is divided by the Legislature into districts, in each of which a district judge is elected for a term of four years. Other courts are established by the Legislature. Each county elects a county attorney, who serves for two years.
The property rights of husbands and wives are equal, each upon the death of the other inheriting one-third in value of his or of her real estate, while neither is liable for the separate debts of the other. The contracts made by the wife in her own name are enforced by or against her precisely as if she were unmarried. A married woman may sue or be sued without the husband being joined in the action. Women are by law eligible to all offices connected with the public schools. The legal rate of interest is 6 per cent., but 8 per cent. is allowed by contract. The State sends eleven members to the National House of Representatives.
Militia. In 1900 the total number of males of militia age was 475,760. In 1899 the organized militia, including men and officers, numbered 1873.
Population. The population of Iowa by decades is as follows: in 1840, 43,112; in 1850, 192,214; in 1860, 674,913; in 1870, 1,194,020; in 1880, 1,624,615; in 1890, 1,911,896; in 1900, 2,231,853. From twenty-seventh in rank in 1850, it advanced to tenth in 1880, which position it has since held. The per cent. of increase for the last decade of the century was 16.7, as compared with 20.7 for the United States. The native American settlers in Iowa came almost wholly from the older Northern States. The State was being settled during the period of heavy German and Scandinavian immigration, and a large number of these immigrants, particularly the former, secured homes; and the two combined constitute nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population, which numbered, in 1900, 305,920. The negro population numbered 12,693. In the total population the males are about 81,000 in excess of the females. There were, at the last census, 40.2 people to the square mile. There is no large centre of population in Iowa, and the percentage of the urban population is resultingly small as compared with most of the North Central States. In 1900 the 33 towns having a population exceeding 4000 each, contained 20.5 of the total population.
In 1900 the following cities exceeded 25,000 in population: Des Moines, 62,139; Dubuque, 36,297; Davenport, 35,254; Sioux City, 33,111: Council Bluffs, 25,802; Cedar Rapids, 25,656.
Religion. While the Catholics have the largest number of members of any Church, the membership of the Methodist Church, together with its adherents, is much stronger, and is almost twice as great as that of any other Protestant denomination. Among a large number of other churches represented, the largest in their order are: Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Disciples of Christ, and Congregationalists.
Charitable and Penal. There is a Board of Control of State Institutions appointed by the Governor and Senate. The board is vested with full power to manage, control, and govern the charitable and penal institutions of the State and to fix the salaries of officers and employees other than the chief executive officers. The following table shows the situation of the various institutions, the number of inmates on June 30, 1890, and the total and per capita expenditure of each for the year ending with that date:
| INSTITUTIONS | No. of Inmates |
Total expenditure |
Per capita expenditure |
| Soldiers' Orphans' Home, Davenport | 445 | $47,599 | $102.96 |
| Soldiers' Home, Marshalltown | 665 | 75,428 | 139.40 |
| College for Blind, Vinton | 228 | 25,692 | 164.10 |
| Industrial Home for Blind, Knoxville | 50 | 8,348 | |
| School for the Deaf, Council Bluffs | 265 | 43,321 | 157.18 |
| Institution for Feeble-Minded Children, Glenwood | 815 | 115,222 | 152.01 |
| Industrial School for Boys, Eldora | 473 | 50,668 | 104.15 |
| Industrial School for Girls, Mitchellville | 189 | 19,497 | 110.40 |
| Hospital for Insane, Mount Pleasant | 896 | 119,885 | 139.57 |
| Hospital for Insane, Independence | 1,050 | 137,563 | 136.60 |
| Hospital for Insane, Clarinda | 851 | 120,922 | 148.00 |
| State Penitentiary, Fort Madison | 524 | 81,493 | 156.72 |
| State Penitentiary, Anamosa | 529 | 120,849 | 207.28 |
| 6,980 | $966,487 | ||
The expenditure for the year given is considerably reduced from that of the preceding, although the care of the inmates improved decidedly during the same period. Under the new board, supplies for the various institutions are purchased at wholesale prices and under competitive bids. The graded system has been introduced in the penitentiaries, and the Anamosa prison has adopted the Bertillon system of measurements. On June 30, 1899, the various counties supported 621 insane patients in county asylums and 659 others at poorhouses. More than twenty counties have erected asylums for the care of the insane. There are also four private asylums, containing about 400 insane patients.
Education. According to the census of 1900, no State has a lower per cent. of illiterates than Iowa, the figure being only 2.3 per cent. of the population over ten years of age, as compared with 10.7 for the whole country. This showing is noteworthy in view of the fact that there is no compulsory school-attendance law. In 1899 76.2 of the population between five and twenty-one years were enrolled in public schools, of whom 65.6 attended ‘regularly.’ The average length of the school term in 1900 was 158 days, which was lower than it had been before for more than a decade. The State has had some very great administrative problems to contend with, notably the difficulty occasioned by too great multiplication of school districts, together with a decreasing rural population and the lack of gradation common in the country schools. In 1899, 34 per cent. of the independent schools and 54 per cent. of the sub-district schools had an average daily attendance of less than fifteen. In a few places the difficulty is being solved by the method of consolidation and transportation. In the above year 12,616 schools in the State were ungraded, as against 5561 that were graded. The
