Summary. 99 



and the total expense for the collection of taxes was forty-four 

 thousand three dollars. 



E. Summary. 



1. Lower Expenses. 



This period was marked by the adoption of a constitution and 

 a change in the system of taxation which resulted in a lower grand 

 list. The tax on the towns was kept low, however, and a reduction 

 made in the expenditures of the state. This was brought about 

 principally by limiting the regular sessions of the legislature to one 

 every year, by the withdrawal of the annual appropriation for the 

 support of schools, by putting the state prison upon a self-supporting 

 basis and by limiting the amount to be spent for individual state 

 paupers and contracting for their support. Expenditures were kept 

 so low that for the year ending March 31, 1826, they fell below fifty 

 thousand dollars, the only time in the history of the state since 1795 

 that this has occurred. At no time during this period, after 1819, 

 did the expenditures for any one year exceed ninety-five thousand 

 dollars. After this period the annual expenditures never fell below 

 one hundred thousand dollars. In summing up the first period, 

 it was stated that exclusive of the expenses of running the govern- 

 ment — legislative, judicial and executive — the principal items of 

 ordinary expense were for schools, for the support of paupers, and 

 for the state prison. During this period the first of these disappears, 

 the second dwindles to a small amount, and the state prison becomes 

 a source of revenue. The only avenue of expense to take the place 

 of these three was that of public buildings and institutions. The 

 average annual amount spent on these did not equal the average 

 annual amount spent on either schools or paupers during the last 

 ten years of the first period. 



2. Larger Income. 



The capital of the school fund was enlarged from $1,858,074 in 

 1820 to $2,070,055 in 1845 and the income distributed increased 

 from fifty-eight thousand four hundred thirty-nine dollars in 1820 

 to one hundred nineteen thousand three hundred eighty-five dollars 

 in 1846. The distribution was changed from a method based on the 

 grand list to a new method based on the number of children between 

 four and sixteen. After 1820 the yearly income from this fund was 

 larger than the entire amount annually spent by the state for current 

 expenses. Exclusive of the school fund the state tax on the towns 



