Agreeably to the governor’s recommendation, bills to modify both the election and registration[322] laws were introduced into the Senate about the middle of the session, but were not pressed through, largely, it was charged, because of the governor’s secret opposition. An effort to tamper still further with the government of New Orleans,[323] and a generous appropriation for the militia[324] passed both houses but failed, apparently, to secure the governor’s signature. Some attention was devoted to the labor problem and to the question of creating parishes. The latter subject, probably for political reasons, had been something of a mania with the legislature, until at this session[325] the proposition was urged with much force “to stop the legislature from creating new parishes unless authorized by the voters of the parishes to be divided.”[326] The extravagance and state of utter corruption of the legislative body in 1871-2 were only the natural result of the conditions started in 1868-9. The amount of the State debt was disputed. The governor held that it was, in round numbers, $22,000,000, while the auditor claimed it to be $41,000,000, the difference to be accounted for by a contingent debt of $18,000,000 dependent on the construction of railroads, the second mortgage bonds of which the State had agreed to indorse.[327] The bonded debt was $19,188,300, the annual interest on which amounted to $1,403,820, besides which there was a miscellaneous debt of $3,187,490.[328] A comparison of the debt with the period just preceding the Warmoth administration is suggestive, as it had increased over $8,000,000 since 1868, taking the conservative estimate,[329] growing by deficiencies at the rate of over $1,000,000 a year. The expenditures in 1870 had exceeded the income by over $1,000,000 although the deficit was more than covered by the balance in the State treasury at the beginning of the year. The total amount of bonds or aid granted by the State to various corporations, prior to 1871 and for which bonds had not yet been issued, was over twelve millions. The auditor estimated the probable expenditures of 1872 at something over three millions, but as a matter of fact they far exceeded that sum.