y's orphan asylum (Roman Catholic). Corning is one of the principal
markets in New York state for tobacco, which is extensively produced in
the surrounding country. The principal industry is the making of cut and
flint glass, and, of the several extensive plants devoted to this
industry, that of the Corning Glass Works is one of the largest in the
world. The city also has railway car shops and foundries, and among its
manufactures are pressed brick, tile and terra-cotta, papier-mache and
lumber. The total value of the factory products in 1905 was $3,083,515,
35.7% more than in 1900. There were settlers on the site of Corning as
early as 1789, but it was not until 1848 that it was incorporated as a
village under its present name, given in honour of Erastus Corning, the
railway builder. Corning was chartered as a city in 1890.

See C. H. M'Master, _History of the Settlement of Steuben County_
(Bath, N.Y., 1853).

CORN LAWS. In England, legislation on corn was early applied both to
home and foreign trade in this essential produce. Roads were so bad, and
the chain of home trade so feeble, that there was often scarcity of
grain in one part, and plenty in another part of the same kingdom.
Export by sea or river to some foreign market was in many cases more
easy than the carriage of corn from one market to another within the
country. The frequency of local dearths, and the diversity and
fluctuation of prices, were thus extreme. It was out of this general
situation that the first corn laws arose, and they appear to have been
wholly directed towards lowering the price of corn. Exportation was
prohibited, and home merchandise in grain was in no repute or
toleration. As long as the rent of land, including the extensive domains
of the crown, was paid in kind, the sovereign, the barons and other
landholders had little interest in the price of corn different from that
of other classes of people, the only demand for corn being for
consumption and not for resale or export. But as rents of land came to
be paid in money, the interest of the farmer to be distinguished by a
remove from that of the landowner, the difference between town and
country to be developed, and the business of society to be more complex,
the ruling powers of the state were likely to be actuated by other
views; and hence the force which corn legislation afterward assumed in
favour of what was deemed the agricultural interest. But during four
centuries afte