From the Desk of Governor Joe Brown:

ILLEGAL DISTILLATION.

I beg leave again to call the attention of the General Assembly to the illegal distillation of grain into spirituous liquors. So great are the profits realized by those engaged in this business that the law is evaded in every way that ingenuity can devise; and I am satisfied that the evil can not be effectually suppressed without farther and more stringent legislation. Some of the Judges have ruled that the act passed at your last session, does not give them authority to draw and compel the attendance of a jury out of the regular term time of the Court, to try the question of nuisance, while some public officers have shown no disposition to act, for fear of incurring the ill-will of persons of wealth and influence, who are engaged in the daily violation of the law.

Distillers in some parts of the State, are paying ten dollars per bushel for corn to convert into whiskey, while soldiers' families and other poor persons are suffering for bread.

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I renew the expression of my firm conviction, that the evil can only be effectually suppressed by the seizure of the stills. We now need copper for the use of the State Road and for military uses, and I earnestly request that an act be passed, authorizing the Governor to impress all the stills in the State which he has reasonable ground to suspect have been used in violation of the law, and convert them into such material for the Road and implements of war, as the State may need, and that he be authorized to use all the military force necessary to accomplish the object, and that provision be made for paying the owner just compensation for such stills when seized. I also recommend that provision be made for annulling the commission of any civil or military officer of this State, who fails to exercise vigilance and to discharge his duty faithfully in the execution of the law against illegal distillation.