fied in the law. * one law for that purpose can be submitted at the same general election, or within three months of its passage, and the debt to be created must be for some single work or object to be distinctly speciThe design of the Constitution was that the specific purpose of the debt should be specified in the act, that the Legislature and the people who were to vote upon it could read it there, and a departure from the letter of the provision may frustrate its intent. It is true here the appropriations and the authority for the debt are in the same act, so that the law is not obnoxious to the objection that would exist if they were in separate acts. But the difficulty remains that notwithstanding the form of the second section the "work or object" for which the debt is authorized is not a single work or object; neither are the objects defined or capable of being ascer The act is clearly tained from the act itself. * violative of the constitution, so far as it authorizes the creation of a debt, and this is the ground upon which it should be declared void, as the ground which best preserves the constitution in its integrity, and does not make the validity of the law to depend on the accidental submission of a constitutional amendment to the people at the same time. But the whole theory of the act is entirely subversive of the constitution. It proceeds upon the assumption that a State debt may be created and exist outside of the constitution, either by act of the Legislature, or the acts of the administrative or * executive officers and agents of the State. A debt of six millions of dollars, or liabilities to that amount, and resting as a burden upon the people, resulting from the acts of the Legislature, and the agents and officers of the State, is an impossibility, for the reason that it is absolutely prohibited, and any attempt to create such debt or incur such liability is a nullity. There can be no floating debt under the present constitution, neither can a debt be created by making appropriations and directing expenditures in excess of taxes levied and means provided. Could the constitution and the interest of the people, in adopting it, be thus easily circumvented and frustrated, that instrument would be of little value. The fallacy that there is or can be a floating debt, or a debt created in the discretion of the Legislature by excessive appropriations, and scanty tax levies, lies at the foundation of this act, and all the 'kindred schemes for borrowing money under the pretense of relieving the Treasury and preserving the credit of the State. Neither the Legislature, nor the officers and agents of the State, or all combined, can create a debt or incur an obliga * * # * * tion for or in behalf of the State, except to the amount and in the manner provided for in the constitution. As there was no valid law authorizing a debt to be contracted, there was no valid submisson of any question to the people, and this view is decisive of the ingenious position taken by the counsel for the appellant, that it was the popular vote and not the effect of the vote that determined the question, whether the law imposing the tax should take effect. The law being a nullity, it was as no law in all its parts and provisions. On the 1st of October, eighty banks were doing business under the laws of the State. During the fiscal year, circulating notes to the amount of $20,972 were destroyed by the Bank Department. One hundred and fifteen banks were credited with lost circulation to the amount, in all, of $480,913, the time for redeeming the same, after the usual legal notice, having expired. The amount of circulation outstanding, including that of incorporated banks, banking associations, and individual bankers, was, on the 1st October last, $1,400,116.50. Of this amount, the sum of $666,240 was secured by deposits of cash, stocks, or stocks and mortgages. The residue, being circulation issued prior to the passage of the general banking law, is not secured by any deposit in the There were forty-one Bank Department. banks incorporated prior to the enactment of the general banking law that had not, on the 22d of May last, the date of an act to provide for their final closing, taken any steps toward such closing. Twelve of these have since given notice of final closing under the provisions of that act. During the fiscal year one bank discontinued business, and thirteen were organized; eleven of which commenced business. Six of these latter were changed from banks organized under the national banking laws. Condition of the banks in the State, September 13: Capital...... Loans and discounts Due depositors............ Total resources.. $26,958,890 00 71,072,544 00 70,733,491 00 $116,586,734 00 There were, on the 1st of July last, one hundred and fifty-two savings-banks reporting to the Bank Department, with assets aggregating $314,755,770. The increase in assets during the six months ended July 1, 1873, amounted to $9,425,439. The number of persons having deposits in these institutions was, according to the number of open accounts on the 1st day of January, 1878, 822,642, being an increase of 45,942 depositors during the year then ended. The number of insurance companies subject to the supervision of the Insurance Department, on the 31st day of December, was 271, as follows: New York joint-stock fire insurance companies..... Total. 