14 COMPTROLLER'S REPORT.

Statement No. 2 also contains an exhibit of the revenue arising
from the sale of Licenses, Tax on Plaintiffs, or, Commissions of
Trustees and Receivers, &c., which passes through the hands of
the Clerks of Courts into the Treasury. The amount received
on the various accounts therein enumerated, including Stamps, is
$200,722.40, to which, if the sum of $19,899.35, paid in on the
same; accounts during the months of October and November be
added, it will make an aggregate of $220,621.75, a decrease of
$1,797.53, when compared with the receipts of the previous year.
This decrease is not attributable to any diminution in these brunches
of the revenue, but to the operation of the Act of 1853, ch. 86,
which directs that the payments heretofore made on account of
Licenses, in the month of November, shall thereafter be paid on
or before the 10th of December, and the defalcation of the late
Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of Baltimore city, from
whom, no return has been received at this Department since June
last.

The amount of revenue collected by Registers of Wills, con-
sisting chiefly of tax on Commissions of Executors and Adminis-
trator, and tax on Collateral Inheritances, and paid into the
Treasury during the fiscal year, is $43,823.25,as may he; seen by
referring; to Statement No. 3. If to this amount the added $10,-
590.59, received in the months of October and November, and
the further sum of $9,683,29, paid by the Register of Wills for
Baltimore city, in the early part of December, and which properly
belongs to the operations of those months, the amount will be in-
creased to $64,097.13, a gain over the receipts of last year, of
$14,97,9.78. Of this amount $30,671.35 was received from the
Register of Wills for Baltimore city, being a gain over his pay-
ments of the preceding year of $7,625.09.

In my predecessor's annual report, the attention of the Legis-
lature then in session, was directed to the inadequacy of the
checks designed to protect the revenue in the hands of Registers of
Wills, and I respectfully repeat the suggestion by him made, that
the duplicate receipt should be abandoned, and the law so amended
as to make it the duty of the Judges of Orphans Courts to cer-
tify to the Comptroller all allowances of commissions to Execu-
tors and Administrators, and amounts due the State for Tax on
Collateral Inheritances. A revision of the law imposing a Tax
on commissions of Trustees and Receivers, is also needed.

It is gratifying to be able to inform you that by reference to
Statement No. 16, it will be seen the Baltimore and Ohio Rail-
road Company has promptly met all its engagements with the
State. The receipts on account of the State's one-fifth of moneys
arising from passengers on the Washington Branch Railroad,
amount, to $70,426.38, an increase over the preceding year of
$10,599.69.