Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/960

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926
VERRALL—VILLA

lectively certain services beyond 'the reach of the separate plants, such as the buying of supplies, the selling of products, and stand- ardized accounting.

Manufacture. The reports for the five-year period 1914-9 show a substantial increase in the manufacturing activities of the state, due in large measure to demands of the World War. The number of establishments increased from 1,772 to 1,790, or 1%; persons engaged from 37,217 to 38,845, or 4-4%; salaried employees from 2,726 to 3,550, or 30-2%; wage earners from 32,704 to 33,491, or 2-4%; capital increased from $79,847,000 to $134,314.391. or 68-2 %; value of products from $76,990,974 to $168, 108,072, or 1 18-3 %; value added by manufacture from $34,285,254 to $72,935.491. or 112-7%. In 1919 Vermont had 15 manufacturing industries the value of whose products were over $1,000,000 each, namely: marble and stone; woollen and worsted goods; paper and wood pulp; lumber and timber products; machine tools; butter; condensed milk; flour-mill and grist-mill products; other food preparations; knit goods; foundry and machine cars; general ship construction and repairs by steam railway; furniture planing-mill products; bakery products.

History. In 1915 a workmen's compensation law was en- acted, denying common-law defences to those employers who did not elect to operate under the provisions of the law. The statute covers all public and industrial employment except domestic service and cases where 10 or less are employed. Beginning in 1912 a series of Acts was passed leading to the or- ganization of a state Board of Charities and Probation and more systematic provisions for the care of dependent, neglected and delinquent children. This movement has been extended to include widows' pensions in certain cases. In 1917 an important step was taken in the direction of coordinating the work of some of the many state departments, commissions, and boards. A state Board of Control was established by law, composed of the governor of the state, the state treasurer, the auditor of accounts, the director of state institutions, and a fifth person to be ap- pointed biennially by the governor and Senate. This Board of Control meets regularly once a month. All state boards, insti- tutions, commissions, officers and departments, other than judicial officers, must make monthly reports to the Board of Control. The Board has general supervisory powers over the various state activities, and may investigate any phase of their work. The Board makes its report biennially to the state Legislature.

Following an extensive educational survey, the public-school system of the state was radically reorganized m 1915, making the seventh form of administration that has been tried since 1845. Under the system adopted the office of state superintendent was abolished. In its place was established a State Board of Education consisting of five members appointed by the governor, one each year for a five- year term. This Board has general powers of supervision and management of the public educational system, and employs as state commissioner of education a trained and experienced educator, whose term of office is indefinite, being removable by a majority vote of the Board. The Board also appoints a number of superintendents with powers of supervision, and the state commissioner has power to appoint a suitable number of state supervisors when approved by the Board. The supervisors cooperate with the superintendents and supplement their work.

In 1919 the Legislature authorized the state Board of Health to divide the state into 10 sanitary districts, and to appoint for each a district health officer in place of the town health officers. This Act entirely reorganized the public health work of the state. The district officers are full-time officers and serve under the pay of the state. The public health work is much more effectively carried on than before, being after 1919 under five separate divisions, each under the direction of an expert supervisor.

Up to the signing of the Armistice Vermont had supplied for the World War over 15,000 men. Some of this number had gone across the line and enlisted with the Canadian forces before the spring of 1917. Of those in service more than one-half were sent over-seas. The deaths were: killed in action, 119; died of wounds, 47; total deaths, 612. The total wounded were 778. Total casualties recorded were 1,390.

The state has remained consistently Republican in politics since 1856, not excepting 1912, the year of the Progressive party campaign. The recent governors of the state, all Repub- lican, have been: John A. Mead, 1910-2; Allen M. Fletcher, 1912-5; Charles W. Gates, 1915-7; Horace F. Graham, 1917-9; Percival W. Clement, 1919-21; James A. Hartness, 1921- . (G. G. G.)


