and prevent, ultimately, that antagonism and rivalry which otherwise might arise.

The advantages offered to the student, in the department of the arts and sciences, in the university of Michigan, are scarcely exceeded in the colleges of the older States; and the expenses of the collegiate course in the former are considerably less. And though the number of students are less than, with the advantages offered, we might have reason to expect, yet perhaps no other like institution' not longer established, has contributed more to the promotion of science.

The present class of students in the medical department, being the first formed, is unprecedentedly large. The inducements offered will, I doubt not, secure the attendance of an increased number in succeeding years.

The regents are hereafter to be elected by the people, and the first election is to be held on the first Monday of April next, at the time A State board of edof the election of judges of the circuit courts. ucation is also to be elected at the general election in 1852. requisite provisions of law should be passed at the present session.

The

The Board of Education have contracted for the erection of a suit. able edifice for the State Normal School for $15,000; and of this sum $12,000 have already been paid the contractor, in notes and obligations donated by the citizens of Ypsilanti. Ample security has been taken for the completion of the contract by the first day of March, 1852, when it is expected the institution will be in readiness to receive pupils.

The board of trustees of the Michigan asylum for the education of the deaf and dumb and blind, and of the asylum for the insane, will, in due time, present a report of their proceedings. The means appropriated, it is believed, will be found entirely inadequate to effect the objects contemplated.

The number of convicts remaining in the State prison at the end of the last fiscal year, was 131, and the average number, during the year, a little exceeded 119: Of the number in prison at the end of the year, 106 were in the employment of contractors, 5 at work on prison buildings, and the remainder at various occupations about the prison.

The whole expenditure, during the same time, including the expenses of building and repairs, the payment of officers, and other > miscellaneous items, was $16,736 44.

The whole amount drawn from all sources and expended for the erection of prison buildings and maintenance and safe keeping of prisoners, as appears by the books of the Auditor General, is $297,582 90, of which $233,765 74 have been drawn from the State treasury, and the remainder mostly from contractors, for convict labor. In the expenditures here mentioned, no account is included or taken of the labor of convicts directly upon the prison, which has considerably varied, and, at different periods, has been estimated at various sums, from $630 to $5,000 per annum. The prisoners were, for the most part, employed in building during the early period of the history of the prison, and the cost of their maintenance was consequently increased.

Of the total expenditures made, $133, 068 70 have been upon the building department, and $164,514 20 for the support and safe keeping of convicts, including the salaries of officers, and pay of guards and other persons employed. Of the latter sum, $117,83025 was drawn from the State Treasury, and $46,683 95 from the revenue of the prison. The construction of the prison was commenced in 1838, and prisoners first confined there in the Spring of 1839, and 35 were committed during that year.

The sum of $8,240 59, it is believed from a recent examination of vouchers and reports, should be transferred in the Auditor Generals books, from the subsistence to the building account; but it is not deemed a matter of importance, as the aggregate will remain unchanged.

The Agent urges the necessity of building immediately a fire proof kitchen, and advises an appropriation of $500 00 for that purpose, and which, I have no doubt, should be made. He also advises the construction of apparatus for generating gas to be used for lighting the prison, instead of oil.

For the improvements suggested, necessary repairs, and expenses of the prison, $5,000 00 will, in his opinion, be required from the State Treasury the present year; but if the improvements and repairs be omitted, $3,000 00 will suffice for all other purposes. The agent also believes that but a mere trifle will be required from the Treasury in 1852, and nothing thereafter.

The improvements made the last two years have been more extensive than, perhaps, a strict construction of law required or allowed. While it may not have been most judicious, in this respect, to have anticipated the wants of the State, for so long a period, the greatest, and perhaps the only evil likely to result, is the present want in other departments of the public service, of the money so disbursed. During the last year the agent has proceeded no further with improvements than to make available, for use, buildings already erected; and the amount drawn from the Treasury is only one-half that of the year preceding.

I have reason to believe that the internal police of the prison is well regulated and well enforced; that the agent and his subordinates are indefatigable in the performance of their duties; and that the sanitary regulations adopted are such as are well adapted to the preservation of the prisoners' health.

