398 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Feb. 26,

3. That Article 3, section 33, of the Constitution of
this State requires the recommendation of either the
Governor or officers of the Treasury Department be-
fore the General Assembly can pass a law for the
relief of your petitioners.

4. Your petitioners therefore respectfully pray that
the Governor will entertain this, their petition, and
recommend to the General Assembly the passage of a
bill for their relief, and they respectfully submit the
following as some of the considerations entitling them
to relief:

A. The facts and law referred to in the report of the
Joint Special Committee of the General Assembly of
1890, appointed to investigate the accounts of said
Archer, and the evidence taken by said committee.

B. The failure for many years of all Governors (with
not more than one exception) Comptrollers and Treas-
urers of the State, to comply with the various provis-
ions of the Constitution and laws intended lor the pro-
tection of the State securities and funds, by interro-
gating the Treasurer under oath and actually calling
for the production of the securities which were or
ought to have been in his possession, which duty the
sureties had a right to believe would be performed.

C. The failure of successive Legislatures to comply
with the duties imposed by various provisions of law,
the full discharge of which would surely have led to a
much earlier discovery of Archer's defalcation;

Art. 95, secs. 22 and 23, Code of Public General
Laws, Vol. 2, p. 1431 Const. Art. 3, see. 24.

D. The Court of Appeals, though not permitted
under the law, to admit as a defence against the State,
the well known facts attending Archer's defalcations,
have not hesitated to express their views of the hard-
ship of the case. The hardship to the State having
been suggested, they say, we have nothing to do with
the supposed hardship of the ease; but it must be
evident that the hardship is not entirely on one side.
When Archer's sureties executed this official bond,
they had a most just and reasonable expectation that
their liability would not extend beyond the period of
two years, with the addition of the short time allowed
by law for the qualification of a successor. Circum-