284 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Feb. 24,

the institutions of other States. In regard to the charities
of the State your committee may indulge a just pride. Many
of them have been founded by her liberality and munificence,
and should continue to receive her fostering care ; but the
Legislature must exercise discretion and bestow on those
whose objects and organization give promise of greatest use-
fulness. With retrenchment and judicious economy the
State may indulge her liberality without militating against
her purpose to pay off her public debt at no distant day.

In her financial policy, this object should he kept constantly
in view, and in a comparatively few years she will bo clear
of every incumbrance. By the course which is pursued of
investing the sinking fund, as occasions offer, in the debt
of the State, this fund may he now said to represent a pur-
chaser, whose especial duty it has been made to purchase up
the bonds of the State, on which, as any other holder, it
receives its interest quarterly or semi-annually, and again
invests these increments from interest in the further purchase
of State honds, and whenever the time shall arrive when the
bonds held by it shall equal the debt of the State, or in other
words, whenever this fund shall have absorbed the debt of
the State, the deht will be cancelled, because held by a fund,
which itself belongs to the State. Under this policy, the
deht of the State has been greatly reduced, and but for the
unavoidably heavy drafts on the Treasury to meet the ex-
penses and wastes of the late war, we should have heen nearly
clear of deht. It has been reduced from $13,649,796.53 to
$7,614,413.43, and if from this we deduct the amount of
$1.529,379.44, still standing to the credit of the sinking fund,
the actual amount for which the S tate would have to provide
interest, would be reduced to $5,779,232.85. This remaining
indebtedness is more than covered by available assets, hut
which, at the present time, it might not be judicious to con-
vert or dispose of, as the State may with better economy,
continue the gradual liquidation of her debt, as at present,
and look forward to the time when the revenue from her
works of internal improvement and especially from the Chesa-
peake and Ohio Canal, will complete the work of relieving
her from all her obligations. This great work should receive
the State's care and vigilance. Time has given it stability,
its banks have become firm, and experience has taught those
in its management to guard against the effects of freshets or
other casualties. Under proper supervision it must in ten or
twelve years, according to the opinion of its President, pay
off prior liens, and then become a source of large revenue to
the State.

Owing to difference in exchange, the interest, which is
made payable in London, on the balance of our 5 per cent,
sterling bonds, which have been past due since 1865, amounts