ANNUAL MESSAGE OF ALEXANDER W. RANDALL. GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF WISCONSIN. DELIVERED JANUARY 15, 1858. MADISON. ATWOOD AND RUBLEE, STATE PRINTERS. COVERNOR'S MESSAGE. Gentlemen of the Senate and Assembly : I am required to lay before you, so far as possible, the cóndition of the State, and to make to you such suggestions as are deemed important for your consideration. FINANCES. The report of the Secretary of State, containing the estimates of expenses and revenues for the current year, will be laid before you immediately. Your attention will be attracted by the large amount estimated for the expenditures of the year. The large sum named under the heads of "Sundry Expenses Unknown," and "Due Individuals,' makes an aggregate of over $130,000, and constituting, whatever be the actual amount when liquidated, what may be called a floating debt, is such as to require the attention of the Legislature to devise means by which the incurring of a debt so large in dimensions, and so uncertain and indefinite in its character, should be prevented. The amounts for which the State has become liable from sources of expenditure which the auditing officer has been unable to estimate for with any degree of exactness, have always borne a large proportion to the stim total of the expenses of the year, and hence there has in almost every year been reported a deficiency in the income to meet the disbursements, and, this, too, although some of the officers have estimated very large sums to cover these inevitable but indefinite expenses. The following table shows the estimated and actual expenses of each year from and including 1849, and will show as well the ratio of increase of the expenditures of the State, as the very wide difference in most cases between the estimates and the results: |