99 1-8888 7 9 28 83 28 3 14 271 The total amount of stocks and mortgages held by the department for the protection of policy-holders of life and casualty insurance companies of the State, and of foreign insurance companies doing business within it, was $6,840,046. The following statement shows the condition of the pubic schools and the operation of the common-school system for the year ending September 30, 1873: Total receipts, including balance on hand Estimated value of school-houses and sites, schools.. schools... Number of children of school age attending private schools. Number of volumes in school-district libraries... Number of persons in the State between the ages of five and twenty-one years.... 130,096 is need of further provision for the confinement of convicts. There are now 680 convicts se858,315 curely confined in the Albany Penitentiary, and that institution pays a large revenue to the 1,545,260 county. The building cost less than $200,000. There has been paid from the Treasury on account of the Elmira Reformatory, the sum of $451,811.06, and it is raised but little above the foundation-walls. The number of colleges in the State is as follows: Literary, 22; medical, 13; law-schools, 5. The State Library now contains 90,844 volumes, 2,800 of which were added during the year. There are, in the State Asylums for the Insane, something less than 1,600 patients; about 600 of whom are in the Utica Asylum, nearly 800 in the Willard Asylum at Ovid, and about 200 in the Hudson River State Hospital, at Poughkeepsie. There are believed to be fully as many otherwise provided for or not provided for at all. The original estimated cost of the Hudson River Hospital was less than $800,000, and it was expected to accommodate 600 patients. Already over $1,100,000 has been expended on it, and it accommodates only 200. The cost of the asylum at Buffalo was estimated at $600,000; over $500,000 has been spent on it, and $300,000 more will be required before it is ready for any patients. Each of these institutions will cost about $3,000,000 when finished. The new asylum at Middletown will be ready for use during 1874. It is to consist of detached buildings to which additions may be made as required. That now in progress of completion will cost $240,000. The asylum at Utica which was built over thirty-six years ago, and has cost up to this time for construction and maintenance $1,200,000 accommodates 600 patients. The institution at Ovid, which accommodates 800 patients, cost less than $1,000,000. The Idiot Asylum at Syracuse cost $125,000, and accommodates 200 inmates. The House of Refuge at Rochester cost $165,000, and accommodates 530 inmates. On the 30th of September there were 3,025 convicts in the State-prisons; 1,354 at Sing Sing, 1,104 at Auburn, and 567 at Clinton. The following statement shows the expenditures and earnings of each of the prisons for the year ending September 30, 1873: The construction of the new Capitol has advanced only so far as the first story. The original estimate placed its cost at $4,000,000, and already $4,961,620 has been expended on it. It is now thought that its whole cost will not fall short of $15,000,000. The number of immigrants who arrived at New York during the year was 266,010, against 294,581 in 1872. The quantity of salt from the Onondaga Salt Springs, inspected during the last fiscal year, was 7,959,172 bushels-less by 40,627 bushels than the production of the preceding year. The net revenue from this source was $21,765.75, showing a falling off as compared with the preceding year of $12,858.37. The National Guard consists of 8 divisions and 20 brigades, distributed as follows, viz.: One regiment, 1 battalion, and 9 separate troops of cavalry; 12 batteries of artillery, 31 regiments, 12 battalions, and 3 detached companies of infantry, making an aggregate force of 23,360. During the year two regiments of infantry have been disbanded and mustered out of service, six regiments of infantry have been reduced to battalions, and one regiment has been reorganized. Six arsenals, which had become entirely useless, have been sold, producing $25,550, of which $22,850 have been paid into the Treasury, and $2,700 refunded to the village of Dunkirk and the city of Ogdensburg, from which the sites of two of the buildings were obtained. The annual session of the Legislature, which opened at Albany on the 1st Monday in January, was brought to a close on the 30th of May. The whole number of bills passed by both Houses was 1,017, of which 883 were of a private or local character. Very few of the remaining 134 have any general interest. During the last ten days of the session 352 bills were sent to the Governor for his signature. Of the whole number passed 147 failed to receive the Executive approval. Much time was spent in the consideration of a new charter for the city of New York, which, after elaborate discussion before committees and in the two Houses, and a complete transformation by amendment, was finally defeated. Much time was also given to the subject of regulating the traffic in intoxicating liquors. A bill was submitted in the House, providing for what is known as "local option." It was entitled "An act to enable the legal voters of any town or city to determine by ballot whether the sale, giving away, or suffering to be exposed, sold, or given away therein, of intoxicating liquors, shall be