INDIANA. 



399 



session to secure the abolition of the grand-jury 

 system, and a bill for the purpose received a 

 vote of 47 to 48 on its passage. A bill was 

 afterward passed reducing grand-juries to six 

 members, and making the vote of five of them 

 sufficient to secure an indictment. A bill was 

 also introduced making the agreement of ten 

 members of petit juries sufficient to give a 

 verdict, but it failed to pass. A bill amending 

 the school act provides for the election of 

 county superintendents by the trustees of the 

 several townships, who are to meet at the office 

 of the county auditor for the purpose, on the 

 first Monday in June. The superintendents 

 hold office two years and perform the duties 

 formerly belonging to the examiners. Several 

 investigations were made by committees for 

 the purpose of ascertaining wherein reductions 

 could be made in the expenses of the govern- 

 ment ; acts passed in pursuance of their recom- 

 mendations reduced the salary of the Gov- 

 ernor from $8,000 per annum to $6,000, and 

 the compensation of members of the Legisla- 

 ture to $6 per day, and $5 for every twenty- 

 five miles of necessary travel. 



Among the other acts passed were the fol- 

 lowing : making gambling a misdemeanor pun- 

 ishable by fine and imprisonment; prohibiting 

 the selling of deadly weapons to minors; add- 

 ing the President of Pordue University to the 

 school board ; making New Year's, Fourth of 

 July, Christmas, Sundays, and Thanksgiving 

 days, legal holidays ; vesting police powers in 

 conductors on railroad-trains; appropriating 

 $350,000 for additional facilities for taking care 

 of the insane ; requiring the reappraisement of 

 property every five years ; forbidding any di- 

 rector or manager in a State institution to ap- 

 point his relatives to official positions under 

 him ; authorizing any citizen to bring suit for 

 the removal of office-hplders who become in- 

 toxicated in office-hours ; and fixing the tax- 

 levy at thirteen cents on each hundred dollars 

 of property valuation. A joint resolution was 

 adopted asking Congress to award pensions of 

 $8 per month to soldiers in the Mexican War. 

 A bill providing for the organization of camp- 

 meeting associations, and the government and 

 management thereof, was vetoed by the Gov- 

 ernor on account of the extraordinary privi- 

 leges granted. Certain proposed legislation 

 affecting railroads, and providing for further 

 supervision and restriction,, met with vigorous 

 opposition and was defeated. 



Several investigations into the affairs of pub- 

 lic institutions were ordered during the ses- 

 sion and reports made thereon. A favorable 

 report was made on the condition and manage- 

 ment of the Northern Prison at Michigan City, 

 various charges which had been made not being 

 sustained by the evidence taken. Two re- 

 ports were made on the Southern Prison at 

 Jefferson ville. A majority of the committee 

 found that there had been a good deal of mis- 

 management, and an illegal, fraudulent use of 

 money appropriated for the support of the in- 



stitution. Some of the officers were charged 

 with using the public funds lavishly on their 

 own houses, and for the entertainment of guests. 

 This report closes with the following recom- 

 mendation : 



1. That A. L. Munson, director, L. 8. Shuler, 

 warden, A. M. Luke, deputy-warden, and John W. 

 Sullivan, moral instructor, be removed from their 

 respective offices. 2. That an appropriation suffi- 

 cient to relieve the prison of its present indebted- 

 ness be made. 3. That the salaries of the ward- 

 en and deputy warden be increased, and they de- 

 prived of all allowances or perquisites of every 

 kind. 4. That such legal process be resorted to as 

 shall be necessary to recover from any and all of 

 those officers all of their fraudulent and illegal ap- 

 propriations and peculations from the money and 

 property of the State, including the convict-labor 

 illegally used 



One of the committee signing this report 

 added the following explanatory note : 



In subscribing my name to this report, I would 

 state that I do not fully indorse all that is said there- 

 in ; but I am entirely convinced, from the evidence 

 taken before the committee, that there has been gross 

 mismanagement in the affairs of the prison, and mis- 

 appropriations of the funds of the State, and that 

 the public interests demand an entire change in the 

 responsible officers of the institution. I therefore 

 heartily concur in the recommendation that such 

 change be made. 



A minority of the committee, two members 

 of six, made a separate report, in which they 

 " differ totally from the statements and con- 

 clusions of the paper published as the report 

 of the majority of the sub-committee of inves- 

 tigation of the State-prison South." In this it 

 was charged that the majority of the commit- 

 tee had instituted an "inquest organized to 

 convict the officers of the prison, utterly re- 

 gardless of truth and decency," and " engaged 

 in a persecution, not an investigation." Most 

 of the allegations of the other report were 

 met by counter-statements and contradictions, 

 and the minority conclude as follows : 



We are aware that this defense of our efficient 

 public officer against a combined attack of personal 

 malice, private interest, and party zeal, will be held, 

 by those who had pronounced judgment before the 

 case was tried, as an attempt at whitewashing. To 

 such we say that we hold it to be far more honora- 

 ble to whitewash than to blackwash our fellow-men. 

 We concur in the opinion that " slander, foulest 

 whelp of sin, makes hellish meals of good men's 

 names," and have no sympathy with that depravity 

 of mind which thinketh only evil. We hold the 

 State bound to defend the character of her officers 

 when unjustly assailed as well as to punish those 

 who are convicted of wrong. If the tendency to de- 

 nounce all public officers as corrupt and thievish 

 does not cease, the time is not far distant when all 

 honorable men will shun the public service, and the 

 affairs of state being really left to the unprincipled 

 and dishonest, we shall deservedly perish in our 

 own corruption. 



There appears to have been no definite ac- 

 tion taken on these reports by the Legislature* 

 An investigation into the management of the 

 Deaf and Dumb Asylum was made by authority 

 of the Legislature through a committee ap- 

 pointed by the Governor and the trustees of 

 the institution, and their report was made to 