The permission in the constitution to change the location of the prison from Jackson to the upper peninsula, confers, in reality, no power upon the Legislature which that body did not previously possess. No information is in possession of this department that would render such a change of location advisable.

During the year under review, one convict was pardoned by my predecessor, and one by me, on the recommendation of the agent and physician of the prison, that being sick beyond the hope of recovery, he should be given to the charge of his friends who proffered to provide for his further wants. Since the close of the year, and a few days before the expiration of the term of his sentence, I

also pardoned one other convict, for the reason that the crime charged was committed when laboring under a state of mind bordering on monomania; and also for the further reason that he had, on several occasions, rendered essential service to the prison by detecting and reporting plots of mischief among the prisoners. The judge before whom he was convicted, the prosecuting attorney, and the agent of the prison, concurred in recommending the pardon, for the reasons stated.

The right to punish those who violate the laws of society is unquestioned; the degree of punishment and the manner of its inflic tion, present subjects of inquiry to the law-giver and the philanthropist. As the condition of society is ameliorated by the progress of civilization, the number of crimes expiated by capital punishment has greatly diminished; and, indeed, the general treatment of criminals, before and after conviction, is divested of much of its former severity. Moral power has been, to a considerable extent, substituted for physical power. Prisoners, though convicted of crimes, are no longer regarded as wild beasts of prey, to be kept in subjection by the application of blows. They are still to be considered as human beings, and in their treatment the principles of humanity to be made applicable, as far as may be, to their situation. Further amelioration of their condition we hope may yet be made, and the infliction of corporeal punishment, now sometimes resorted to, wholly abolished. It is to be hoped that their safety and subordination may be secured by the substitution of milder means, which, when understood and judiciously applied, may prove equally efficacious.

Punishment is the penalty for violating the social compact. It is inflicted as a warning to others, as a desert of the culprit and a means of his reformation.

To deter others from the commission of crime, punishment should certainly follow its commission; and the exact degree of punishment, meted out by the law, should also be inflicted. If, from a lax adminis. tration of the criminal code, many crimes go unpunished, and many others are punished but in part, the fear of punishment is diminished, and the intended warning to others not sufficiently accomplished. If the chances are great that the culprit may escape altogether, or that he may be pardoned or otherwise evade the extent of the law, the

fear of punishment, which is the greatest restraint upon the vicious, will afford but a feeble and insufficient check upon the commission ot crime. Not only is the certainty of puuishment, but the certainty of full punishment, indispensible to serve as a sufficient warning to others. The intervention of the executive, unless it be in some extraordinary case, is, I doubt not, deleterious in its effects. In a few extreme cases, perhaps, pardons may be granted; but seldom, if ever, for the reason that the ends of justice are supposed to have been answered by the reclamation of the criminal, which is the most usual plea urged. In prison the least refractory and most docile is likely to be the most adroit and hardened criminal. Mere force he knows can never set him free, and, more than his fellows, he feels the necessity of submitting to circumstances, when no chances of successful revolt occur. A convict less expert, less discreet, and less obedient to the rules of discipline, is quite as likely to be reformed, and in that view, a proper subject for the exercise of the executive pardon. With the knowledge and belief that the term of confine ment, fixed by the sentence, is to be the duration of punishment, prisoners and their friends are more contented, and their imaginations better calmed, than when their hopes and fears are excited with applications for pardon and the uncertainty of success attending such ap plications.

The provision of the revised constitution, requiring the Executive to communicate to the Legislature the number of pardons granted, and the reasons for the same, will, I doubt not, prove salutary in its effects. Applications will be less numerous, and confined to cases presenting reasonable cause for Executive interposition.

Our own prison, in regard to financial affairs, possesses advantages over those of many other States. Situated, as it is, in a highly cultivated and productive agricultural district, provisions of every kind are cheap; and, if the necessary investigation be instituted, it will be ascertained that the subsistence of its convicts, costs, on an average, nearly a third less than like subsistence in eastern prisons. In addition to this, the products of the labor of convicts find in the west a more ready market, at higher prices, and without the charge of transportation. For these causes alone--the cheapness of subsistence, and the increased value of the manufactures of convicts-the prison