Since 1880 expenditures for the volunteer guard have increased, and after 1890 the cause of the increase has been the cost of transportation and subsistence of the guard on the occasions of annual encampments and camps of instruction.

The cost of the judiciary increased from $310,690 in 1881 to $1,057,197 in 1915, but its proportion of total expenditures decreased from 12.6 per cent to 6.2 per cent. In 1880 the judiciary was composed of one supreme court, one court of appeals and thirty-three district courts. By 1901 there were a supreme court, one court of criminal appeals, five courts of civil appeals, each with three judges, and fifty-eight district judges. By 1915 the courts of civil appeals had increased to nine, and district judges numbered eighty-five. The responsibility for the absolute increase in judicial expenditures is to be divided between new courts, on the one hand, and fees and similar payments to sheriffs, clerks, county judges, constables, and attached witnesses on the other. Fees and similar payments constituted 57.6 per cent of judicial expenditures in 1881, 62.9 per cent in 1891, 63.6 per cent in 1895, but after 1897, and on account of the new fee act of that year, their share fell off, being 60.6 per cent in 1900, 56.9 per cent in 1910, and 54.7 per cent in 1915. The fees of sheriffs, clerks and attorneys in felony cases showed a marked decrease as a result of changes in the fee laws.

1 House Journal, 34th Leg., Reg. Sess., p. 48. For governing law, see Rev. Civil Stats., 1911, title 116, chap. 1.

Legislation bearing on the payment of the expenses of attached witnesses and fees to county judges and others was enacted in 1883 and was the most important legislation on the subject after 1876.1 Governor Ross called attention in 1889 to the immense drain upon the treasury made by fees in felony cases, but only slight and unimportant amendments were made.2 The high water mark of fee and similar payments was reached in 1894 in the unprecedented sum of $723,986. The question was a very live one in 1895; governors Hogg and Culberson directed attention to it, and a determined effort was made to effect a reform, particularly in the direction of limiting the maximum sum which county and district officers could receive.3 A fee bill, known as the Mills Bill, was bitterly lobbied against, met parliamentary obstructions, and finally died, and an innocuous bill on the subject was passed.4 The state Democratic platform of 1896 demanded a reform of the system and Governor Culberson again attacked with great ability the abuses, with the result that the important law of 1897 was passed which reduced fees and limited the total compensation of county and district officers.1 The sheriffs, however, who were among the largest beneficiaries of the old system, were powerful enough politically to escape the maximum compensation provisions of the act, and though the act reduced their fees, these officers were influential enough to secure in 1901 a restoration of the fees to the former profitable amounts.2 In 1913 there was revision of the fee law, and a maximum compensation was set for the sheriffs.3

1 Laws of 1883, pp. 5, 22, and 117. Earlier legislation is found in Laws of 1876, p. 284, Laws of 1879, Reg. Sess., p. 90, Laws of 1881, p. 37.

2 Message of Governor Ross, January 10, 1889. Laws of 1889, p. 38. Laws of 1891, p. 138.

3 Message of Governor Hogg, January 11, 1895. Message of Governor Culberson, January 16, 1895.

4 Houston Post, January 22, and April 22, 23, and 24, 1895. Laws of 1895, Reg. Sess., pp. 146, 148, and 182.

The amount payable out of the general treasury on account of fees and similar payments fluctuates from year to year according to the activity of prosecuting and other officers, and this has given rise to more deficiency appropriations than any other object of state expense, and has frequently worked a hardship upon officers and witnesses.4

