lOO REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



transacted through their Secretary and general manager; again, this Commission 

 allowed its letter-heads, vouchers, envelopes, applications for fry, etc., to be printed 

 and go broadcast with the statement that 53 Broadway was a branch office still, 

 thereby misleading the public and sending much of our correspondence there, 

 especially that pertaining to bills which had been contracted there, as the public had 

 been educated to look to the Secretary personally for their pay. Mr. Leslie, an 

 employe of the New York office, furnished us with an extract which he had made 

 from the general account-book, showing the franchises account. We requested, of 

 the men in and about the office, an inventory of the public property, but were 

 informed that they could not give it to us without the consent of Mr. Doyle, who had 

 personally employed them. Mr. Leslie informed us that Mr. Doyle had charge of the 

 correspondence and at times there would be as many as two hundred letters awaiting 

 his coming, to be opened. 



On the following day your Committee called at the office and met Mr. Doyle, and 

 requested the delivery of the books and documents. He told us that we could not 

 have the books and vouchers as they were the property of the old Commission which, 

 counsel had informed him, was legally dead, and that this Commission had no juris- 

 diction or control of its official books or papers ; that he had sent the oyster franchise 

 account-book, which also contained miscellaneous expenses and some other account, 

 to Mr. Huntington, and the fines and penalties book to Mr. Bowman, and the dupli- 

 cate vouchers to the Comptroller's office. When informed that the matter so far as 

 your Committee was concerned was ended, except to refer it to the Attorney-General's 

 office or other proper authority, he reconsidered and agreed to produce the books at 

 Albany the ne.xt day, which he did. 



A casual inspection of the fines and penalties account showed a shortage, admitted 

 by Mr. Doyle, of $1,195, for which he gave a check to the chairman of the Executive 

 Committee, subject to re-examination and further adjustment of the accounts which, 

 with $356, before returned as per report of the chairman of the Executive Com- 

 mittee, November 7th, makes $1,551 repaid upon this account. 



Your Committee deem it their duty also to report that the books known as the 

 shellfish accounts and records are very incomplete and do not show the details of 

 payments of money as they should do. They also indicate that there has been a 

 neglect to collect moneys due, and that unless better methods are at once adopted, 

 this Commission will have difficulty in making a proper detailed statement of its 

 receipts from that source and the State will be a loser thereby. 



The maps of the whole oyster territory sold and leased by the State are none of 

 them on file in the office of the Secretary of State or Comptroller. To produce these 

 maps has taken years of time and cost the State thousands of dollars, and they, 



