when the Secretary of State, the Attorney-General, and the State Engineer were created the Commissioners on the part of that State with powers precisely similar to the powers of the Commissioners of Connecticut. Upon receiving notice of such action, I appointed Hon. Origen S. Seymour, Hon. Lafayette S. Foster, and Hon. William T. Minor the commissioners on the part of this State.

The resolution under which these commissioners were appointed provides that they shall make their report to the General Assembly. I am informed that they are prepared so to report, and am also informed that the joint commission has unanimously agreed upon the entire boundary line between the two States, defining accurately the limits of this State upon the west and south.

I am not officially advised as to the details of the agreement, but know that the commissioners of both States have examined the matter in difference with great care and industry. The well known character of the commissioners for learning and integrity gives to their action the force of a judicial determination. It may, in some particulars, not be precisely as we would like, but I think the State is pledged to abide by the result. I recommend that the agreement be ratified by the General Assembly.

OYSTER COMMISSION.

The immense tracts of valuable oyster ground on the southerly boundaries of the State, which are at present unused, and which it was believed could be so disposed of as to bring a large sum into the treasury of the State, induced the last Legislature to provide for a commission of three persons to prepare a plan for the gradual disposal of such grounds. Upon this commission I appointed Hon. Robert Coit of New London, Hon. Henry B. Graves of Litchfield, and Charles W. Bell, Esq., of Norwalk. They have attended to the duty with which they were charged, and will report to you the plan which they have agreed upon, and which, I have no doubt, will be acceptable to you, and of great value to the State.

STATE PRISON.

The whole number of persons confined at the State Prison on the 30th day of November last was 251. There had been received during the year 110, and discharged 137. The income from the Prison has been sufficient to pay for the board, clothing, and medical care of the prisoners, the salaries of all the officers, with the incidental expenses, and leave a balance of $692.19 to credit for the new year. There has been drawn from the State Treasury, on account of the Prison, the sum of $7,644.95, which has been expended for repairs, and for other purposes not mentioned above.

The new direction of the Prison, ordered by the last Legislature, went into operation on the first of April. These Directors have brought great intelligence to the discharge of their duty, have expended much time, and have displayed the utmost zeal and public spirit. After careful inquiry, they chose a warden, and changed many of the other officers. The new officers have faithfully seconded the efforts of the Directors. The result has been successful almost beyond expectation. Our Prison, save that it is an old-fashioned structure, built before any of the modern improvements in prison buildings came into use, might well be a model. In cleanliness, healthfulness, good order; in the intelligence, activity, judgment, and fidelity of all the officers; in the obedience, cheerfulness, industry, and discipline of the prisoners; and in that general feeling of satisfaction, security, and pride which comes from doing, and doing well the work which it is set to do, the State Prison of Connecticut is now surpassed by no institution of a similar kind in America.

For a few years past some classes of workingmen have contended that the system of contract labor in use at the State Prison unjustly affected them. They applied to the General Assembly of 1879 for some legislation. Such action was had that a commission consisting of not more than five persons was authorized to be appointed by the Governor, whose duty it should be to inquire into the feasibility of abolishing the system of contract labor carried on at the Prison, and to devise some plan for the employment of the prisoners other

than by contract; and to inquire further what kinds of employment could be sucessfully carried on in the Prison with the least conflict to established interests. On the commission I appointed Lucius P. Deming of New Haven, W. F. Wilcox of Chester, Edmund Tweedy of Danbury, Jeremiah Tierney of Norwalk, and Merrick A. Marcy of Union. Their report will be laid before you at an early day. This is an important matter, involving on the one hand the interests of many working men, and on the other possibly requiring an entire change in the management of the prisoners. I trust you will be able to devise some plan whereby the labor of the prisoners can be utilized in a remunerative way without unjustly bearing upon the labor of honest men.

