ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



BY HON. WILLIAM H. MOODY. 



An exaraiDation into the reports of your Society dis- 

 closes that those who have been selected to deliver the 

 annual address have been given a wide scope in the choice 

 of subjects. It seems not to have been your purpose to 

 confine the speakers to purely agricultural subjects. You 

 seem to have taken all knowledge for your province, and to 

 have encouraged the discussion of any matter which 

 touched the public well being. It would be idle to expect 

 those, whose days are busy in other avocations, to enlight- 

 en you, where your own resources of information are far 

 superior. In the old and more leisurely days, the profes- 

 sional man was often a practical farmer as well, but the 

 exacting demands of modern life compel from each the 

 most constant attention to his own occupation. By the 

 necessity of ignorance, I am forbidden to address you upon 

 any subject relating to the cultivation of the soil, and your 

 invitation was given and accepted with full knowledge of 

 this limitation. I shall, however, endeavor to interest you 

 in matters with which I am, or ought to be, somewhat 

 familiar, and which are of practical concern to us all. 



At first sight it might appear that, of all persons in the 

 world, the members of the Essex Agricultural Society would 

 be the least interested in questions concerning the criminal 

 law ; but yet, when we consider the great importance to 

 the community in which we live, of checking and control- 



