resources, by providing for a more strict supervision and management of public establishments, which now make heavy drafts upon the treasury, and by restricting appropriations of money to State objects.

For the purpose of carrying these views into effect, I recommend the passage of a general law, authorizing and requiring the comptroller, whenever in any year an appropriation by the legislature shall exceed the amount of the revenue applicable to it, to provide for such deficiency by adding it to the tax levy. The people, on whom the burden falls, will be the more likely to scrutinize the appropriations by which it was created, and be enabled to decide whether they were required to meet the actual wants of the government, or whether they were the fruit of improvident legislation. In this manner they may hold their representatives to a strict accountability.

During the years 1869, 1870 and 1871, more than $2,000,000 were bestowed upon private charities, for the most part of a local and sectarian character. I consider these appropriations inconsistent with our obligations to the great body of the tax payers, on whom the burden ultimately falls. The institutions for the support of which they are made are, for the most part, purely local. They belong to localities in which there are large accumulations of wealth, and where private contributions may be readily procured to sustain such as are deserving of support. They are almost invariably under the exclusive control of particular religious societies, with some of which a feeling of jealousy and a sense of injustice are naturally excited by any unequal distribution of the public bounty among them. Moreover, it appears to me to be a violation of every principle of equal justice to tax the people of St. Lawrence and Allegany, or any other remote interior county or district, for the support of private or sectarian charities in New York or other wealthy and populous cities. The last legislature refused to make appropriations of

the public money for these objects, and I hope you may consider their example worthy of imitation.

STATE DEBT.

The following statement shows the amount of the State debt on the 30th September, 1872, after deducting the unapplied balances of the sinking funds at that date:

The sinking fund of the general fund includes $1,202,571.35, received since the close of the fiscal year, and from the sinking fund of the bounty fund the interest accrued to October 1, 1872, payable January 1, 1873, has been deducted.

Thus, the entire funded debt of the State, on the 30th of September, 1872, after deducting unapplied balances of the sinking funds, amounted to $25,386,725.84. On the 30th of September, 1871, the entire funded debt of the State, after a like deduction, was $29,482,702.52. There was, therefore, during the last financial year, a reduction in the amount of the funded debt of $4,095,976.68.

REDEMPTION OF THE STATE DEBT.

On the first day of this month $847,500 of the canal debt became due, and the principal and interest were paid in coin. In July and November $4,302,600 more will fall due, and will be redeemed in specie by the commissioners of the canal fund. I trust the good faith of the State, in its fiscal transactions, will be scrupulously maintained, and that the public creditors will not be asked to receive depreciated paper in payment of the debts due to them. At a former period, during a suspension of

specie payments, the State officers charged with the management of its revenues paid in coin the interest on the debt then outstanding, and thus preserved the public credit inviolate. If it be justifiable, in seasons of public danger, to make any thing but specie a legal tender in contracts between individuals, thus departing from the only standard of value recognized by civilized States, and the only one to which transactions between independent communities can be made to conform, the policy and morality of continuing the practice in time of peace are both questionable. Indeed, no difference in principle is perceived between a compulsory acceptance of a depreciated paper currency and an adulteration of the national coin. Whatever dilatoriness there may be on the part of Congress to repeal the law thus affecting private obligations by bringing them to an arbitrary and degraded standard of value, our own duty towards our creditors is quite apparent. The propriety of some early action might be equally clear to the federal government if its paper were publicly quoted at 88 per cent - its present value-instead of quoting gold at 112, according to the established practice, in order to cover up a national reproach.

TAXES.

The State tax levy for the current year amounted to 9 mills, of which 5 mills were for bounty debt and canal and general fund deficiencies. The total amount of tax collected under this levy

will be $19,580,882.30.

SALT SPRINGS.

The quantity of salt from the Onondaga salt springs, inspected during the last fiscal year, was 7,999,799 bushels-less by 579,394 bushels, than the production of the preceding year. The net revenue from this source was $34,622.12, exceeding that of the preceding year by the sum of $7,965.33.

COMMON SCHOOLS.

The Superintendent of Public Instruction has furnished the following statistics for the year ending September 30, 1872:

Total receipts, including balance on hand, Sep

Amount paid for school-houses, repairs, furniture,
Estimated value of school-houses and sites.....

1,988,460 34

28,632,967 00

Total number of school-houses...

11,740

Number of school districts (exclusive of cities).....
Number of teachers employed at the same time for

11,369

Number of children of school age in private schools..

131,519

The annual report of the commissioners of charities will present to you information and suggestions worthy of your deliberate consideration. I renew the recommendation of my predecessor, that an inquiry be made into the condition of pauper children in the several counties, with a view to some provision by which they may be saved from contamination by association with old and incorrigible offenders.

BANKS.

On the 1st of October last seventy banks were doing business under the banking laws of this State. During the fiscal year circulating notes to the amount of $26,093 have been destroyed by the Bank Department. Forty-one banks have been credited with lost circulation to the amount, in all, of $213,341, 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 of October last, $1,902,001.50. Of this amount the sum of $1,148,539 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 Bank Department.

SAVINGS BANKS.

There were, on the 1st of July last, one hundred and fifty-one savings banks reporting to the Banking Department (two of which are closing), with assets to the amount, in the aggregate, of $292,305,325. These assets may, at this time, be estimated, upon the ratio of increase of the preceding six months, at $301,572,804. The number of persons having deposits in these institutions, was, according to the number of open accounts on the 1st of January, 1872, 776,700.

It is very desirable that the provisions of law regulating savings banks should be uniform; and, in my opinion, the object in view in the creation of these institutions-the security of deposits by individuals whose small savings are for the most part all they possess would be best secured by a general law defining their powers, and by the repeal of all special privileges in existing charters inconsistent with it. As they are created for the benefit of persons in moderate circumstances, and not for persons dealing in