prohibited, and to regulate the sale for medicinal, mechanical, chemical, or sacramental use, and so provide for the enforcement of this act." This bill was vetoed by the Governor on the 20th of May. In giving his reasons for withholding his signatnre, Governor Dix said: I fully concur in the correctness of this proposition, as a matter both of principle and policy; and I have never doubted the propriety of adopting such measures of legislation as are needed to secure the result. It lies in the direction of popular libertyof the right of the people to regulate their local affairs in such manner as they deem essential to their welfare. My chief objection to the bill is that it contains a limitation of this principle. It leaves to the people of the several cities and towns only a partial and restricted option in deciding what it shall be lawful to drink within their respective municipal limits. It compels them to prohibit absolutely, or virtually, to accept by declining to prohibit every beverage, which can by possibility intoxicate. It permits them to express their wishes on a single proposition, but precludes such an expression on any other. It says to them in substance: If you wish to prohibit the use of ardent spirits within your limits, you must prohibit ale, beer, and cider, also; for these bave, by a decision of the Court of Appeals, been classed with intoxicating liquors. If, on the other hand, you wish the inhabitants of your town or city to have the privilege of drinking beer or cider, you cannot have it unless you make the use of ardent spirits equally free from restriction. You must prohibit all or none: you cannot have the one without the other. The bill, therefore, while professing to leave to the people the largest liberty in this respect, restricts them to the narrowest; they are not permitted to have a choice as to what beverages it shall be lawful to use within their respective boundaries. The bill is framed in the interest of restriction, and not of freedom of choice. I deem this narrow view of the subject exceedingly unwise. A wide difference of opinion prevails among the people of the State in regard to the propriety of distinguish ing between ardent spirits and the lighter beverages, some of which do not intoxicate unless taken in uncomfortable quantities, and which, in countries where they are in general use, have proved a restraint upon the consumption of spirituous liquors, and, to a great extent, a safeguard against the prevalence of intemperance. I do not assume to decide which class of thinkers has the right side of the question. But a just toleration of the freedom of opinion ought to restrain the advocates of either from attempting to maintain their position by compulsion. It is in this view that I deem the provisions of the bill indefen sible. This action of the Governor gave rise to some rather violent animadversions in the House, but the attempt to pass the bill over his veto failed, the vote standing 2 yeas to 60 nays. A motion to recommit with instructions to exempt lager beer from its operation was lost by a vote of 42 to 73. An act known as "the Civil Rights Bill" was passed on the 9th of April. It provides that "no citizen of this State shall by reason of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, be excepted or excluded from the full and equal enjoyment of any accommodation, advantage, facility, or privilege, furnished by ***licensed owners, managers, or lessees, of theatres, or other places of amusements," etc. An act amending the law in relation to the crime of murder makes it impossible to convict of VOL. XIII.-35 A murder, in the first degree, unless there is clear proof of a deliberate and premeditated design. It has been claimed that the effect of this law is virtually to abolish the death-penalty. It makes murder in the second degree homicide intentionally committed, but without deliberation or premeditation, and the penalty is imprisonment for life. In two cases, tried since the law went into operation, in the city of New York, in which the homicide was apparently intentional, verdicts were rendered of manslaughter in the third degree. Among the other bills passed was one removing from office the police justices in the city of New York, who were elected by the people, and authorizing the mayor to fill their places by appointment; and an act to regulate the rate of interest and prevent usury. This latter act repeals the old usury law, and makes the penalty for contracting for a higher rate of interest than seven per cent. a forfeiture of the interest only instead of the whole amount of the debt. The question of granting the privilege of voting to "tax-paying female citiwas referred to the Judiciary Committee in the Senate, with instructions to report an amendment to the constitution, but nothing was done. zens The commission appointed to prepare and submit to the Legislature such amendments to the constitution of the State as they might deem expedient, held sessions at Albany during the winter of 1872-73, and finally completed their work on the 14th of March. The report of the commission embodying the proposed changes was immediately transmitted to the Legislature. No change was made in Article I. In section 1 of Article II. the discrimination against colored citizens was removed. Section 2 provides against bribery at elections as follows: SECTION 2. No person shall