xxviii REPORT OF THE

and the Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas in the City of Baltimore
shall be compelled to keep a book containing a list of all licenses grant-
ed to retailers and others, which book, should be made a public record
and should be open to the inspection of the Grand Jury in the county
and city and to the Treasury officers of the State. Such a provision
is absolutely necessary to a thorough security of the revenue from this
source. In a recent case of a defaulting Clerk in one of the counties,
the State was unable to sustain the indictment for a false return of li-
censes, for want of such a provision of law, although a copy of the
hook of licenses (which had been removed from the Clerk's Office)
regularly certified by the Clerk, was in the possession of the State's-
Attorney prosecuting the case; the Court holding, that as the law did
not make such book a public record, a copy of it was not, per se, ad-
missible in evidence to establish what should have been the return.

The high character of most of the Clerks who are now in office, is
the best guaranty that their returns will always be faithful, but no
lache should he left in the law, by means of which advantage might be
taken of the State Treasury.

A large item of revenue has been lost to the State, by the failure of
the Legislature to pass an Act imposing a license upon Sample Traders.
The revenue received from this source in 1871, amounted to
$44,253.00. The Act then in force, imposing this license, was liable
to the objection, that it imposed the license only on non residents of
the State, selling by sample. This feature in the law, was adjudged
to be contrary to that provision of the Constitution of the United
States, which declares that "the citizens of each State shall be enti-
tled to all the privileges and immunities of citizen? in the several
States."

The law should be Made to operate without exception, upon all per-
sons selling merchandise for profit by sample, and is absolutely neces-
sary to prevent an unjust discrimination against those merchants who
keep their stock of goods within the limits of this State.

As long as the State requires a license for the sale of merchandise,
justice demands that all traders should be compelled to obtain one-
It is unfair to discriminate against those merchants who keep stocks
of goods within the State, and which are liable to taxation here, for
State and county or city purposes. I therefore recommend that a
license tax be provided hy law for all merchants selling by samples,
and that a provision be incorporated into the license laws, requiring
all merchants obtaining Traders License to specify on oath the amount
of the stock of goods located in the city or county whore they intend