Peninsula Enterprise, May 6, 1893

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Infrastructure -- Public : Cemeteries

A dividend of twenty five per cent was declared, as will be noted in another column, at the first annual meeting of the Onancock Cemetery Company. The information is given to the public to show that the stockholders have incurred no loss in taking care of and honoring their dead, and as suggestive to the citizens in other sections of our county as to their duty in this respect. The necessity of a cemetery in every neighborhood will occur to everyone who considers the neglected graves scattered everywhere throughout our Peninsula -- their uncouth appearance oftentimes for want of attention, the unhealthfulness frequently occasioned by reason of their location and their disappearance after a few years by the change of property to the hands of those who have no interest in them -- and if such necessity exists, it had been demonstrated by the Onancock Cemetery Company, that we can afford to have them. The people of other sections of the county revere their dead none the less than the citizens of Onancock and of course will contribute as liberally to their support. By all means let them be started in every section of the Peninsula. A proper regard for our dead demands certainly that this much be done by us to perpetuate their memory.

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Transportation -- Road - Better roads movementTransportation -- Road - Legislation

Mr. Albert A. Pope, of Boston, who has been carrying on an educational campaign for several years for better roads in the country, has recently forwarded to us a communication, suggesting that we urge our readers to address letters to the Senate Committee of Agriculture and Forestry, directing their attention to the need of better roads in Virginia. In that letter he says:

"I maintain that the condition of the roads throughout the country has a direct influence on the cost of production and upon the profit to the farmer of every article which he raises and sells, and therefore the most important subject for the committee to investigate is the relation of roads to the agricultural interests of the country."

The farmers for the most part will concur in the opinion contained in the above extract and it is their duty to speak out, not only in the manner suggested, but to create the sentiment for better roads in every locality too powerful either to be resisted by the politician when legislation is asked for on the subject or to be ignored by the officials under whose supervision they are. In deference to that sentiment doubtless the movement for better roads has already begun in our sister county, as will be noted by a communication in our columns to-day. The movement is worthy of imitation by every county in the State and Accomac surely cannot long be a laggard in the race in this respect for the improvement of the condition of her people. Our farmers are too progressive, not to want better roads, and action on their part is only necessary to secure them.

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Infrastructure -- Public : Schools

The location of "Margaret Academy," will be determined upon by the Board of Trustees in their meeting to-day, and our confidence in their good judgment constrains us to believe, that the fund will not be diverted from the purpose for which it was intended. The fact, that a member of the Board lives in either county, of course will not influence him to give his vote for that county. The interest of the two counties are too identical for any member to allow his judgment to be warped by any such consideration. In arriving at their conclusion in the matter, in our opinion, the purposes for which the fund was created and the best means of carrying out the intentions of the founders of the old Margaret Academy can only enter into their deliberations. To do this three things are of course to be considered by them -- a central location, one accessible to the most children of both counties and where it is most likely to flourish. The members of the Board, we take it for granted, cannot subscribe to the startling proposition of our esteemed contemporary, the Headlight, that the end of a line is the centre of it, even though Cape Charles represents the end of the line, or that the thousands of children from the Maryland line to the terminus of our road are closer to it than any other part of the Peninsula, or that the interest manifested in education or the moral influences surrounding Cape Charles are greater than at other places on the Eastern Shore. But if the academy is not to be established at Cape Charles, then where should the money be spent? The Headlight says, put it where there are the most children in within one half mile of the building -- at least where there are 100 boys or girls in reach of it. If we thought the trustees would listen to our suggestion, as the editors of the Northampton papers think they should listen to them, then we would suggest Drummondtown. But as we believe the members of the Board are going to take a broader view of the matter and Onancock is the only other place asking for the academy, with not 100 but 350 pupils in her schools, then we are constrained to cast our vote for that place. Margaret Academy at Onancock will not be an experiment but a success -- could not be surrounded with better moral influences anywhere -- would be accessible to children from all points of the shore -- and will continue to draw not four students only from Northampton, as the Headlight asserts, but whole families, two of which occur to us at this writing, with seven or eight children in each.