Year: 1878

interests most others may be left to care for themselves. These are without natural pro tectors, are farmed out to fiduciary agents, and demand for special reasons the jealous over sight of the law. a. s

 I recommend the passage of statute pun ishing with exemplary penalties all acts of en- beZzlenent committed by executors, admin istrators, guardians, conservators, or trustees under any testamentary or express trust. Rob- berries of trust estates are becoming too fre- quent and far too respectable. It is time the act were made criminal, and the actor infa- nous.

 The law already requires that annual ac counts be rendered by testamentary trustees to the Courts of Probate. But this law, under our vicious probate system, has become little better than a dead letter; and when an ac- count is rendered, it is the merest matter of form, without notice to the parties in interest, and if preserved at all, it is too often filed away by the judge without examination or ] scrutiny. l recommend that this duty be en- forced by law, and that all guardians, conser- yatOrs, and testainentary trustees be required, under penalties, to render to the Probate Court an annual account for it's investigation and ap- proval, and to justify the account with oath | and vouchers, and that, in default of so doing, it be made the duty of the court, of it's own motion, and on reasonable notice gi ven to the parties in interest, to remove such delinquent with disallowance of compensation and ap- point suitable person in his place.

 STATUTES RELATING TO PERJURY.

 There is grave doubt whetherthe statute for the punishment of perjury is applicable to willful false swearing by officers of financial institutions, who by law are repaired by law to make returns to the different departments of the State. 1advise the passage of an act which choll an uoctira Of HOl1ht this subject.

 CORPORATION LAWS.

 Our enactments relating to manufacturing, mechanical mining and other like corporations are. in my judgment, discordant and scandal ously loose. It is the duty of the Legislature to reform them reducing corporations of common class to common level, more effect ualy securing the wages of operatives in their service and above all to utterly extirpate cer- tain corporations which have grown up within a few years, and which are gross frauds on the law and discreditable to the State I shall beg the privilege so soon as shall have com pleted certain investigations now in progress, to submit special communication on this sub ject for your consideration and action.

 MARRIED WOMEN.

 The State has done itself great credit by providing that married women shall no longer be counted in the law as incapables, but shall hereafter be the owners of their own property, like other human beings; with all the rights of ownership. But this law is limited in its oper- ations to marriages subsequently, contracted. 1 advise that it be SO extended as to secure to the wife, in the case of pre-existing marriages, a sole and separate estate in all her property hereafter acquired during coverture.

 RESTORATION OF FORFEITED RIGHTS

 recommend the passageof an act providing that no person be restored to the privileges of an elector forfeited by conviction of crime, without ample previous notice by publication in some newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the conviction was had, and in that in which the applicant resides It is greatly to be regretted, in my judgment, that the Legislature possesses the power of relieving this forfeiture for there is very serious danger that it's clemency may be imposed upon and abused by unworthy applicants whose lives and conversation have given no evidence of re- form, lilly entitle them to remission of the penalty which the Constitution so justly inn poses.

 STORAGE RESERVOIRS AND DAMS.

 The devastation occasioned last spring by the breaking away of storage reservoir in Staffordville will doubtless call your attention to the necessity of some legal provision for the prevention of similar occurrences in the future. There are, am led to fear, other like struct- ures in the State, which threaten the peace, lives and property of villages, and possibly of cities. A bill for the correction of this evil was proposed in the Legislature of 1875, short ly after the terrible Mill River disaster in Mas sachusetts. It was continued, in consequence of opposition, to the succeeding Assembly, and died there with the memories of the event which suggested it. l venture to hope that the recollection of this nearer calamity will last long enough to overcome opposition, and insure some proper measures of protection.

 I beg also to inquire whether some guard should not be placed on the formation of joint stock companies for the construction and maintenance of storage reservoirs. Such cor porations are sometimes converted into unjust contrivances to make profit from the danger of others and avoid responsibility for resulting damage. It has been the practice of manufac- turers to unite and form such companies for building and maintaining reservoirs, with on- ly just enough capital to complete the work. If the structure is swept away by the negli- gence of the company, and whole communi- ty overwhelmed, the stockholders who con- pose the company, and by whose pleasure and for whose profit it exists, escape liability, and the only recourse to be had by homeless and penniless survivors, is against bankrupt joint stock corporation. This is trifling it seems to me, with the property rights of the citizen, and with human life.

 Tn the next place. do not believe that any man, or set of men, in corporate form or oth erwise, should be allowed, of their own mere will and motion, to pile up and suspend great floods of water above the heads of any commit nity, and thus threaten their lives and proper ty, and compel them to live in daily and night ly fear of an ava anche.

 I suggest, then, the appointment of Board of Civil Engineers charged with the supervis- ion of reservoirs and reservoir dams, and that no such structure be built. enlarged or materi- ally altered without the written sanction first obtained of such Board, nor until the plan and specifications thereof shall have been approved by them, nor be put to use until the work shall have been completed to their acceptance and that it shall be the duty of said Board to ex anime any existing reservoir or dam, on writ ten complaint by any three persons claiming to he endangered thereby, and to order such re- pairs or alterations thereof as they shall find necessary for the protection of life or property, with ample powers to enforce their orders, RAILROADS.

 The railroads of this country have done, and are doing, so much to compact us together as one people, and have added such immense ac- tivities to commerce, and such untold millions 

 that they are entitled to be treated with con- sideration. But they have contributed large ly, in the hands of interruptions managers, to stimulate all sorts of fraud, jobbery and dis honest practice, and thus to debauch the old fashioned honesties of business life. This has been brought about, in great part, by means of excessive stock issues, unwarranted by bono tide investments or actual values. By the eX- isting statutes of this State, all railroad corpo <ft tEofr to increase their capital stock to any amount whenever they shall choose to judge it neces- sary for the purposes of their roads, and in such manner and on just such terms as they shall see fit to prescribe. The section which confers this most extraordinary license crept into the general railroad law of 1871. re- commend it's repeal, and the passage of an act in it's stead, prohibiting railroad corporations the permission be in no case given without an application first made to the road commission CTS with public notice and hearing, and re-