informed, will be reduced to ten within the next year, and it is now reasonably supposed that 400 miles of new road will be constructed during that year. This will add millions of dollars to the wealth of the State, and should forbid oppressive and illiberal legislation. Just laws will be of much more benefit to the State than ill-considered ones, which but add confusion to the many vexed questions already disturbing the people and the roads. I am still of the opinion, as expressed in my last message, that the depots and surrounding grounds, as far as practicable, should be improved and beautified, especially along the main lines of the trunk roads. They are not now in keeping with the wealth, tracks and machinery of the roads. A few thousand dollars so expended would add much to the popularity of the roads aud the honor of the State. All things being equal, the traveling public will patronize those roads exhibiting that degree of pride and desire to gratify the public taste. Such small expenditures contribute much to relieve the tedium of traveling. The depots in this State, as a general thing, are wanting, not only in architectural beauty, but also, to a lage extent, in the ordinary comforts that should be found in such places, many being, in fact, repulsive to the least cultured and the least refined of society, and often the resorts, during the arrival and departure of trains, of vulgar and insolent loafers. The managers of the roads and the town officials should break up such nuisances. The commissioners should condemn the obnoxious and inhospitable depots, calling upon the managers of the roads to supply more acceptable ones without delay. It is clearly within the line of duty of the commissioners as specified in section 13 of the act creating said board, approved March 29th, 1875. With these views as above expressed, whatever legislation, in your assembled wisdom, you may deem wise to enact, I trust the great rule of equity shall govern, so that while the individual interests of the citizen is guarded, those of the corporations themselves shall not be unjustly dealt with. STATE CLAIMS. Under an act of the Legislature, approved March 19th, 1881, Hon. John T. Heard was appointed by the Fund Commissioners as agent in behalf of the State, to prosecute to final settlement before Congress and the proper departments at Washington, certain claims of the State against the federal government, enumerated in section 1 of said act. He at once entered upon the discharge of his duties, and recovered from the government the sum of $234,594.10, which amount, less his commission, was deposited in the State treasury on the 14th day of August, 1882. Since the collection of this sum of money, Mr. Heard commenced prosecuting with great activity the following character of claims, in which Missouri and its citizens are largely interested: claims under an act of the Legislature, of March 22, 1883; individual claims against the government; interest claims of Missouri against the government; direct tax claims in favor of Missouri against the government; which claims, in the aggregate, involve over one million of dollars. Since the commencement of this important work Mr. Heard has been elected a member of the next Congress of the United States from the sixth district of Missouri, and has consequently resigned as State agent, and Hon. John R. Walker, of Cooper county, has been appointed in his stead. Mr. Heard having submitted to the Fund Commissioners a satisfactory account of the work performed and of that to be performed in the future by his successor, I respectfully ask that his reported be printed for the information of the General Assembly. PENITENTIARY. There are few subjects, if any, which will engage your attention that are of greater practical importance than the management of the penitentiary, and there is none so misunderstood, from ignorance or from some designing cause. It is an institution so prominent in a State administration, that if unwisely and corruptly managed, the world would know it at a glance, as it is a "city set on a hill, which cannot be hid." The penitentiary is in excellent condition at the present time. It has been successfully managed during this administration, not costing the State a dollar in its running expenses, except in the pay of its civil list. From an examination of its books I find that the earnings and receipts for the years 1883 and 1884 (December, 1884, estimated) to be $266,897 82, and there has been expended for maintence during those years (December, 1884, estimated) $238,486.10, leaving $28,411.72 upon the credit side of the prison, which has been expended as follows: Pay-roll of officers and employes, October and November, 1884. Total. $8,368 42 18,543 30 1,000 00 500 00 $28,411 72 Which is the excess of earnings as above given. The last Legislature appropriated $155,000 to replace certain buildings or workshops which were destroyed by fire February 23, 1883, and to extend the walls of the penitentiary and to do certain other specific work, detailed in the bill. These demands exhausted the appropriation before the work was completed. Under the direction of the Prison Inspectors the Warden expended, as before stated, $18,543 30 for materials purchased and used in the construction of the buildings and wall. In addition to this sum, the Warden expended $14.000 for brick, rock, labor, etc., for which he should receive credit, as the brick, rock and labor represent a value equal to that amount of money. If no credit is given the penitentiary for the excess of earnings over that of maintenance, $25,411.72 and the $14,000 for brick, rock and labor, as above stated, then there will be an outstanding indebtedness of $3.750 against the prison, but if credit is given for those amounts, which should be done, then there is a surplus of $40,000 in favor of the prison, which surplus accrued during the year 1884, which shows that the institution, with its rapidly