When the legislature met, they proceeded to furnish the halls at a cost of $50,000, for which they appropriated $95,000. This hall has since been entirely refurnished at a cost of $3,061. They paid out in four years, for furniture, over $200,000, and when, in 1877, the matter was investigated, it was found that, even placing what remained at the original purchase price, there was left by them in the State House only $17,715 worth; the rest had disappeared. “They opened another account, known under the vague but comprehensive head of ‘Supplies, sundries, and incidentals.’ This amounted, in a single session, to $350,000. For six years they ran an open bar in one of the legislative committee rooms, open from 8 A.M., to 3 P.M., at which all the officials and their friends helped themselves, with cost—save to the unfortunate and helpless taxpayers.’ They organized railroad frauds, election frauds, census frauds, general frauds—whatever they organized was filled with fraud. They enlisted and equipped an armed force, the governor—one Scott—refusing to accept any but colored companies. Ninety-six thousand colored men were enrolled at a cost, for the simple enrolment, of over $200,000. One thousand Winchester rifles were obtained, for which the State was charged about $38,000; 1,000,000 cartridges cost the State $37,000; 10,000 Springfield muskets were bought, and charged at a cost, they claim, of $187,050; it was all charged to the State at $250,000. The troops, as organized, were employed by Scott and the notorious Moses as their heelers and henchmen. The armed force, or constabulary, were armed and maintained for the same purpose.[92] Governor Scott spent $374,000 of the funds of the State in his canvass.[93] Eight porters were employed in the State House; they issued certificates to 238; eight laborers and from five to twenty pages were employed; certificates were issued to 159 of the former and 124 of the later. One lot of 150 certificates were issued at once—all fraudulent. During one session pay certificates were issued to the amount of $1,168,255, all of which but about $200,000 was unvarnished robbery.