PENNSYLVANIA. 



745 



bankers and banks, the number reporting an 

 annual income exceeding $10,000 is forty-one ; 

 exceeding $5,000, and under $10,000, twenty- 

 seven; exceeding $4,000, and under $5,000, 

 eleven; exceeding $3,000, arid under $4,000, 

 nineteen ; exceeding $2,000, and under $3,000, 

 thirty-two ; exceeding $1,000, and under $2,000, 

 thirty-eight ; exceeding $500, and under $1,000, 

 twenty-five; less than $500, forty-four, and re- 

 porting no net earnings or income, twenty-nine. 

 Some of these private banks have large lines 

 of deposits, for which the depositors have no 

 security but the property of the individual 

 bankers, which, in case of disaster, is generally 

 found to be mortgaged for all that it is worth, 

 or to have changed hands clandestinely. The 

 Auditor-General cites one instance in which 

 a private bank, with $300,000 on deposit, re- 

 turned an income of $68 for 1883 ; for 1884, 

 reported no income at all, and closed its doors 

 with a promise to pay the depositors twenty 

 cents on the dollar. During the past three 

 years, four incorporated banks went into liqui- 

 dation, and eleven private banks failed, causing 

 a loss to depositors of between $1,500,000 and 

 $2,000,000. 



Public Charities and Correction." While many 

 State institutions," says the Governor, "are 

 overcrowded, and the provisions in other sec- 

 tions of the Commonwealth for the insane and 

 other unfortunates are shockingly inadequate, 

 the Legislature still persists in making large 

 and annually increasing appropriations tor pri- 

 vate institutions. This is unwise and waste- 

 ful. The State's own institutions have clearly 

 the first claim upon the State's bounty. The 

 Eastern Penitentiary is unlawfully overcrowd- 

 ed, there being above 1,100 convicts in 732 cells, 

 It is thus impossible to carry out in eastern 

 Pennsylvania the requirement of the law for 

 the separate confinement of prisoners, and sen- 

 tences of the courts to that effect are nuga- 

 tory. The Huntingdon Reformatory should 

 be at once completed and put into operation. 

 The Norristown Insane Asylum is crowded be- 

 yond its capacity, and to the detriment of the 

 inmates, while hundreds of needy patients are 

 vainly seeking shelter therein. Institutions in 

 other localities are in a similar condition." 



Regulation of the Liquor Traffic. On this sub- 

 ject Gov. Pattison, in his message to the Legis- 

 lature of 1887, says: "There is urgent need 

 for legislation with reference to the traffic in 

 intoxicating liquors. The almost entire ab- 

 sence of restriction upon the sale of alcoholic 

 beverages, especially in the larger cities, is an 

 evil the magnitude of which can not be over- 

 estimated. It is not needful that arguments 

 should be adduced to prove that the liquor- 

 traffic is dangerous and harmful to the com- 

 munity ; that it is degrading to public morals, 

 hurtfiil to the health of the people, and detri- 

 mental to the peace and good order of society. 

 The demand for a reform in the laws govern- 

 ing the sale of liquor is so wide- spread and em- 

 phatic that the Legislature would cease to be 



a body representative of the will of the people 

 if it should fail to respond to the call made 

 upon it for a remedy. Ever since the Com- 

 monwealth has existed, our laws have regarded 

 the sale of intoxicants as a subject calling for 

 rigid regulation and restraint. Time has dem- 

 onstrated that the need for such supervision 

 and limitation has increased with population, 

 and with the changing social and physical con- 

 ditions of the people. That there should ex- 

 ist in the single city of Philadelphia upward of 

 7,000 licensed drinking-places, and that as 

 many more would, under the law, have to be 

 licensed, as there might be persons desiring to 

 embark in such business, is a startling and un- 

 answerable argument against the laws by which 

 such a state of facts is made possible. The 

 Legislature ought, at once, to revise the entire 

 license system of the State. The cost of li- 

 cense ought to be increased to such a figure as 

 would eradicate the enormous number of small 

 tippling-houses. Some regulation should be 

 enacted limiting the number of licenses that 

 may be granted for taverns within a given 

 area, and for a given. number of inhabitants. A 

 petition signed by a reasonable number of the 

 freeholders or residents in the neighborhood, 

 square, or election district in which the tavern 

 is to be located, praying for the issuing of the 

 license, should be required, to authorize the 

 granting of the same, and the license should 

 be limited to the place for whicli it is first 

 granted or named in the petition, and made 

 void upon removal." 



Divorce, With reference to divorce, the Gov- 

 ernor says : " Your attention is called to the 

 facility with which divorces may, under exist- 

 ing laws, be obtained in this Commonwealth. 

 The records of the courts show an alarming 

 increase in the number of divorces annually 

 decreed, and our State is fast gaining a dis- 

 creditable reputation as a, facile forum for such 

 judicial dissolution of the marriage relation. 

 It is not to be doubted that our courts are often 

 resorted to by persons from other jurisdictions 

 who acquire a temporary residence here for 

 the sole purpose of being relieved of the mari- 

 tal bonds. That State fosters an insidious 

 and blighting evil in which divorces are per- 

 mitted to be lightly and easily procured. It 

 is suggested that the present laws would be 

 greatly improved by the adoption of the fol- 

 lowing provisions: 1. That divorce proceedings 

 in all stages shall be conducted in open court. 

 2. Requiring a residence in the State of two 

 years preceding the commencement of an ac- 

 tion for divorce by the party applying there- 

 for. 3. Prohibition of marriage by the guilty 

 party, in a decree of divorce, during the life- 

 time of the other party. 4. Limiting the juris- 

 diction of the courts to causes occurring while 

 the parties were bona fide domiciled here. 5. 

 Providing that malicious desertion, as a ground 

 of divorce, shall have existed three years prior 

 to the commencement of the action. 6. That 

 cruel and barbarous treatment shall, as a ground 



