Law Making In New York

Law Making in New York. All the departments of government need reforming. Look now at the legislative. The present constitution went into effect the first of January, 1823.- Since then the Legislature has passed eight thousand three hundred and forty-three statutes, exclusive of the revised statutes. These 8,343 may be classified as follows: General laws, 433 Repealing and amending acts, 1,369 Local or special, 5,064 For corporations, 1,477 This classification has been made for me by a friend, and I believe is generally correct, though it is not always easy to say to which class an act belongs, so many incongruous provisions are put into some of ihem. It really should seem, that most of this legislation is useless and worse than useless. Take for example the 1477 acts respecting corporations and the 5064 local or special acts, why should not a fer general laws be substituted for the greater part of them? I think I hazard nothing in saying, that a dozen general laws, framed by men conversant with the existing law and qualified for their work, would answer all the purposes of nine-tenths of this lumbering mass of more than six thousand statutes. Then as to the 433 general laws, half of them are so crudely framed, that the amending or repealing of them in subsequent sessions is twice the labor of passing them at first, as witness these 1369 repealing and amending acts. - Eve. Post.