increasing numbers of inexperienced laborers, has been managed with singular foresight and judgment, commanding the respect of all the business men who have investigated or had means of knowledge as to how this prison has been managed during this administration. The new buildings have been fully completed and are pronounced equal if not superior to those erected in any of the States for shop purposes. They are commodious, fire-proof aud well ventilated, and specially well adapted to the uses to which they have been assigned. The walls of the prison should be completed as soon as practicable. If the prison is not divided, more ground should be taken into the enclosure, which may necessitate the removal of the Warden's residence and the erection of a new one elsewhere. The following tables show the number of prisoners confined in the penitentiary during the years 1883-4: Total number prisoners remaining on hand December 31, 1882.... 1,348 December is estimated in the above statement: In 1881 the daily average was 1,205; in 1882 the daily average was 1,318, showing an increase of 113 in 1882 over 1881; 125 in 1883 over 1882, and 95 more in 1884 than 1883. These figures show that with an increase of population there has been a corresponding increase of crime and an increase of convictions. It is now a settled fact in Missouri that the laws will be enforced; wrong doers of all classes will be punished and all classes of honest and industrious people will be protected from personal or property disturbance. The cost per capita for maintenance for 1883–4... Total cost per capita...... 22 8-10ths of a cent.. 8 7-10ths of a cent. 31 1-2 cents. Which is 1 19 30 less than the cost of maintenance and guarding in 1881-2. This is a lower rate than prevails in any other State. The Missouri Republican used this language after the report of the Legislative Committee on the penitentiary in 1881-2, which is more applicable now than then, as the prison is more economically managed now than then: "This settles the matter and shows to the people of Missouri what they had good reasons for believing before, that their State prison is in the hands of honest and capable officers, and is one of the most economically and efficiently managed institutions of the kind in the country. Indeed, it is a part of a general State administration which challenges respect both at home and abroad." The health of the prison is excellent. The death rate is small. No epidemic has existed within its walls for years. cent. Deaths in 1881 (in a total of 1,205 prisoners) 22, being 1 8 10 per Deaths in 1882, in a total of 1,305 prisoners, were 18, being 12-5 per cent. In 1883 these were 20 deaths in a daily attendance of 1,382, being 1 309-691 per cent. In 1884, there were 23 deaths in a daily attendance of 1,476 prisoners, being 1 206-369 per cent. It is doubtful if any prison can present a more striking table than the above. BRANCH PENITENTIARY. This legislature should maturely consider the question of building a branch penitentiary, upon a railroad, near some prosperous business town or city. There are too many prisoners in this prison for safety and health. It contains now the largest number of prisoners of any penitentiary in the United States, excepting Sing Sing, New York. A committee should be appointed to investigate the necessities for such a branch prison, and to ascertain the most eligible point for it. Or that duty should be imposed upon the Prison Inspectors. PARDONS. I have exercised the pardoning power as often as I have thought it wise and prudent, taking care not to abuse the confidence of the State, nor, by its illiberal use, have a wrong done the citizen. Those pardoned, with few exceptions, have at once engaged in honest industry and are making law-abiding cit zens. The Executive should never hesitate in the exercise of this power, when he is satisfied that a wrong has been done the convict by an oppressive sentence, by perjury of interested witnesses or the rash actions of an excited jury or court. The public often censures the Governor for gran ing pardons when it is least advised, as to the real facts connected with the case. He knows, or should know, those facts much more intimately than the public. In every instance he has all the facts before him; the impelling motive of the prosecution, a knowledge of the acts of the court, jury and witnesses, and often has evidence that a conviction was had on suborned testimony, or facts that justify the belief that an excessive punishment has been inflicted, which does an injury alike to the man and the State, and many other minor reasons of which the public can know nothing. Such unjust criticisms often do violence to the truth, violence to justice and violence to society. It is better that ninety and nine guilty persons should escape than one innocent should be wrongly or unduly punished. Nothing hastens a man's steps towards crime more rapidly than the belief that he has been wrongly convicted and harshly sentenced. In the forum of his own conscience he stands the accuser of society for the wrong inflicted upon him. From being the sinner, he has become sinned against, and he starts out upon a new and real career of crime, feeling the glow of moral sanction as he resolves afresh to perpetuate his war on society. Such feeling is rational. It is one of the infirmities of fallen nature, and it will be hard to reform the criminal when he feels, and has such just cause to feel, that he is himself the subject of a greater wrong at the hands of society, than he ever inflicted upon it. The pardoning power is vested in the Executive to meet such cases, by the law makers, thinking it wiser to save a man than to have him an unjustly condemned criminal for life, with no chance to retrieve his shadowed reputation and rebuild his prostrate character. In addition to the errors of trial and conviction, the Executive discovers traces of manhood still left in the criminal, |