548 



NEW YORK (STATE). 



046.08, the rate being 2 7-10 mills, and the 

 valuation $3,361,128,177, the tax to be devoted 

 as follows : 



School purposes $8,637.240 99 



Canals, including canal debt 2,352,789 73 



General purposes . 3,0^5,015 36 



Total $9,075,046 08 



The direct school-tax for the last fiscal year 

 produced $3,708,384.69. The total expenditure 

 from the State treasury for educational pur- 

 poses was $4,152,874.65. The total expendi- 

 ture, State and local, for the maintenance of 

 schools was $14,461,774.94. 



Setting aside the General Fund debt for In- 

 dian annuities, the principal of which amounts 

 to but $122,694.87, the gross State debt upon 

 Sept. 30, 1887, was $7,444,310, of which sum 

 $800,000 is the amount outstanding of the 

 debt created to provide for the payment of the 

 Niagara Keservation awards in 1885, and which 

 matures at the rate of $100,000 per annum. 



The remaining $6,644,310 is the Canal Debt, 

 the last of which matures in October, 1893, and 

 which has been reduced during the fiscal year 

 by the purchase and cancellation of stock to 

 the amount of $223,700, and by the redemp- 

 tion of stock to the amount of $1,436,500, 

 which matured during the year. 



The sinking fund Sept. 80, 1886, amounted to . $5,051,07-3 82 

 The sinking fund Sept. 80, 1887, amounted to . 4,061,188 84 



Decrease of sinking fund during the year . . . $989,884 98 



This decrease in the sinking fund is due to 

 the cancellation and redemption of debt as 

 above stated, amounting to $1,660,200, the re- 

 sult for the year being as follows : 



The actual surplus on Sept. 30 was $3,714,- 

 907.55. Inasmuch as the actual surplus repre- 

 sents the condition of the State treasury, as- 

 suming all valid appropriations to have been 

 liquidated and all collections to have been 

 made, it follows that, if the State had retired 

 from business upon the thirtieth of last Sep- 

 tember, its available surplus over all current 

 demands would have more than sufficed to ex- 

 tinguish the entire bonded debt not provided 

 for by the sinking fund. 



It will be seen that the net debt, that is, the 

 sum not yet provided for by the sinking fund, 

 is barely one tenth of one per cent, of the 

 State's valuation for the current year. 



The tax imposed upon corporations for the 

 privilege of organizing or of increasing their 

 capital stock produced during the fiscal year 

 $201,663.99. The collateral inheritance tax 

 produced $561,716.23. The gross amount ap- 

 propriated from the General fund during the 

 past four years for land purchases and for con- 

 struction of buildings exceeds eight and one half 

 millions of dollars. Among the more impor- 



tant recent appropriations are : An appropria- 

 tion of $300,000 made by the last Legislature 

 for a new asylum for insane criminals ; appro- 

 priations of $190,000 for the Hudson River 

 State Hospital (popularly known as the Pough- 

 keepsie Asylum); appropriations of nearly 

 $190,000 for the asylum just projected at 

 Ogdensburg; an appropriation of $120,000 to 

 rebuild the female department of the State 

 Industrial School at Rochester; an appropria- 

 tion of $300,000 for State-Prison repairs; and 

 an appropriation of $173,000 for additions to 

 the Buffalo Asylum. 



Prisons. The transactions of the prisons 

 during the last fiscal year were peculiar and 

 abnormal, on account of the required change 

 in the method of employing labor in the pris- 

 ons. By the expiration of contracts during 

 the year, especially in Sing Sing, a large num- 

 ber of prisoners were released from employ- 

 ment, and the duty and work of transferring 

 such men from idleness to new industries was 

 thrown upon the officers in immediate charge 

 and upon the superintendent. The great ma- 

 jority of such prisoners were put at work on 

 the public- account system, the only system for 

 the employment of the convicts in the State 

 prisons, which, under existing laws, is per- 

 mitted to be operated. 



There was a material increase in the prison 

 population during the year. The aggregate 

 number of prisoners in all prisons Sept. 30, 

 1886, was 3,155 ; the number in Sept. 30, 1887, 

 was 3,296. The increase is 141, and the rate 

 of increase is very nearly the same as in the 

 preceding year, when it was proximately 6 per 

 centum. There has been an annual increase 

 in prison population since 1883, when the 

 minimum was reached during a period of 

 eleven years. After 1877 there was a constant 

 yearly decrease in the population of the State 

 prisons until 1883; the decline in six years 

 was 739, or more than 20 per centum. In 

 four years the increase has been 468, or 16 

 per centum on the minimum number of 1883. 

 It is a gratifying fact, however, that the total 

 number of convicts in the State prisons is now 

 271 less than it was in 1877, or something over 

 7i per cent, less, although the population of 

 the State has gained about three quarters of 

 a million. In 1877 there was one prisoner in 

 the State prisons out of each 1,359 persons in 

 the State, while in 1887 there was only one 

 prisoner to each 1,697. 



The health of the convicts in all the prisons 

 was generally good. No epidemic diseases 

 prevailed. The death-rate in some prisons was 

 high as compared with some other years in the 

 same prisons, but was not excessive. 



The results of the public-account system, so 

 far, afford grounds for confidence in its ulti- 

 mate success. 



Capital Punishment. The commission to in- 

 vestigate and report the most humane and 

 practical method of carrying into effect the sen- 

 tence of death in capital cases, transmitted 



