Assault and battery at a gambling house. The parties are colored people. It is not known that either are intemperate.

Some time since a police constable arrested a man for making. a noise in the streets. He was obliged to get a wagon to convey him to jail. While thus riding together the prisoner very dexterously abstracted the constable's pocket-book from his pocket, putting the papers, principally executions, in his boot, and the pocket-book into his bosom. He is again arrested as a common drunkard and sent to jail.

As the case of the Welches, who are in jail for an assault and battery, is rather a serious one, and is to undergo a judicial investigation, I will only say, that they kept a grocery, and that there is a great deal of intemperance there, and a great many cases come before the police from that quarter of the city. I have myself seen, in that quarter, three drunken women in one house at the same time. If the public are benefitted by extending the liberty of selling and purchasing ardent spirits, this part of the city over which you preside, sir, ought to exhibit a scene of unexampled prosperity. As to the actual state of things there, your active and vigilant police constables can inform you.

Three colored girls, charged with stealing goods from a merchant in Washington-street. They are of the lowest class. They are intemperate, but this is probably the consequence rather than the cause of their vicious course of conduct.

A woman complains of another, residing in the same house, for abusive treatment and for destroying property. This is ra ther a singular case. The prisoner when brought up appeared very good natured and very silly. She is a widow. There are, I am informed, three sisters, all three widows, all have property in the hands of trustees, and all are given to intoxication; would otherwise be quite respectable. As it appeared she had done nothing worthy of stripes or of bonds, she was dismissed. During a considerable part of the forenoon to-day, there were from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty spectators present. The labor thus lost to the laboring class could not have been less than fifty days,

April 10.-The case of the Welches coming up, (an examination in relation to admitting them to bail,) again to-day, there was a still larger number of spectators present than yesterday. Colored woman versus colored woman. The very dregs of the colored population; probably not intemperate.

A drunkard taken up by the watch; sent to jail to get sober. April 11.-Eight persons, three men and five women, taken up last night in an old shell of a house in the southern extremity of Green-street; all sent to jail. One of these men, and another who had not been apprehended last night, were brought before the

court charged with having committed an unprovoked and wanton assault upon a young man from the country, who was walking the street about eight o'clock. Some of these persons were grossly intemperate, others were probably not so. The females were more or less given to intoxication.

April 12.-A man committed for stealing two hogs, bloated drunkard.

Another committed for petit larceny.

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April 13.-Sab. morning.-Seventeen persons taken up last night by the watch; twelve sent to jail.

April 14.-Mon. morning.-Two of those committed on Saturday night, a white man and colored woman, were examined this morning. The evidence is unfit to be spread before the public. She was notoriously intemperate.

Two men and a woman examined. She swore stoutly against the two men, that they struck her, &c. All discharged. She was intoxicated; occasionally varies the dull monotony of life by spending some time in jail and some time in the alms-house.

A most filthy and loathsome object was brought before the court for making disturbance in the street. He has been in jail frequently, and was discharged from there this morning. Before he left, his room mates furnished him with money to purchase two loaves of bread, which he did, but exchanged them for spirit, got drunk, was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment. And the people pay for his board!!!

April 16.-A man charged with stealing. Had labored for the man of whom he stole. His labor amounted to seventy-five cents, and his employer paid him, while performing the labor, three shillings and six pence in liquor, so that there was two and six pence his due on settlement.

A man charged with threatening to burn his house, in a fit of intoxication. He attempted to escape from the watchman who had him in custody, to prevent which the watchman plied him very freely over the head with his club. Prisoner's head is very much cut; of this he complains bitterly, and thinks he has had the worst of it, and therefore ought to be excused from going to jail. Committed for want of sureties. Says he has a wife and six children dependant on his labor for support; has been out of employ since last fall, and has only within two days obtained work.

A blind fidler arraigned for assult and battery on Sabbath morning; struck a watchman. Lives directly over a grocery at which a great many riots have their origin, and defendant is often implicated in them: Held to bail.

A gambler, swindler and counterfeiter; has been to state-prison Is probably temperate.

I cannot close these details of crime without remarking, that the great mass of the foreigners of this city are poor, and that a large proportion of the $10,000 or $15,000 expense for the support of the poor of the city and county, goes to the support of individuals of this class. And I am satisfied that many who have only their daily earnings to rely upon for a support, actually pay in the course of the year, in money. for ardent spirits, in fees and in fines for breaches of the peace committed under its influence, in the time lost in carousing, in attending court as parties, witnesses or spectators, and in jail, a far heavier tax than the sober citizen does, on his property which is assessed at $5,000. The greatest benefactor to this class of people will be that man who can persuade them to abandon the use of that which thus makes them poor and miserable and degraded.

The following are nearly all the cases that came to my knowledge, in relation to applications to the overseer of the poor for assistance. The memorandums I give are very brief; indeed, the facts connected with some of the most interesting cases are of such a character as to render the propriety of embodying them in this report at least doubtful.

March 24, 1834.—The first applicant was a female. She had lately come from the west; was entirely destitute of money and almost of clothing; was sent to the alms-house. Acknowledges she had been intemperate.

