very few years obnoxious to the mass of the inhabitants. Acting as a unit, under autocratic direction, they succeeded in obtaining exclusive privileges from the Legislature. Their religious practices jarred with the feelings of their neigh bors; they were inclined to look upon Gentiles with superciliousness; they were prosperous. Bitter fecling.s led to hostile action in 1814, when Joseph Smith, founder of the sect, while in prison at Carthage on the charge of treason, was murdered by a mob. In the following year the Mormons left Illinois. In 1858 occurred the great contest for the United States Senatorship be tween Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. At the outbreak of the Civil War Illinois was in an extremely prosperous eondition. It pro duced three-fifths of all the grain exported to Europe, and was the second State in the I'nion in railway mileage. During the war the State readily furnished its quota of troops, sending 260,000 men into the field. In peace, its pros perous development continued. In 1865 Chicago had become the leading stock market of the world, and a great grain centre. Legislation be tween 1865 and 1885 was largely concerned with corporations, and especially with the railroad companies. The Constitution of 1870, replacing the one adopted in 1849, forbade the creation of corporations by special law. A State board of railroad commissioners was created to protect the interests of the State against the railway companies, and the Legislature frequently at tempted to fix a maximum for transportation, and to prevent discrimination in rates. Between ]S72 and 1875 the farmers of Illinois partici pated in the widespread Granger movement of the time. (See GRANGE.) On October 8-10, 1871, a fire laid waste a large part of Chicago and rendered 100,000 people homeless. The loss to the city was estimated at nearly $300,000,000. The action of the Mayor in calling in the Federal troops to preserve order during the excitement following the calamity occasioned a bitter dis pute between that official and the Governor of the State, who showed himself jealous for the honor of the civil authority. A general feeling of unrest found expression in 1885 and 1S86 in bitter strikes and bloody riots; in Chicago an Anarchist crowd attacked the police with pis tols and dynamite. ]n 1593 the Columbian Ex position was held in Chicago. In 1S94 a strike of the employees of the Pullman Palace Car Com pany developed into a genera] strike of railway men. Traffic in Illinois was almost suspended, and in June lawlessness broke out. Interference with the United States mails led to the intervention of the Federal Government. Chicago was occu pied by the Federal troops: the leaders of the strikers were arrested on civil process, and sen tenced to short terms of imprisonment for con tempt of court. The backbone of the strike was thus broken. In national politics Illinois was Democratic before 1860. In that year it east its vote for Lincoln, and since that time it has been consistently Republican with the exception of the year 1892, when it voted for Grover Cleve• land. In State politics the year 1857 is the line of demarcation between Democratic and Repub lican ascendency.
plete History of Illinois from 1673.1873 (Spring field, 1874) ; Wallace, History of Illinois and Louisiana Under French Rule (Cincinnati, 1893) ; Moses, Illinois, Historical and Statistical (Chicago, 1893) ; Judson, The Government of Illinois (New York, 1900) ; Mason, Chapters of Illinois History (Chicago, 1900) ; Bateman and Selby, Historical Encycloperdia of Illinois (Chi cago, 1900).