Men helplessly drunk in the streets and by the wayside was a common sight; and at elections and other public gatherings there were scenes of debauchery and riot enough to make one ashamed of his race." It is often stated that before the passing of prohibitory legislation Maine was one of the poorest and most deeply indebted States in the Union. This is true, but it is not the whole truth. Maine had not long been separated from Massachusetts, and its Legislature, maybe partly intoxicated by its newly acquired powers, ventured on some expensive undertakings. A few costly public buildings were erected, and a premium of eight cents a bushel was offered to farmers on all wheat or corn over fifty bushels that they raised in a year. The consequence was that the heavy taxes proved altogether insufficient to meet the expenditure, and by early in the forties a State debt had been incurred, equal to three dollars a head of the population. Money was very scarce, and both the local government and private individuals were glad to borrow wherever they could. But in spite of the scarcity of money, Maine was not generally regarded as poor. It took the first place in the Union as a shipbuilding State, and the second in the coasting and fishery trades. "The prosperity of Maine," wrote a skilled financial observer in 1847, "was never greater than at this moment.... She will become one of the first States of the Union." Ten years earlier, in his Annual Address to the Legislature, the Governor said: "It affords me great pleasure on this occasion to be able to speak of the prosperous condition of the State.... The State, as well as our citizens individually, are rich in lands, in timber, in granite and lime quarries, in water power for manufacturing purposes, and, to an equal extent at least, with any other State in the Union, in all the essentials of profitable industry except monied capital."