receive, expect, or offer to receive or pay, offer or promise to pay, contribute, offer or promise to contribute to another, to be paid or used, any money or other valuable thing, as a compensation or reward for the giving or withholding a vote at an election, or who shall make any promise to influence the giving or withholding of any such vote, or who shall make or become directly or indirectly interested in any bet or wager depending upon the result of any election, shall vote at such election; and upon challenge for such cause, the person so challenged, before the inspectors or other officers authorized for that purpose receive his vote, shall swear or affirm before such inspectors or other officers that he has not received or offered, does not expect to receive, has not paid, offered or promised to pay, contributed, offered or promised to contribute to another, to be paid or used, any money or other valuable thing as a compensation or reward for the giving or withholding a vote at such election, and has not made any promise to influence the giving or withholding of any such vote, nor made or become directly or indirectly interested in any bet The Legislature at the session thereof next after the or wager depending upon the result of such election. adoption of this section, shall, and from time to time thereafter may, enact laws excluding from the right of suffrage all persons convicted of bribery or any infamous crime." In Article III. the organization of the Legis lature was materially changed, and the compensation of members fixed at $1,000 a year, but the Legislature in considering the amendments restored the old provisions regarding organization, and fixed the salaries at $1,500. Section 8 is amended by rendering those ineligible to the Legislature who are at the time of the election, or have been within one hundred days prior thereto, members of Congress, or civil or military officers under the United States, or officers under a city government. Section 15 provides that no private or local law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be named in the title; and that no law shall be revived or amended by reference to its title only, but the act revived or the section amended shall be inserted at length. Also, that no general law shall embrace any provision of a private or local character. Section 17, changing the method of considering bills, was stricken out by the Legislature, as was also section 18, providing that no private, special, or local bill shall be introduced after the first sixty days of a session without the consent of three-fourths of the members. Section 19 prohibits special and local bills, in certain specified cases, and requires the enactment of general laws covering these cases. Other changes in the article make a three-fifths vote necessary for the passage of all laws imposing taxes or creating debt, and forbid the Legislature, and common councils of cities, and supervisors of counties, to grant extra compensation to any officer or agent for his services. Article IV., as amended, changes the official term of the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor to three years, provides that the Governor shall receive an annual salary of $10,000, and the use of a furnished residence; that the Lieutenant-Governor shall receive a salary of $4,000; that it shall require a twothirds vote of all the members elected in each branch of the Legislature to pass an act over the Governor's veto; that no bill shall become a law after the adjournment of the Legislature unless approved by the Governor within thirty days; that the Governor may veto particular items in an appropriation bill without vetoing the entire bill. The only modification afterward made by the Legislature to these amendments was to put the salary of the Lieutenant-Governor at $5,000 a year. Article V. provides that the Controller shall be elected at the same time, and for the same term as the Governor, and receive $6,000 a year. The Secretary of State, Attorney-General, and State Engineer, are to be appointed by the Governor, and hold office until the expiration of his term. A Superintendent of State-prisons is to be appointed by the Governor for a term of five years, to have control of the prisons, and perform the duties now imposed on the State-prison Inspectors. The Treasurer is to be chosen by the Legislature in joint convention for a term of three years. The Controller, Secretary of State, Attorney-General, Treasurer, and State Engineer, and Surveyor, constitute the Commissioners of the Land Office. The office of commissioner of the canal-fund is abolished, and his duties transferred to the Controller. A Superintendent of Public Works is to be appointed by the Governor, and added also to the Canal Board as now constituted. He is authorized to appoint three assistants, and is charged with the execution of all laws relating to the repairs, navigation, construction, and improvement of the canals, the canal commissioners being abolished. All offices for weighing, gauging, measuring, and inspecting merchandise, are abolished. The Legislature, in considering the amendments to this article, made the office of Secretary of State elective, and added the Lieutenant-Governor to the Commissioners of the Land Office. Article VI. was amended in the eighteenth section only wherein is inserted a provision that judicial officers of courts, not