120 The Financial History of Connecticut. 



of the towns, there remained but one source of revenue of this de- 

 scription. The duties on auction sales of foreign goods imposed 

 in 1820^ were still required. The return from these duties was 

 trifling and in some years nothing was received in this way. The 

 income to the state from duties and licenses for the entire period 

 was only twenty-one hundred twelve dollars. 



7. Forfeited Bonds and Avails of Court. 

 The receipts from forfeited bonds, fines, and avails of court from 

 April 1, 1846, to March 31, 1861, were seventy- two thousand four 

 hundred ninety-six dollars, an average of four thousand eight hundred 

 thirty-three dollars per annum. The average annual receipts in 

 the preceding period were twenty-five hundred thirty-eight dollars. 

 The gain is due to the growing population and the increasing volume 

 of business done by the courts. 



8. The State Prison. 

 The state prison continued to be self-supporting throughout this 

 entire period, but the annual profits fell from an average exceeding 

 seventy-five hundred dollars during the last five years of the second 

 period to less than twenty-five hundred dollars. This was princi- 

 pally due to the diminution in the number of prisoners. This did 

 not indicate that there was less crime in the state. On the contrary, 

 crime had increased, but the county prisons and work-houses were 

 now caring for classes of prisoners formerly confined in the state 

 prison. 2 Necessarily, therefore, the state treasury did not receive 

 so much revenue from the prison during this period. After April 1, 

 1852, none of the surplus earnings of the prison were paid into the 

 state treasury and the amount thus transferred during the first six 

 years of the period was only sixteen thousand dollars. 



9. Permanent Fund. 



At the beginning of this period the principal of the permanent 

 fund stood as follows ^ : 



Non-transferable bank stock, $356,400 

 Transferable bank stock, 44,000 



Total, $400,400 



1 Cf. p. 72. 



- Comptroller's Report, 1850, p. 10. 



3 Abstract of Comptroller's Report, Private Acts, 1846, p. 142. 



