The year 1880 was the last year of the dramshop act. The constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale of spirituous, vinous, fermented, malt and other intoxicating liquors, was adopted at the November election of 1880. The Legislature of 1881 passed what is known as the "prohibitory law," in aid of the constitutional amendment.

During the year 1881, only 184 persons were sent to the penitentiary, 104 of whom were convicted of the crime of grand larceny.

From 1880 to 1888, the annual increase of the population of the State of Kansas has been about 100,000. We did not reach the maximum of 291 convictions for felonies after the adoption of the prohibitory law until 1885, at a time when the population of the State was 1,268,530. In 1887 there were convicted and sent to the penitentiary 351 persons, and 158 of that number were for grand larceny.

You will observe that the number of convictions for grand larceny decreased out of proportion to the other crimes known to our law. The whole number of convictions has not increased in proportion to the population of the State. Convicts are being discharged continuously because of the expiration of their terms of imprisonment. If the percentage of convictions does not keep pace with the population, the number of convicts in the penitentiary will decrease.

We find that on December 31, 1886, there were 898 convicts in the penitentiary, besides Government prisoners. The Government prisoners in the penitentiary are prisoners kept and maintained there under an arrangement with the General Government. They are not persons convicted wholly in the State of Kansas for crimes committed in this State. They are convicted for crimes committed against the General Government. On December 31, 1887, there were 900 convicts in the penitentiary, only two more than in 1886, although the population of the State had increased 100,000. On August 17, 1888, there were in the penitentiary, exclusive of Government convicts, 854, an actual decrease of 46 persons in seven and one-half months. The border counties of the State are infested with the criminal classes more than the counties interior. Criminally inclined people locate where the chances of escape are most favorable. An imaginary line in the middle of a narrow street between Kansas City in the State of Missouri and Kansas City in Kansas, is no barrier to the thief or murderer, but frequently a very convenient means of escape. He may commit the crime of grand larceny and escape into Missouri in a moment's time, and vice versa. The time intervening between the preparation and granting of extradition papers af fords him ample opportunity to make his escape.

Atchison county, between January 1, 1874, and January 1, 1881, a period of seven years, sent 65 people to the penitentiary. From January 1, 1881, to June 30th, 1887, a period of six years and six months, 36 persons were sent to the penitentiary from that county-a very perceptible decrease. The population of the county had increased considerably during that time.

During the year 1886 there were no saloons in Atchison county. They were closed sometime in February of that year. During that year only three persons were sent to the penitentiary. From January 1, 1887, to June 30, 1887, only one person was sent to the penitentiary from that county.

Leavenworth county convicted and sent to the penitentiary between January 1, 1874, and January 1, 1881, 108 persons. From January 1, 1881, to June 30, 1887, a period of six years and six months, 116 persons were sent to the penitentiary from Leavenworth county. From January, 1887, to June 30, 1887, there were no saloons in Leavenworth county, that is, open saloons; and there were only five persons sent to the penitentiary during that period.

Wyandotte county sent 63 persons to the penitentiary between January 1, 1874, and January 1, 1881. From January, 1881, to June 30, 1887, a period of six and a half years, and with a doubled population, she sent 64 persons to the penitentiary, only one more than during the period of time between January 1, 1874, and January 1, 1881.

A great many comparisons of this kind can be made, all favorable to the enforcement of law.

Of all the persons charged with felonies and brought to trial, about fifty per cent. are convicted. Of the whole number charged with the violation of the prohibitory law, eighty to eighty-seven per cent. are convicted. The per cent. of other misdemeanor cases resulting in convictions, is about seventy to seventy-five per cent.

Taking into consideration the facts that during the last three years the population of the State of Kansas has increased very fast, the cities and towns have made phenomenal growths, and the people have been on a strain of speculative excitement, the laws of the State of Kansas have been remarkably well administered.

I shall make particular mention of the different classes of crime, and offer suggestions and amendments under appropriate headings.