of record, in cities having a population of not less than three hundred thousand, shall be appointed by the Governor. Article VII. is amended as follows: To section 3 is added a provision that no extra coinpensation shall be made to any contractor, but the Canal Board may, upon the application of a contractor, annul the contract where cause is shown. Section 6 limits the canals that may not be sold to the Erie, Oswego, Champlain, Cayuga, and Seneca, and the expenses thereon to the gross receipts of the previous year. Sections 13 and 14 are transferred to Article III., and in their place are provisions that the sinking funds for the canal debt shall be separately kept and safely invested, and not used for other purposes; and that the statute of limitations shall apply to demands against the State. Three additional articles were proposed. The first of these, to be known as Article XV., related to the government of cities, and was stricken out by the Legislature. Article XVI. has reference to official corruption. Article XVII. simply provides that these amendments shall be in force from the 15th of January following the election at which they are ratified. The amendments must receive the sanction of the Legislature of 1874 before being submitted to a popular vote. A case was decided in the Superior Court of New York City in June, which gave Mrs. Avery D. Putnam a verdict of $5,000 against a horse-railroad company, because her husband was killed by a drunken man on one of its cars. An appeal was taken, and in February, 1874, the Court of Appeals reversed the decision, holding that the company was not liable so long as its servants were not appealed to, to remove the drunken man from the car. A decision was rendered by Judge Ward Hunt, affecting the right of women to vote. Miss Susan B. Anthony, of Rochester, had secured the registration of her name and voted, claiming the right under the fourteenth amendment SUSPENSION BRIDGE OVER THE EAST RIVER AT THE CITY OF NEW YORK. were fully set forth in the following resolutions which were adopted after considerable discussion: Whereas, The productive industries of the United States-plantation and farm, mine and factory, commercial and mercantile-are not only the sources of all our national and individual wealth, but also the elements on which our very national and individual existence depends; and Whereas, All material products are the fruits of labor and capital, and as neither labor nor capital will continue actively employed without an equivalent measurably just; and Whereas, Great national industries are only sustained and prospered by the interchange of the products of one section of country for those of another; and Whereas, The existing rates of transportation for the varied products of the Union, from one part of the country to another, and to foreign countries, as well as the transit cost of the commodities required in exchange, are in many instances injurious, and to certain interests absolutely destructive, arising, in part, at least, from an insufficiency of avenues; andWhereas, The great material want of the nation today is relief from the present rates of transit on American products: therefore Resolved, That the duty of the hour, and the mission of this association is to obtain from Congress and the several State Legislatures such legislation as may be necessary to control and limit by law, within proper constitutional and legitimate limits, the rates and charges of existing lines of transportation; to increase, where practicable, the capacity of our present water-ways, and to add such new avenues, both water and rail, as our immensely-increased internal commerce demands; so that the producer may be fairly rewarded for his honest toil, the consumer have cheap products, and our almost limitless supplies find foreign markets, at rates to compete with the world. Resolved, That the cheap transportation, both of persons and property, being most conducive to the free movement of the people, and the widest interchange and consumption of the products of the different parts of the Union, is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the country. Resolved, That the constant and frequent association of the inhabitants of remote parts of the United States is not only desirable but necessary for the maintenance of a homogeneous and harmonious population within the vast area of our territory. Resolved, That the best interests of the different parts of the country also demand the freest possible interchange of the industrial products of the varied climates and industries of the United States, so that breadstuffs, textile fabrics, coal, lumber, iron, sugar, and various products, local in their production, but general in their consumption, may all reach the consumer at the least practicable cost of transportation; and that an arbitrary and unnecessary tax, levied by the transporter over and above a fair remuneration for the investment, is a burden upon the producer and consumer that it is the part of wise statesmanship to remove. Resolved, That certain leading railway corporations of the country, although chartered to subserve the public welfare, and endowed with the right of eminent domain, solely for that reason, have proved themselves practically monopolies, and become the tools of avaricious and unscrupulous capitalists, to be used to plunder the public, enrich themselves, |