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277

[1825]

[Governors Message]

that it is the wish of this Government, by every proper measure, to cultivate good neigborhood [neighborhood] with the adjoining Provincial Governments, and that no acts of our citizens encroaching upon their rights had been or would be sanctioned.

The local situation of this State affords great facilities of escase to offenders against our laws, and the restrainst which a belief in the certainty of punishment has a tendency to produce is no doubt frequently lessened from a consideration of the case with which arrest may be avoided by flight to a foreign jurisdiction. I know of no way in which this inconvenience could be so effectually obviated as by a mutual agreement between the Government of adjoining territory, providing under suitable regulating for the reciprocal apprehension of fugitives from justice and for their return to the Government whose laws they had violated. Such an arrangement, if executed in good faith, might have a tendency in some measure to check the commission of crimes of the more aggravated character.

The State Prison having been completed in the early part of the year, it was deemed inexpedient to remove the prisoners from the County gaols, until it had become so thoroughly dried and seasoned as to cause no apprehension of injury to the health, of those who might be confined therein.

In the month of June, information was given by the Warden and Inspectors, that the Prison was in a suitable condition to be occupied, and immediately afterward I caused to be removed thereto from the several county gaols all the convicts whose term of imprisonment would not expire