BIENNIAL REPORT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF COLORADO. TO HIS EXCELLENCY, * * * CHARLES S. THOMAS, GOVERNOR OF COLORADO. Sir The Constitution of the state of Colorado requires that "the officers of the executive department shall, at last twenty days preceding each regular session of the General Assembly, make a full and complete report of their actions to the Governor, who shall transmit the same to the General Assembly.' Article IV, Section 17, Constitution. I Mills' Ann. Stats., Section 1766. The statutes of this state provide that all biennial reports shall be deposited with the Governor on or before the fifteenth day of November next preceding the session of the General Assembly, and that said reports shall be placed in the hands of the public printer without delay. 3 Mills' Ann. Stats., Section 3329. The statutes of this state further require the Attorney General to "report to the General Assembly or Governor, when requested, upon any business pertaining to his office." 1 Mills' Ann. Stats., Section 1786. In obedience to the above constitutional and statutory requirements, I have the honor to submit the following biennial report of my official actions from the tenth day of January, A. D. 1899, to the fifteenth day of November, A. D. 1900, embracing a period of twenty-two months and five days. MONEYS RECEIVED AND DISBURSED. The Constitution and statutes of this state provide that an account shall be kept by the officers of the executive department, of all moneys received and disbursed by them, and that all moneys received by the Attorney General in his official capacity shall be paid forthwith into the state treasury. Article IV, Section 16, Constitution. 1 Mills' Ann. Stats., Section 1787. You are respectfully advised that, during my official term of office, I have not, either individually or in my official capacity, received or disbursed any public or state moneys. In my official capacity I have been called upon to prosecute and defend suits relating to matters connected with the various executive departments of the state. In some of said suits I have received and receipted for the return of the docket fees which had previously been advanced by the heads of the said executive departments; all such docket fees were returned to the officers previously advancing the same, and their receipts therefor are now on file in my office. OFFICE DOCKET. The statutes of this state provide that the Attorney General shall keep a "register of all actions prosecuted and defended by him, and of all proceedings had in relation thereto, which book shall be delivered to his successor." 1 Mills' Ann. Stats., Section 1788. I received from my immediate predecessor in office no less than four small office dockets, each containing the state cases pending in court during the official term of some one of my predecessors. At the commencement of my official term of office I procured for the office a large, substantially-bound and properly indexed office docket, an exact duplicate of the dockets of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals of this state, and I have caused to be entered in said docket a record of all state cases pending in any of the courts of the state during my official term of office. This docket is of sufficient size to contain the record of all actions which this department will be called upon to prosecute or defend for several successive administrations. CASES IN COURT. The statutes of this state provide that the Attorney General shall appear for the state and "prosecute and defend all actions and proceedings, civil and criminal, in which the state shall be a party or interested, when requested to do so by the Governor or General Assembly, and shall prosecute and defend for the state all causes in the Supreme Court in which the state is a party or interested." 1 Mills' Ann. Stats., Section 1783. The statutes further provide that "It shall be the duty of the Attorney General, at the request of the |