PROHIBITION.

I said in the fifth biennial report, under this head, that the laws enacted to make effectual prohibition in Kansas, have interested the people and are discussed more by the masses than all other laws on the statute book. The same may be said now. What is said now is in language of commendation. The people are beginning to see the results. The tax-payer begins to feel it. The wives and children of the reformed inebriates experience the change. Prohibition is here to stay; it is a fixed fact. It is indelibly stamped upon our statute books. A vote of the people would never erase it. For the good it has done and will do, it ought never to be erased. It is depopulating our penitentiary, and reducing pauperism and crime to the minimum.

The law of 1887, amending the laws of 1881 and 1885, was a very whole

some enactment. Amendments can be made that will add to its efficiency, but to change the text would be dangerous.

It was urged by some that the requirement of the law that the petition. for a permit should have the names of twenty-five reputable women residing in the township, city, or ward, would tend to stir up local strife, create local contentions and be disastrous to society. That provision has proven to be one of the best safeguards to the law, and ought to remain. The individual who has become so unpopular in a community that twenty-five reputable women cannot be found in all the realm who will sign his petition, is hardly the proper person to be intrusted with the sale of intoxicating liquors.

I found it impossible for me to attend in person to the enforcement of the law in the several counties in this State where the county attorney failed, neglected or refused to enforce it. I have continued the practice of appointing Assistant Attorneys General for the purpose of aiding in the enforcement of the law. Under the law of 1885, there was no way to compensate the assistants appointed by me to assist me in my work, and the result was that able prosecutors could not be obtained. The law of 1887 provides ample means, and able prosecutors can be procured to assist in enforcing the law.

The administration of the law is growing more popular. The masses demand it, and scheming individuals are slow to oppose the will of the masses. Where there is a popular uprising against what the people have declared to be a common nuisance, dangerous to society, morals and health, and conducive of crime and pauperism, the end is certain. The fight for supremacy has been tedious. The lawless elements of society are always arraigned against the law. Dens of infamy and hot-beds of crime are always found clustered around the saloon. Remove the saloon, and the threshold of the penitentiary is farther away from the rising generation. The saloon has been banished from Kansas soil, and already the result can be appreciated. The average age of those convicted of crime and sent to the penitentiary in Kansas, has increased, a proof conclusive that the boys of to-day in this State are not inmates of these dens of infamy and schools of crime.

The county jails throughout the State are comparatively empty, and the number of convicts in the penitentiary is growing less.

In 1882, 1883, 1884 and during the first part of 1885, there was one place in Kansas where liquors were sold, either legally or illegally, to every 674) people. Forty per cent. of the places where liquor was sold during those years were saloons, where it was sold without restraint, and to all comers. If liquors are sold without restraint, five times as much will be sold and consumed as where it is sold under restrictions; and the more rigid the restrictions the less the consumption.

In 1886, the number of places where liquor was sold, either legally or illegally, was reduced to one place to every 1,001 people. There were very few saloons in the State at the close of that year. The prohibitory law of

1885 had about rid the State of the saloon, and the liquor was sold by the druggists under the permit-and-statement system.

The law of 1887 imposed more stringent rules governing the sale of liquor for the excepted purposes, requiring the applicant to swear that the liquors were desired and were necessary for medicinal, scientific or mechanical purposes, and if for medicinal purposes, the name of the patient must be given, and also requiring the applicant to swear that his or her real name was signed to the statement. This provision of the law put an end to the practice of persons making applications for liquors in the name of prominent people throughout the State, and using the liquor for illegitimate purposes.

By an accurate mathematical calculation, based upon official reports made to this department, I have ascertained that there is now in Kansas, in 1888, not to exceed one place where liquor is sold to every 2,220 people-the smallest percentage of any State in the Union. When we take into consideration the stringent regulations under which it is sold, we are safe in saying that there is not to exceed ten per cent. as much liquor sold in Kansas in 1888, as there was in 1880.