A special law, passed in 1869, provides that the Governor, in certain cases, shall issue an order to take any person confined in the State Prison, who shall become insane, to the General Hospital at Middletown. During the last summer the warden of the Prison reported to me that two or three convicts were insane, and requested that measures be taken for their transfer to the Hospital. One of these was a man confined in the Prison for murder, and whose insanity impelled him to murder everybody else. The life of no person within his power was safe for an instant. At the Prison he could be so restrained that he could not take the life of any one. At the Hospital his presence would endanger the lives of many. Under these circumstances I deemed it my duty not to approve the report or to make the order for the transfer.

The Hospital is overcrowded, and is obliged to reject or postpone pending applications for admission of persons who are not criminal. Besides, it is a question of very grave doubt whether the criminal insane can safely or wisely be put into the same institution with the innocent. I recommend the repeal of this act, and that some special provision be made for insane convicts.

THE INDIGENT INSANE.

The special report made to the last Legislature upon “the necessity for further accommodations for the insane poor of

this State" will come before you with the unfinished business of last year.

The Connecticut Hospital for the Insane at Middletown has, during the year, had a total number of 644 patients. On the 1st day of December there were 510. Of these only three were paying patients, and of these three two are themselves paupers whose expenses are paid by relatives living out of the State. The report above mentioned showed that there were in the State about 400 poor insane persons who were out of the Hospital who were in almshouses or supported elsewhere wholly or in part by towns, and recommended the erection at Middletown upon the farm owned by the State of a separate building, inexpensive in style and construction, where the quiet chronic patients could be cared for. I believe this is much the most economical method that can be adopted for the care of the large number of poor insane people now needing hospital treatment. I repeat that I do not see why the poor insane who are out of hospitals are not entitled to your attention as fully as those who are in. Nor do I see how you can be consistent if you refuse, at a moderate expense, to provide for the former while at a large outlay you have made provision for the latter. The fact that at all times for the past three years applicants at the hospital have been obliged to wait from two to three months until their turn could be reached, simply because at all times the hospital was dangerously over-crowded, makes it your duty to adopt, as speedily as possible, some reasonable plan of further provision for this dependent class.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

In the communication I had the honor to make to the last General Assembly I recommended that the right of voting be extended to women, as far as it can be done by an act of the Legislature. I repeat the recommendation. It seems to me that logic and wisdom both dictate that women, especially property-holding and tax-paying women, should have this right. At the very least they ought to be allowed a voice in all places where taxes are laid, as in town, city, borough, and

school district meetings. Or if this is deemed too general, why not permit them to vote on some special matters, as the raising of a tax, for school committees, on the question of license or no license, or others of a similar nature?

The State of Massachusetts has recently passed a law permitting all women who possess the required qualifications of residence and education, and have paid a tax, "to vote at town and city meetings for members of school committees." Six other States have laws granting to women the right of suffrage wholly or limited. Any such enactment in this State, if it should work badly, might be repealed by a Legislature consisting only of men elected solely by male suffrage.

It has just been decided by a very significant majority in this State that voting is a great educator, and that it is worth while to incur an annual expense of a hundred thousand dollars that the men of the State may have an opportunity every year to take part in this great educational process. If this sort of education is so very valuable for men, does it not savor a good deal of narrowness-might I not say cowardice -not to permit women to share to some little extent in it?

TAXATION OF PROPERTY OF MARRIED WOMEN.

I call your attention again to the taxation of the separate property of married women. All such property held by any married woman by virtue of the acts passed in 1877 and in 1878, is as much out of the control of the husband as though no marriage existed. In such case to require the property to be set for taxation in the list of the husband, and make the tax thereon a debt against him, is a plain violation of the rights of married men. You ought to provide that all such property be set in a list against the married woman herself. An act making this provision has once or twice passed in one branch of the Assembly and has failed of becoming a law, mainly on the claim that it would add to the labors of assessThere can be no doubt that assessors are a very useful class of public servants, but I can hardly believe it to be wise that an illogical, cumbersome, and inequitable statute shall remain in force simply to accommodate them.

ors.