XXX REPORT OF THE

is in effect a consumption of the capital invested, and for that reason
the State should receive some revenue from such business as it pro-
gresses, especially as the people of the State have been taxed for so
many years to give value to the investments in coal lands and
property, by furnishing an outlet to market for the coal through the
medium of the vast works, for which so large a portion of the public
debt was contracted.

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.

By the 2nd Section of the Act of 1872, chapter 282, provision is
wade for the payment of five hundred dollars annually, to any Agri-
cultural Society organized or to be organized in any county, the members
whereof shall contribute voluntarily an equal sum, for the purpose of
being disbursed for the promotion of agricultural knowledge and im-
provements ; provided that but one such society in any county shall be
entitled to receive such appropriation in any one year under said Act.
In the event of two or more Agricultural Societies being organized
in any county, and contending for this appropriation, the law points
out no tribunal to decide which one of the said societies shall receive
the appropriation, and prescribes no rule by which it may bo de-
termined, which of said societies shall be entitled to receive the same.
In the absence of any rule by which to determine, under such circum-
stances, which of said societies shall be entitled to the appropriation,
the county might he deprived of the appropriation altogether. It is
therefore submitted, that if such appropriations are to be continued,
some rule should he prescribed in the Act, by which it may be ascer-
tained, which of two or more societies existing in any county, shall
be entitled to have the henefit of said appropriation.
PUBLICATION OF DEFAULTERS.

By the 6th Section of Article 69, of the Code of Public General
Laws, the Comptroller is required to "furnish each officer of the State,
whose accounts are in arrears, at least sixty days prior to a general
election, a full statement of his accounts, and in default of his ac-
counting for such deficiencies within thirty days, then it shall he the
duty of the Comptroller to bave published weekly, for one month, in
one or more newspapers in the several counties of this State and the
City of Baltimore, the names and titles of said officers, with the
amounts of such deficiencies."

A large number of accounts are standing open on the books of the
office, where the claims have been in the hands of the State's Attornies
for a number of years, and in many instances where the impossibility