Beginning about 1911 dissatisfaction with the fee method of compensating public officers has been on the increase, and the press and governors' messages have expressed severe condemnation of the method. It has been an incentive to the most despicable injustice through false arrests and prosecutions of those who are unable to protect themselves, and the state has been robbed through padded witness and tax lists, through excessive mileage charges by sheriffs for summoning witnesses and transporting prisoners, and through extravagant compensation for unskilled work.5 The cases of a justice of the peace who received in one year $9,576.35 and of a constable who collected $9,157.40, and returned nothing' as excess, show the extravagance of the system.1 The state platform of the Democratic party in 1914 called for the abolition of the fee method of paying peace officers.2 In case of officers like the attorney general, county judges, county clerks, county and district attorneys, and sheriffs, inasmuch as the constitution prescribes the fee system for them, the method of their compensation can not be changed to a straight salary basis without an amendment to the constitution.3 The principle of maximum compensation is now followed quite generally, though the way in which it is applied does not remove the evils of the fee system. Since 1897 the policy has prevailed of setting maxima to the amount of fees which may be retained by the office holder, the maxima varying according to the population of the county or the population of the chief city of the county. If there is an excess above the amount first set as the compensation of the officer and his assistants, the officer may retain one-fourth of the excess until it reaches certain amounts which also vary according to the population of the county or chief city. For example, the collector of taxes in a county which has a population of 38,000 or above or which contains a city of over 25,000 inhabitants may retain fees up to $2,750 and one-fourth of the excess up to $1,500, making a possible total compensation of $4,250.4 There are certain vicious exceptions to, the present fee law. and, furthermore, as the fund out of which assistants and deputies are paid must be raised from fees, the officers are under all of the inducements which give rise to the abuses characteristic of the fee system. The penitentiaries have been a source of considerable expense to the general treasury and their management has been the occasion of much concern to the different administrations. From 1849 to 1870 the state operated the Huntsville penitentiary on its own account, but from 1870 to 1883 the buildings and convicts were leased, and the state was under no expense, except for buildings and for the transportation of the convicts. The lessees during the period 1878-1883 paid the state $3.01 per month per convict.1 The penitentiary located at Rusk was brought to completion in the early eighties, and it and the Hunts-ville properties and convicts were leased by the penitentiary board in 1882 for fifteen years at $10,000 per year for each penitentiary. This new lease was at once revoked by the legislature, and the state resumed in 1883 the control and management which it has exercised ever since. The two-fold system of leasing the convicts in such numbers as the contractors desired and of employing those not leased upon the farms and in the industries of the penitentiaries was thereafter adopted and was followed until the investigations of 1909 led to the abolition of the lease policy. Abolition of the contract or lease system became effective January 1, 1914. The state farms and factories are now operated by the convicts, but the institutions are not self supporting, and in the past they have made heavy demands upon the general revenues. On July 1, 1913, the debts of the system amounted gross to $1,656,835. Even with the deduction of cash on hand and bills receivable, the debt was well over one million dollars.2 In view of the debts and the poor condition of the properties the legislature in 1913 authorized the issue of $2,000,000 of 5 per cent bonds, to be secured by the penitentiary properties, except the State Railroad, and designated $1,500,000 of the proceeds to be applied to the payment of the debts of the system, and the remainder to addition and improvements.3 In spite of large payments out of the general treasury in 1913 and 1914 the debt of the system was on January 1, 1915, $861,845, and the house committee which investigated the penitentiary was uncertain whether this was all of the debt.4 In 1915 an appropriation of $465,000 was made to cover the current expenses and debts during the year 1915.5 Debts which represent paying investments are productive, but those which are incurred to meet running expenses are unproductive. Some of the indebtedness of the penitentiary was due to the purchase of farms and other productive property, but a large part was due to the failure of the system to meet current expenses. Unfortunately, the books of the penitentiary system have been so poorly kept from the accountant's point of view that expert accountants and legislative investigating committees have never been able to ascertain accurately the exact condition of affairs.

1 Messages of Governor Culberson, May 25 and June 18, 1897, and January 10, 1899. Houston Post, April 29, May 2, and May 28, 1897. Laws of 1897, Called Sess., p. 5.

2 Laws of 1901, Reg. Sess., p. 285. Other legislation on fees is found in Laws of 1901, First Called Sess.. p. 21, Laws of 1903, Reg. Sess., pp. 219, 230, and Laws of 1907, p. 466.

3 Laws of 1913, Reg. Sess., pp. 246, 286. See also Laws of 1911, pp. 104. 107, and 109, and Laws of 1913, Called Sess., p. 20.

4 Reports of the comptroller, 1898, 1899.

5 See account of the so-called peonage cases which were tried in the Federal District Court in Austin in January and February, 1911. See articles by Lloyd Lochridge in the Austin Statesman, January 2-10 and 25-27, 1913. Message of Governor Colquitt, January 16, 1913. Dallas News, January 7, 1914. Austin Statesman, June 25, 1914. Austin American, December 6, 1914. Grand jury charge of Judge W. L. Crawford, as reported in the Dallas News, January 6, 1916. Report of the grand jury of Travis County, as reported in the San Antonio Express, April 30, 1916.

1 Dallas News, March 29, 1914.

2 Message of Governor Ferguson, January 20, 1915.

3 Report and Opinions of the Attorney General, 1912-1914, p. 246.

4 Laws of 1913, Reg. Sess., p. 246. .

1 Biennial Report of the Penitentiary Board, 1880, p. 10. 2House Journal, 33rd Leg., First Called Sess., p. 53. 3Laws of 1913. Reg. Sess., p. 110. 4House Journal, 34th Leg., Reg. Sess., p. 439. 5Laws of 1915, First Called Sess., p. 114.