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a . act has been in force only Bve. . = ". The $152,000 received last year n Adarl'ved from 99 estates. Of these a ? estates 24 were from the County of . York (including Toronto). 9 from the seotuttr of Wentworth and 6 from each at the Counties of Brant, Middlesex, a6orttttmtherland and Durham. In six ntnttortttnt counties, not to speak of the new: anti-ms, among them Halal- = -- Halton. Norfolk. Peterborough. "_', f 'nce Edward and Prescott and Itus- ir ,. there was not a single estate dur- _ the year which paid duty. Alto- ,, ther S,000 wills were probated, and 'é'flt letters of administration were T - ted during 1896. The number of I unable estates reported was 86, or one i out of every 51 estates. The largest ., receipt of duties came from the County at York the next largest from Carleton. After these Wentworth and Northum- .berland and Durham in order contri- buted the largest sums. ', During 1896 we received in this way (roptsthe County of Yark over $48,000. And from the County of Carleton more Etc 1896. Since our act came into force A0,680 estates have been reported to us. 1 Of this large number only 285 have paid iduty, being one out of every 72 er:- mm. 1 have said that 99 estates last Wil,", paid duty, some of these estates ' ing Brat reported prior to 1896. In all these, save six, collateral heirs inherit- ed considerable portions or the estate tad contributed accordingly to our re- venue. Indeed in only twelve estates gut oCtl11did direct heirs, such as wife tn 820,200. ,r Nearly 60 per cent. of the whole ro- "ttttt thus far received has come from the Counties of Carleton and York. More than one-third of the whole re- venue has come from the County of Carleton. We received from a single estate in Ottawa last year 350.000 more than 26 of our oldest-settled counties have contributed altogether since the act came into force. Some counties, among them Haldimand, Prescott and Russell, have not as yet reported a "mine, estate as liable to duty. And this is as we would expect, inns- much as the number of large estates in the Province. say. those over $100,000, is, comparatively speaking, very small. lri will be remembered that under our act neither a wife nor a child pays duty 'uniess the estate exceeds $100,000. It is ' stated that less than 2 per cent. of the [ families ot Great Britain hold about three times as much private property IIs all the remainder. and that 93 per tent. of the people hold less than 8 per author the accumulated twealth. In the United States 1 per cent. of the yitgh'tt holds more property than the , n: 99 per cent. Property of all kinds in Ontario is, I am glad to say. much more _even1y distributed. From our sale of annuities it will be noticed that we realized $177,730. We have had in all under the provisions of our act of 1884, which authorized tire substitution of terminablo annuities ,__ v- vv "I" "IICI.I. "tun, auL'lI a: "tte or child. pay anything. and three out ot these twelve were valued at over $400,000 each. We were concerned with 4.- 421 estates during the year, so that in only one estate out of every 368 did di- rect heirs pay succession duty. Do not these figures prove conclusively that our revenue ls derived mainly from very large estates. that the vast mNority of estates escape our act alto- Iether (51 out of every 62 in 1896). and that Indirect or collateral heirs pay by tar the grater part ot the duty '? In addition to the receipt of last year of $15'2,ik50, a. further mm of 812.830 was deposited with the Government by the executors of an estate in lieu of giving a bond. We will receive this sum at some fu- rtitre time as a payment of duties, but , 113m Bi'operiy a payment belonging thir receipts. as I have said, from mun duties date from 1892. The Weak receipt thus far exceeds mo. It is interesting to note trom; wttat localities in the Province the; wetter part of this revenue is derived. i " we would expect, the Counties of; York and Carleton (and this for the; most part means, so far as this ques-I tion is concerned, the Cities of Toronto:' and Ottawa) contribute by tar thel largest amounts. I Carleton leads with a contribution of $231,217; York comes next with $152,573, then Oxford with 848,169. then Welling- n with $21,625. and next in order tthy:l}p $21,644, and Wentworth, Ft/r) SALE 'OF AN N UITIES. Nip "amines. Last year and the two biiiel viout, Years we sold only $8,000 worth. The difference betWeen these twp 'am- cunts is the measure of the reduction in the amount of the railway aid cer- tit1teaters which mature from year to year. T In selling annuities. as the Horse we]! understands, we are not add!!! to our liabilities. We are, on the oeetr. sion of each sale, postponing, it is true, a part of the railway liability which) was, by common consent of all partial in the Legislature at the time, created in the pioneer days of the Province. We have expended over $6,449.000 for railways, and no one disputes either the wisdom of incurring the liability or the} Justice and reasonableness of now spreading it over a long term tst yearg. A review of our eight sales of annui- ties shows how rapidly and satisfac- torily we have been reducing this lia- bility, and this in face of the fact that we are, session after session, aiding new railway enterprises in our remote and northern districts. To meet this railway liability accruing in 1884, for example, a sale of annuities realizing $250,000 was required, while to meet the liability of last year a sale realizing $177,000 tmtficed. On two or three occa- sions I have asked the House to notice how successfully these sales have re- sulted. In 1892, when a sale was et- tected upon which the purchaser of the annuities realized 4 per cent. on his investment, we were all of the opin- ion that the transaction resulted very satisfactorily to the Province. In 1893 and 1894 we did not sell annuities inas- much as were able to meet our accru- ing railway obligations out of the year's receipts. Our next sale was in 1895, and on that occasion the purchaser reaiized Our next sale was in 1895. and on that occasion the purchaser realized only 3 1-2 per cent. on his investment. The sale of last year was the most ta- vorable of all tor the Province. The purchaser of one-eighth of the annui- ties sold last year realized exactly 3 1-4' per cent. on his investment, while the purchaser of the baIaneectttat issevem eighths. of them realised a tride over 3 1-4 per cent. on his investment. Or to illustrate the matter in another form, I might say that for every 8100 of annuities sold we realized in 1884 $1,848, in 1892 $1,993 and in 1896 $2,220. Our payment in 1896 for railway aid by way of redeeming railway aid certificates and railway annuities was very large. viz., $270,057, a larger payment in fact than we have been required to make since 1891. At the same time it was $41,000 less than the payment of 1891, and the payment we will be called up- on to make this very year will be $30,- 000 less than the payment of last year. Next year there will hem. further re- duction of $29,000. In 1897, that is this year. we will be required to pay for this purpose $240,250; in 1898, $211,737; in 1899, $19'i',205; in 1900, $191,232; in 1901, $159,426, and in 1902, $143,269. or a reduction of nearly $100,000 in five years. ' it paid over to the institutions en- titled. The result has been the receipt of a considerable sum in excess of that ordinarily heretofore received. In- deed our receipts from public institu- tions last year were noticeably larger than those ot any previous year. The number of paying patients last year was 904, or less than one out of tive ot the total number. or these pay pati- ents 286 were in the Toronto Asylum, 218 in London, and 173 in Hamilton. Our casual revenhe, in which we. in- clude various separate items of re- ceipt ot a widely different nature, growing year by year. In 1893 it year. The increased receipt is mainly due to our close collections of arrears on maintenance account. Oftentimes in the past small sums remained on deposit to the credit of patients, and, no payment was made on account of maintenance prior to their discharge or decrease. A clerk was especially debuted last year to examine care- fully all accounts with the view on closing them in all cases where it could; be fairly done. The account of each; patient was in this way examined dur- ing the year, and the amounts at cred-1 From our public institutions we re- ceived $146,000, being $45,000 m excess of our estimate, and $41,000 more than the corresponding receipt ot last year. The receipt from the Central Prison was not quite as large as that of last PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. f aiari' iii,iiiii 3