VERRALL, ARTHUR WOOLLGAR (1851-1912), English clas- sical scholar, was born at Brighton Feb. 5 1851. He was the son of a solicitor, and was educated at Wellington and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated as second classic in 1873, becoming fellow and tutor of his college. He published editions of many classical plays, especially the Medea, Agamemnon and Choephoroe. In 1895 appeared Euripides the Rationalist, followed in 1905 and 1910 by editions of most of Euripides' plays. He was an original critic, with views of his own, often expounded in the Classical Review and other journals. In February 1911 he was appointed to fill the new King Edward VII. professorship of Literature at Cambridge, which had been endowed by Sir Harold Harmsworth, later Viscount Rothermere. He died at Cambridge June 18 1912.


VICTOR EMMANUEL III. (1869- ), King of Italy (see 28.28). When in 1915 Italy declared war on Austria, the King at once went to the war zone, remaining there until the Armistice, appointing his uncle Ferdinand, duke of Genoa, Royal Luogo- tenente of the kingdom to act in his stead. At the front he lived in a most unassuming manner at the " Villa Italia " near Udine, and after Caporetto near Padua, constantly visiting the trenches and the most exposed positions, as well as the military hospitals. He took the deepest interest in everything concerning the army and the welfare of the troops; but, although nominally command- er-in-chief, he never interfered with the conduct of the opera- tions nor in the matter of appointments, and he allowed himself only the same amount of leave as any other soldier. After the conclusion of the Armistice he returned to Rome on Nov. 14 1918 and had a triumphant reception. He visited Paris and the French front with the Crown Prince (Dec. 19-21), and sub- sequently London.

After the birth of his son and heir Umberto, Prince of Pied- mont (Sept. 15 1904), the King's family was increased by two more daughters, Giovanna, born Nov. 13 1907, and Maria, born Dec. 26 1914. He was devoted to his wife and children, and to study; and he took a special interest in numismatics, having in 1910 and 1913 already published two volumes of his monumental work on the coins of Italy, the Corpus nummorum italicorum. After the war he made over to the nation a large number of royal residences in various parts of Italy, a heritage of the days when Italy was divided into a number of separate states, each with one or more royal or ducal palaces and villas. Among the most famous of these are the Pitti Palace in Florence, the villas of Castello, La Petraia and Poggio a Cajano in the neighbourhood of that town, the royal palaces of Milan, Venice, Genoa, Naples, the villa Capodimonte near Naples and the "Neapolitan Ver- sailles " at Caserta. Some of these buildings were turned into hospitals and homes for war victims, and others into museums.


VIENNA (see 28.50), the capital of the Austrian Republic, is situated in Lower Austria, but under the Constitution has in all matters which concern itself the status of an independent Territory. Under these special conditions, the Gemeinderat (or city council) exercises the rights of a Diet (or states assembly). In 1910, Vienna had a pop. of 2,031,498, but in 1920 only 1,842,005. In 1910 86-9% of the inhabitants were Roman Catholics; 3-7% Evangelicals; 8-6% Jews and 0-7% of other faiths. The proportion of males to females was in 1910 1,000 to 1,086; in 1920, 1,000 to 1,163. The non-German minority shown by the census of 1910 (98,430 Czechs and 8,954 others) greatly decreased after 1918.


VILLA, FRANCISCO (1872- ), Mexican bandit and revolutionary, was born Dec. 4 1872 at Las Nieves, Zacatecas. He was outlawed for murder, and a price was put on his head by President Diaz. He joined Madero in 1910 for the sake of immunity, served under Huerta, and in 1914 joined Carranza, but quarrelled with him over military jealousies and presidential aspirations. He opposed Carranza in the Convention at Aguascalientes, led a campaign against him and occupied Mexico City in April and again in Nov. 1915, but was defeated by Obregon and driven to the border, where surrender under guarantee was denied him. On Jan. 12 1916 he led the Santa Ysabel massacre, in which a special train carrying a party of American mining