REPORT OF THE COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY. 3d

as stock, since the same will be invested at par in the new
"Consolidated Loan of 1899," we have the following very
interesting comparison :

General Sinking Fund ......	1898 $510,802 04	1897 $484,789 56	Net Gain.. $26,072 48
Defence Redemption- Loan . .	8,825,020 11	3,494,245 05	830,775 06
Exchange Loan of 1889 ......	175,605 60	165,403 50	10,202 10
Exchange Loan of 1880 ......	51,395 00	40,000 00	11,395 00
Penitentiary Loan ..........	81,741 00	34,000 00	47,741 00
Insane Asylum Loan ..... . .	19,86.5 00	10,000 00	9,865 00
	$4,664,488 75	$4,228.438 11	$436,050 64

or the unprecedented gain of $436,050.64, notwithstanding
the expenses of the Legislature of 1898. Comment upon
the above would simply be a matter of. supererogation; the
record speaks for itself.

OYSTER FUND.

The condition of the Oyster Fund is exhibited in
Statement "H."

The receipts, with balance on hand, aggregate the
sura of $58,227.34, while the disbursements are shown to
be $55,083.92, leaving a balance on hand of $3,143.42.

It is absolutely impossible to maintain the State Fish-
ery Force upon such revenue. With the strictest economy
and with a due regard for the efficiency of the same, the
Navy cannot be maintained for less than $60,000.00 per an-
num. This year is but a repetition of several former ones :
insufficient revenue. By virtue of the payment of large
bills brought over from the last, fiscal year, this fund was
practically exhausted in the month of April ; hence debts
contracted and salaries due from that time to the close of
the fiscal year, necessarily took the same course—that is,
were paid since the first of October from revenues then ac-
cruing. ,

The last Legislature was appealed to in vain, and un-
less the next one takes hold of this matter intelligently and
heroically, both our oyster industry and Navy will suffer
materially for lack of such assistance. 'Indeed, this indus-
try is the main support of many thousand citizens of this
State, and it is, in my judgment, the duty of the Legisla-
ture of 1900 to come to the assistance of the State Fishery
Force by making an appropriation sufficient to relieve it of
its present embarrassment. As was said by Comptroller
Robt. P. Graham, my predecessor, in his last Report to the
Legislature of 1898, " The oyster industry is too important