ment not only of the harbor of Boston, but of all the harbors of the Commonwealth.

The proprietary rights of the Commonwealth in the soil of the sea lying within its dominion, limited only by the Colonial ordinance of 1647,-imparting the right to the shore owners to extend one hundred rods, or to the channel,-is clear. Its title is that by virtue of which it owns all the lands within its bounds, whether under water, or above water, not granted away. The Legislature has the full title and the full power to control this property. The right to dispose of all flats thus belonging to the Commonwealth, is vested in the Legislature. The Commonwealth may, by the acts and at the discretion of the Legislature, cause or permit them to be excavated, or embanked, or otherwise disposed of. It may grant and convey them to others, limited, whether as to time, person, quantity, reason or consideration pecuniary or otherwise, only by its sense and judgment of the public welfare, in the exercise of its own sound, constitutional discretion. But, while I perceive no limit to the power of the Legislature to manage and dispose of these public lands, as well as any other public property, save that prescribed by its own judgment and discretion,-nevertheless, the preservation of all our harbors is a public trust of such peremptory necessity and such immeasurable importance, not merely to the seaport towns, but to the convenience, happiness, and prosperity of all the

people, and the wealth and growth of every town and section, inland as well as seaboard,-that this paramount obligation should always be first regarded in the disposition and management of the flats,-especially when it is considered that the interests of. private individuals lead to continued encroachments on the tide-water.

I respectfully suggest to the General Court the consideration of some general and systematic provision for the protection and preservation of all the proprietary rights of the Commonwealth in flats, or lands under the sea; and also the establishment of a careful, scientific and economical system for regulating the disposition of any such property whether by the extension of private wharves or otherwise, so as to avoid dangerous invasion of public interests by encroachment, and trespasses, and inadvertent grants; and also for surveying such flats, and offering them for sale, where it is proper to sell them, under appropriate restrictions and conditions; and providing also for the building of wet docks, and the making of other important harbor improvements, to which purposes the net proceeds realized by the Commonwealth from the sales of such flats and lands should be dedicated.

In these suggestions, I do but repeat the ideas, opinions, warnings, and advice of many most eminent jurists, civil engineers, and far-sighted citizens, who have heretofore reported to the Legislature, in the

capacity of commissioners of the Commonwealth and of committees of the General Court.

Nothing should be omitted to give unity and simplicity of plan and direction to any interest of which the Commonwealth has the proper oversight. And in all that it does, it ought to study the resources of the wealth and power of the people, and the method of their best development, keeping in constant view, both the individual welfare of the citizen, and the strength, influence and renown of the State.

Public Institutions.

The number of inmates of the various penal, reformatory, sanitary and eleemosynary Institutions, under the management of the Commonwealth, at the present time, is four thousand five hundred and thirtytwo. The annual cost of their support to the State is more than $400,000, exclusive of the interest upon personal and real estate in occupancy, which is estimated to have cost at least $800,000. The number of officials attached to these institutions is not far from three hundred, to whom there is paid annually in salaries the sum of $75,000 in addition to board. There are also fifty-one inspectors and trustees, to whom is annually paid, in addition to contingent expenses and travel, the sum of seven thousand dollars. Thus it appears that an average of one official is employed for the care of every fifteen inmates, and one inspector for every ninety persons.

Excluding the cost of the support of the inmates of the State Prison, which institution is self-supporting, it follows that the average cost of maintaining the remaining number, is about one hundred dollars per annum, or two dollars a week, for each inmate.

The State Prison, with five hundred and fifty inmates, is in good condition, and its affairs are well managed. Its whole expenditure during the past year has been defrayed by the labor of the convicts. The State Reform School, at Westborough, now numbers two hundred and sixty inmates, supported during the past year by an outlay of $47,634, of which $10,068 is charged for salaries. The boys are employed in the work of the farm, and the house, and in the manufacture of chairs and shoes. They appear to be healthy, contented, and cheerful, and the duties of the superintendent who was appointed at the commencement of the last year, have been discharged so as to show a manifest improvement in the discipline and management of the Institution. I commend to your consideration the report of the superintendent, and especially his suggestion as to the obstacles in the way of making the Institution productive of the highest good, where young and comparatively guiltless youth, are necessarily exposed to the contagion of evil example from those older and more reckless in crime.

The Reform School Ship, with its one hundred and fifteen boys, mostly from the Westborough Reform

School, has, during the past year, developed the wisdom of the experiment, and I trust that further experience will confirm the entire practicability and usefulness of this novel method of rescuing the waifs of human society from the vortex of crime and dissipation to which they are exposed, and placing them at once in the track of usefulness and honor.

The number of patients at the Institution for the Insane at Worcester is three hundred and thirty-one, at Taunton four hundred and twenty-eight, and at Northampton three hundred and fifteen,-in all one thousand and seventy-four; and the aggregate cost of their support is $180,000. At Taunton the number of patients is greatly in excess of proper accommodations, and it is found necessary to abandon in great measure that appropriate classification on which improvement and cure so essentially depend.

The three almshouses and the hospital at Rainsford Island contain at present two thousand three hundred and thirty-nine inmates, and these institutions are supported at a cost of $150,000 annually.

At Monson, on the day of a recent visit, there were six hundred and forty inmates, of whom four hundred and fifty-seven were children under fifteen years of age. Of this latter class, one hundred and sixty had been recently transferred from the almshouses at Tewksbury and Bridgewater; which removal had involved, in many cases, a separation of families painful to contemplate. The alleged reason for such