Notwithstanding the great benefit the State has received from the enforcement of the law, and the phenomenal progress made in the growth of the State, there are yet men and women in Kansas who proclaim that prohibition is a farce, and the enforcement of it a by-word. These complaints come from three classes of people: the criminally inclined; the people opposed to all sumptuary laws; and a class of people whose disposition it is to find fault with everything with which they are not intimately connected.

The enforcement of the law was fraught with some danger, especially in 1885 and 1886. Scores of letters have been received by this department threatening dire destruction to the Attorney General and his assistants. Many of these letters were anonymous, witnessed with a sign of the crossbones, daggers, coffins and skulls-to all of which little or no attention was paid.

The enforcement of the law in the counties interior from the eastern border caused an emigration of the lawless element from those counties to the border counties, where there was little or no effort made to enforce it. Some of these border counties, on account of the apathy on the part of the officers, became hot-beds of crime. By their great numbers and threatening attitude they kept down the better elements of society, and for a time it appeared as if the lawless elements had control; but that has all changed.

Where public sentiment was against the law, and juries were hard to procure that would convict because of their prejudice against the law, I adopted the injunction plan, and the effect of it has been to break down the last hope of the enemy.

THE MUGLER, WALRUFF, AND ZIEBOLD & HAGELIN CASES. When I came into this office there was pending in the United States Supreme Court a criminal case taken on appeal from the Supreme Court of

the State of Kansas, wherein the State of Kansas was plaintiff and Peter Mugler was defendant. The case had been pending in the Supreme Court of the United States for a year or more. In 1886 an injunction proceeding was commenced against John Walruff, a brewer at Lawrence, Kansas, by Hon. R. A. French, County Attorney of that county. The defendant by his attorneys insisted that a Federal question was involved; that a writ of injunction in that case was equivalent to taking private property for public use, and without due process of law, and therefore in contravention of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. They filed their petition and bond, and removed the case to the United States Circuit Court. Hon. D. J. Brewer, the Judge of the United States Circuit Court, on a motion to remand the case to the State court, held that a Federal question was involved, and decided that the case should be tried on its merits in the Federal court. Several fruitless efforts were made to get the case to trial on its merits. I finally concluded to institute an injunction suit against the firm of Ziebold & Hagelin, brewers at Atchison, Kansas, with the hope that a speedy trial could be had on its merits, and the vexed question determined. The injunction was granted by Hon. David Martin, Judge of the District Court of Atchison county; but the defendants through their attorneys sued out a change, and had the case transferred to the United States Circuit Court before Judge Brewer. The case was tried in the State court in the month of February, 1887. In March, 1887, the case was brought to trial on its merits before Judge Brewer. He decided against the State, and I caused the case to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The Legislature of 1887 made an appropriation of $500 to defray the expenses of the transcript and the court costs for the purpose of taking the case, the case of The State of Kansas vs. Ziebold & Hagelin, to the Supreme Court of the United States. I drew out of that fund the sum of $250 for the purpose of paying for the transcript and other court costs. The Clerk of the United States Supreme Court, finding that his estimate was too large, afterward returned to me the sum of $81, which I turned into the State treasury-making the total cost to the State for the trial of that important suit, $169.

After the trial of the case in the United States Circuit Court and its appeal to the United States Supreme Court, the National Brewers' Association assisted the defendants in the employment of counsel to aid Messrs. Everest & Waggener and Tomlinson & Eaton in the trial of the case in the Supreme Court. They employed as such associate counsel Wm. M. Evarts and Joseph Choate of New York, and Senator Geo. Vest of Missouri.

The Mugler case and the Ziebold & Hagelin case were finally submitted in October, 1887, and on the 5th day of December, 1887, the court rendered its opinion. They affirmed the opinion of the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas in the case of The State of Kansas vs. Mugler, and overruled the judgment of Judge Brewer, Judge of the United States Circuit Court.