Application for assistance in case of a young man who was in a most distressed situation from disease; died in a few days. He was temperate.

A respectable appearing woman applied for a load of wood; has a sick child and no resources except her own labor; her residence was in a back street. The child which had been sick. near five years was just alive, was bolstered up in two chairs, that were drawn up near a stove in which there was no fire and no wood to make it. Every thing bore the marks of industry and neatness, and poverty. You are a widow, I presume? said I. "No sir, worse than a widow, was the reply. Where is your husband? "In the country; he has afforded me no assistance in bringing up my children for a long time." Why does not your husband assist you? "He is a drunkard.”

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A woman came into the office to-day, in the absence of Col. Osborn, and I took the liberty to ask her whether she wanted assistance from the overseer? "No," was the very prompt, and as I thought, indignant reply. I found at last that she wanted to pay her tax to the collector. She paid it and appeared to be much relieved, but sadness still brooded over her countenance. She said that her husband died a year or two since; left a small house and lot on which there was a mortgage of $200, which she

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was trying to raise by her own labor, while she supported herself and six children. "Ah!" said she, with tears, my husband was a dear good man, only he would take a drop too much. It grieves me to think I have worked hard so many years and it has almost all gone for rum; but I'll not go to the alms-house, I'll die first."

March 27.-A very respectable appearing mechanic applied to have his wife sent to the alms-house. She was very intemperate, and his object was to place her out of the way of the tempting poison for a time, hoping to reclaim her. He was advised to wait a little longer. I went to the house and found she was very industrious and a good housewife, were it not for her intemperance. I saw on the wall the marks of the ham and eggs which she had prepared for dinner the day before, and which in a fit of drunken madness she had thrown about the room. Have not heard from them since.

An aged woman applied for assistance; her husband who had been dead for some years was intemperate.

Application for a coffin for a child; the woman bore marks of intemperance; the husband appeared to be sober; it is very difficult in some cases to ascertain as to their habits.

A strolling drunkard applied and was refused.

An old colored woman who was sick, was sent to alms-house; she appeared to be temperate.

March 28.-A coffin asked for a woman who died very suddenly last night; want of employment was the reason assigned for asking assistance; the husband appeared temperate.

An aged couple, the husband 82 years old, the wife sick, doubtless temperate.

A female asked to be sent to alms-house, she is intemperate. April 1.-A loathsome looking object, a man about 25 years old whom I had often seen begging in the streets, was brought in with his face bruised in the most shocking manner. He was slightly affected with delirium tremens-has been in state prison.

A woman applied to be sent to alms-house, she has been there before, and in jail; is intemperate. The man sent from the police-office to jail with delirium tremens is dead, and a coffin must be furnished; he has left a wife and five or six children. He was once a good mechanic, but for some years has been dissipated, and has been supplied with liquor in a great measure, from his wife's earnings.

April 2.-A family who were probably temperate, applied for the Ward Physician.

April 3. The wife of a very respectable mechanic, appled to be sent with her three children, to the alms-house. On inquiry, these are probably the facts. The husband has been in good bu

siness, and has received $1 50 per day; employment enough, but for some weeks, he has absented himself from his shop; has spent his time in drinking, and his earnings and credit to pay for i. His family are supported by the public, by the earnings of the sober and industrious. The vender of ardent spirit has his

money.

A woman with five children asked assistance, the husband is a drunken vagabond.

April 7.-An English family sent to alms-house; this is a very interesting case, the long continued illness of the husband is doubtless the cause of their poverty.

April 9.-A vagrant, who has been lying about in barns and sheds, and is affected with rheumatism, sent to the alms-house ; can only judge of his habits from his course of life; have never known a vagrant that was not intemperate.

April 16.-A poor woman wants a permit to go to alms-house, and an order to bind out her son who is about 17 years old, and a very bad boy she says her husband works hard, but spends all he earns for liquor.

Now sir, from the facts which I have thus presented, I cannot but believe you may be assisted, as I have before observed, in determining the important question whether the prosperity of the city of Albany, will be promoted by granting or withholding, increasing or diminishing the facilities for obtaining ardent spirit. It is granted sir, that to make the innovation which appears to be called for, and urge forward to a glorious consumation the great moral reformation so auspiciously begun, devolves upon you, as Mayor, a great weight of responsibility; calls for the exercise of moral courage. But this responsibility must be assumed and this courage exercised in every attempt at moral reformation. Attempt to control the passions or appetites of the multitude, and you must expect to encounter obloquy and opposition.

But it is said, and said with truth, that any law or regulation which comes in collision with the appetites or imagined interests of men, will be operative no farther than it is sustained by public opinion. It is equally true and lamentably so, that public men are apt rather to lag behind and retard the march of public opinion, than to get in advance of it. It is time enough to abandon a course by which we know the highest interests of the community would be promoted, when we have found that the people will not sustain us in it. Such has been the flood of light that has been poured upon the evils of intemperance; so great a change has been effected in the feelings and habits of the people, that I do believe Sir, you will in the end receive the most hearty thanks of that very class whose practices and appetites appear to present the most formidable objection to withholding licences. The con