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It is believed that the valuable testimonial consisting in a Commission of the State thru the suffrages of the officers or soldiers would be valued more highly in proportion as the responsibility of those thus commissioned shall be increased. In that proportion is the commission the ostensible evidence of the capacity & efficiency of him who holds it. I shall therefore venture to suggest with great deferencees the expediency of requiring on sentence of conviction of some small classes of military offences, the liability to costs under the direction of the court. It has been usual on occasions similar to this to advert to the character of our laws & to their practical results. A careful comparison of the laws of the other States with our own would have enduced some comment on portions of our code, if the leading State question has not required a large drought upon your own patience. It will therefore only be urged now that if our lawyers would throw all the precious maxims they can gather into the treasury, at times when they can leave execution for improvement and clients for the State, and if we would learn from the practical operations of our sister republics we should be induced probably to consider as expedient a very few changes in our statutes. The subject has been noticed now principally with a view of soliciting your attention to some enlarged means, at least for one year, for supplying the State Library with the adjudications of other States, of nearly all of which the Legislative acts have been procured. It may, however, be observed that whatever may be our laws, if there shall not be a faithful administration of them, legislation will be inadequate to its objects. As to that administration and the effects of it, when you shall examine, you will find, if my information has been correct, that the monstrous folly of litigation and of suits, which consume property annually like a conflagration, has been diminished, and that convictions from crimes have not been as numerous