TENNESSEE. 



71!' 



To this profit for 1898 should be added $25,000. 

 The extra session of 1898 appropriated this sum 

 for the erection of the workshops, etc., but decided 

 that it should be paid out of the receipts from the 

 labor of the convicts, which has been done. 



The Governor says : " I congratulate the people 

 of Tennessee that the penitentiary system, so long a 

 source of perplexity and expense, is at last a self- 

 supporting and profit-paying institution ; and that 

 by the employment of the convicts within the walls 

 and within the mines, they have been removed as 

 nearly as is possible from competition with free 

 labor. I beg to call your attention also to the fact 

 that our courts are constantly sending children of 

 tender age as convicts to the Penitentiary. I do 

 not believe that such a system is in keeping with 

 civilization, and therefore in the name of our com- 

 mon humanity I urge the inauguration of a reform- 

 atory school for criminal children." 



The new prison is now the main one and had in 

 February about 600 inmates, while the old building, 

 now the branch prison, had about 200. 



In regard to criminal costs the Comptroller says 

 that before the enactment of remedial measures by 

 the last Legislature criminal costs averaged $227,- 

 000 annually. Since their enactment the average 

 has been, not including Attorneys'-General salaries. 

 $156,000 annually. For the two years the entire 

 amount paid out was $392,000, but $80,000 of this 

 had accrued under the old law and was actually 

 paid before the criminal cost legislation of the last 

 session was enacted. Gov. Taylor granted 693 par- 

 dons, commutations, and respites during his two 

 years in office. 



Tennessee is charged with six lynchings this year. 

 In May a negro brakemau accused of pushing a 

 white boy from a moving train, causing his death, 

 was lynched by a mob at Rives. The lynching of 

 a colored man at Mine Lick, in June, for assault on 

 a woman, was witnessed, according to a dispatch, by 

 3,000 persons. A man who murdered his wife in a 



}uarrel was lynched by a mob near Old Town in 

 uly. A negro who confessed having entered a 

 house and attempted an assault on a young girl 

 was hanged at Ripley, Aug. 6. At Mountain City, 

 Sept. 26, a negro was taken from the county jail by 

 a mob of 100 men and hanged for assault on a 

 woman and seriously wounding a citizen. 



Military. Under the first call for troops for the 

 Spanish war the quota of the State was three regi- 

 ments, which the Government wished to have fur- 

 nished from the militia, and most of the men in 

 that service volunteered, making about 3,800. Of 

 these, 600 were rejected by the surgeons before they 

 left the first camps at three points in the State, and 

 about 1,200 more by Government surgeons after all 

 who were at first accepted had been concentrated at 

 Nashville. On the second call a fourth regiment 

 was recruited for the service. The State has paid 

 out on account of the troops $9,839.68, and the 

 amount contracted and still unpaid is $27,578.39. 



In a case appealed to the Supreme Court, decision 

 was given that members of the National Guard are 

 exempt from road and jury duty. 



Industries and Products. The cotton crop for 

 the year amounted to 268,635 commercial bales. In 

 1896 there were 26 mills in the State, with 95,836 

 spindles, and using 29,915 bales of cotton. 



Nashville is the center of a large hard-wood pro- 

 ducing region. An article in the " American " says 

 that it has the entire control of what is known as 

 the " Cumberland river poplar." It has had for the 

 past few years access to the cedar timber groves of 

 Middle and East Tennessee ; while oak, tight-bark 

 hickory, ash, cypress, chestnut, etc., abound in the 

 forests to which it looks for its supply. Walnut is 

 handled by the Nashville firms, but it does not com- 



pare in volume with what it was ten or fifteen years 

 ago. Of all grades and classes of lumber, walnut i- 

 the most scarce of all. From 750,000 to 1 ,000.000 

 feet are sold every year, and most of it is exported. 

 When all the sawmills of Nashville are running on 

 full time, which is the case when they can secure 

 the logs, the number of men employed in the lumber 

 business is about 2,000. The average for this year 

 is 1,700. A close estimate of the money represented 

 in all branches of the lumber and wood-working 

 interests of the city is $1,750,000. " Nashville is also 

 the headquarters of the Concatenated Order of Hoo- 

 Hoo, the lumbermen's fraternity. This organiza- 

 tion, which has only been in existence about five 

 years, has a membership among the lumber, news- 

 paper, and railroad men of over 7,000." 



As a winter-wheat flour market, Nashville stands 

 second only to St. Louis. The number of barrels of 

 flour made there in 1897 was 832,222, and the totel 

 output for 1898 was 963,140 barrels, making an in- 

 crease of 12 per cent, in 1898 over 1897. The sales 

 of the flour mills of the city for 1897 aggregated 

 $3,695,029.22 ; the sales for 1898 were $4,852,736.41. 



The following is a detailed statement of the aggre- 

 gate quantity of the different kinds of manufactured 

 tobacco produced in Tennessee during the calendar 

 year ending Dec. 31, 1898 : Plugs, pounds, 2,273,969 : 

 smoking, 189,906; snuff, 2,524,834; total. 4,988,709. 



Government reports show that 2,888,000 tons of 

 coal were produced in the State in 1897. 



Insurance. The Treasurer says : " Particular 

 attention is called to the showing of the last two 

 years, by reference to which it will be seen that the 

 collections exceeded those of the same period she 

 years ago by nearly 50 per cent., and the collections 

 are now nearly 5 times as large as they were in 

 1881 and 1882. Of the amount collected in the last 

 two years, about $10,000 was back taxes, due to the 

 State by reason of the failure of the companies to 

 report overhead business. This was ascertained by 

 an investigation of the companies' books, and the 

 entire tax, together with 6 per cent, interest, has 

 been covered into the treasury without any cost to 

 the State. These investigations will be continued 

 until all companies have been investigated, and it 

 is confidently expected that a very considerable 

 sum will be realized for the State. The following 

 figures will show what was collected for the periods 

 mentioned above : Total receipts for biennial period 

 ending Dec. 20, 1882, $55.506.72 ; total receipts for 

 biennial period ending Dec. 20, 1892, $173.776.75 ; 

 total receipts for biennial period ending Dec. 20, 

 1898, $246,932.80." 



Tax Liens. The Comptroller says in regard to 

 litigation on this subject : " In the summer of 1897 

 it was held by the honorable Court of Chancery 

 Appeals, in the case of Dunn vs. Dunn, appealed 

 from Hamilton County, that the lien of a mortgage 

 on real estate covered by his mortgage, was superior 

 to the State's lien for taxes, wherever the taxes were 

 assessed against the property after the registration 

 of the mortgage. It was also held by Mra court, in 

 the same case, that the mortgagee might foreclose 

 his mortgage in the courts of the State, and appro- 

 priate the entire proceeds of the sale to the payment 

 of his debt, interest, and costs, to the exclusion of 

 all taxes assessed against the property after the 

 registration of the mortgage. As soon as this deci- 

 sion was published and became generally known, 

 the payment of delinquent taxes as to a very large 

 per cent of the mortgaged property within the 

 State practically ceased. There was a very large 

 amount of delinquent taxes due upon the mortgaged 

 property throughout the State, which it was utterly 

 impossible to collect if this decision stood as the 

 law. Both Judges Clark and Hammond, of the 

 United States Court, as wi-11 tis many chancellors of 



