The order was accordingly agreed to.
ORDERS.
Mr. VALLIANT submitted the following
order:
Ordered, That the president of this conven-
tion shall be authorized, after the final ad-
journment of this convention, to make order
for the payment of all bills remaining unpaid
in connection with the reporting and printing
of the journal of debates, whenever the same
shall be presented to him duly certified as
correct by Mr. Joseph H. Audoun, or some
other member of the committee on reporting
and printing.
On motion of Mr. ECKER,
The order was referred to the committee on
accounts.
On motion of Mr. BARRON,
It was ordered to be entered on the journal,
that had John Barron been in his seat on Fri-
day, 26th instant, he would have voted against
the section added to the judiciary article, pro-
viding a system of involuntary apprentice-
ship; and in favor of the amendment which
was offered thereto designed to secure such
apprentices education so as to enable them to
read and write.
On motion of Mr. SMITH, of Dorchester,
it was ordered to beentered on the journal,
that Alward Johnson is absent from his seat
in the convention, in consequence of sickness.
On motion of Mr. TODD,
It was ordered to be entered that the con-
tinued absence of T. S. Noble, of Caroline
county, from his seat in this convention is oc-
casioned by a protracted illness.
THE NEW CONSTITUTION.
The convention proceeded to the considera-
tion of the following order submitted yester-
day by Mr. VALLIANT :
Ordered, That the comptroller of the treas-
ury be, and is hereby authorized and empow-
ered to contract for the printing of six thou-
sand copies of the constitution, and that the
librarian be directed to distribute the same
among the members, as early as practicable
after the adjournment without day of the
convention, and that the cost of said distribu-
tion be paid by the comptroller.
Mr, TODD moved to strike out "six" and
insert "ten," so as to order ten thousand
copies to be printed.
Mr. PUGH moved to insert " twenty."
Mr. WICKARD moved to insert "thirty,"
and after the word "constitution " to insert
"five thousand to be in the German lan-
guage."
Mr, BRISCOE. I hardly think these extra
copies of the constitution will be printed and
distributed throughout the State before the
vote is taken. If a copy of the constitution
adopted by the convention could be printed in
the public journals of the State, they would
be sufficiently distributed among the people of |
the State by that time. These copies to be
distributed will hardly reach members before
the vote on the adoption of this constitution.
They are pamphlet copies, and it may be that
they will be, I hope they will be, of no mate-
rial use to anybody.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE. I have two objections to
the order, I understand the purpose to be to
distribute the new constitution so that it may
be intelligently adopted by the people. In
the first place, it seems to me that the machin-
ery suggested is too slow; and in the second
place, that there will not be enough copies
published, even at the largest estimate which
has been made.
It will be slow work to set up and print off
the constitution, taking perhaps a week or
ten days; and as much longer for members
to distribute them, if they ever do it, which
may be a matter of doubt with regard to some
members, if we leave it to them.
1 find upon the journal of proceedings of the
last convention that the gentleman from Bal-
timore county (Mr. Ridgely) offered the fol-
lowing order:
" Ordered, That the chair appoint a com-
mittee of three to contract with the Baltimore
'Sun, or some other newspaper in the city of
Baltimore for the publication of the constitu-
tion entire, in extra newspaper form, and for
supplying fifty thousand copies to be distribu-
ted as follows: to the various county newspa-
pers in the State, in proportion as near as may
be, to their respective subscription lists, and
two hundred copies to be furnished to each
member of the convention, the contract to be
executed within one week after the close of the
session."
Published in that form, and gent out as ex-
tra sheets of these papers, they reach every
subscriber throughout the State within a week
or ten days from the time the convention ad-
journs. I should greatly prefer that we should
adopt something similar in form to the plan
adopted by the last convention,
The question being taken upon Mr. WICK-
ARD'S amendment, it was rejected.
Mr. RIDGELY moved to insert " fifty," and
the words "ten thousand copies to be print-
ed in the German language."
The amendment was agreed to.
Mr. STOCKBRIDGE submitted the following
amendment:
Strike out all after the word " that" in the
first line, and insert :
" The chair appoint a committee of three
to contract with the Baltimore American or
some other newspaper or newspapers, fur the
publication of the constitution entire in extra
newspaper form, 5.000 copies in the German
language and 50,000 in the English, to be
distributed as follows: two hundred copies to
he furnished to each member of the conven-
tion and the remainder to be equally distrib-
uted by said committee among the various
county newspapers and postmasters who will |
