It had been the policy of the state to intrust the care of her penal and charitable institutions to separate boards of citizens serving without pay. To secure uniformity of administration and to enable these separate bodies to profit from one another’s experiences, a state board of charities and corrections was authorized by law in 1883. To the working secretary of this board for fourteen years, Mr. Henry H. Hart, must be accorded high praise for such unstinted and intelligent devotion to his duties that Minnesota’s institutions of charities and corrections were accorded a place in the front rank. The state lost one of her most valuable servants by his deserved promotion beyond her borders. Following Governor Hubbard’s earnest advice, the legislature of 1885 established “The State Public School” for neglected children, which under wise management by different officials has rescued from lives of crime or dependence many hundreds of homeless waifs. The reformatory for youthful delinquents and the Soldiers’ Home, commended by him to the legislature, were established under the succeeding administration. His repeated recommendation that all moneys coming into county treasuries should be “covered in” through the county auditor’s office fell on deaf ears, and that needed reform in our public accounting still remains to be wrought. The sanction of the granger laws by the Supreme Court of the United States had established the principle that states have the constitutional right to regulate railroads; but Minnesota had not exercised the right in any vigorous or comprehensive way, partly because the companies had of their own motion moderated charges, improved their administration, and shown a disposition to treat the public with some respect. Still, complaints of extortion, unjust discrimination, and insolence were frequent, and by many believed to be well founded. Governor Hubbard in his first two messages urged the legislatures to take up these complaints and endeavor to frame a comprehensive statute which should secure to the companies their just rights and immunities, and at the same time protect the people in theirs. The result was the railroad law of 1885, chapter 188 of the session laws of that year. This act, judiciously drawn, met the purpose of its framers so fully that amendment has been necessary only in points of detail. The historian at some far-off day will marvel that in the closing years of the nineteenth century it was necessary to compel common carriers by law not merely to serve the public at just and equal charges published in advance, but to provide common decencies and accommodations in the way of platforms, waiting-rooms, fire-extinguishers, and toilet-rooms.