number of prisoners. If it is necessary to have in the prison some industry, such as making matches, it must be operated in the interest of the prison.

3. The compensation for labor after deducting the cost of material should go entirely to the prisoner who has done the work.

4. The trades of the shoemaker, carpenter, blacksmith, and locksmith should answer for the needs of the prison.

5. The system of administration work should be admitted. The persons to whom the direction of the work is confided should receive a percentage of the net products. 6. Competition would be avoided when the prisoners exercise the same trade as free laborers if the object sought is only to satisfy the wants of the prison, and if the articles manufactured are sold only at the current prices of free labor.

7. The work of women should be confined to domestic limits. Well-organized garden or dairy work could be successfully carried on by female prisoners.

The reader should have in mind that, however learned or experienced in penology the gentlemen here cited may be, their opinions are only individual, and that the opinions of European writers differ on these questions as much as do those of Americans. And here is where the labors of the prison congresses are of special value, in enabling all to compare the various ideas on the important subjects considered and, in that way, to profit by the sayings and experiences of others. The fol lowing views come with a certain weight of authority from the Russian standpoint as they are sanctioned by the commission of the Society of Jurisprudence of St. Petersburg, the reporter being Mr. Ponomarew, an attaché of the Russian Senate. The report concluded as follows:

Based on what precedes, the commission of the Society of Jurisprudence of St. Petersburg makes the following declarations :

1. The choice between contract and administration labor should be determined first in favor of the system which would best secure labor for the prisoners.

2. This demand being equally satisfied by either system, preference should be given to administration labor, the latter facilitating most the accomplishment of the end sought by imprisonment.

3. Considerations of equity and policy favor the development in prisons of labor at the command of the State destined to provide for the wants of the administration.

Mr. Bela Atzel, director of the penitentiary of Nagy Enyed, Hungary, speaks as follows on this question:

Before beginning the discussion of this question, I consider it my duty to indicate the principles on which prison labor should be regulated:

1. Labor should accord with penal law and the prison system.

2. It should not be in contravention of the regulations, the security and the discipline of the establishment.

3. It should not be prejudicial to the health of the prisoners and, so far as possible, it should be proportioned to each individual.

4. Labor should have, as much as possible, an educational character, and a kind of work should be selected which would aid discharged convicts to support themselves.

5. The labor should be of a nature to secure certain profits.

6. Labor in prisons should be of a kind that would not come into injurious competition with free labor.

If we observe the principles set forth from a practical view, we find that each system of work, whichever it is, will meet with difficulties in one or the other direction. ** In prison, the labor of the convicts can be employed after one of the following systems:

(1) The sytem of work for the state, when the establishment executes the work on its own account and under the direction of its officers.

(2) The system known as the piece-price plan, or accord system. This system holds a position between the state and contract systems, and consists in this: that the establishment produces, under the direction of its officers, industrial articles or work for manufacturers or merchants, who furnish the materials and often the tools. These patrons either pay for the labor of each prisoner or for each article delivered. But these patrons and this is extremely important-have no right to enter the establishment or into the workshops, so that they could come in contact with the prisoners; that is, they could communicate only with the director. This system is not - applied exclusively in any establishment, and is usually combined with the state system.

(3) The contract system, in which the labor of the prisoner is let to a contractor, who works him for his benefit.

The contract system has three forms. According to the first, the prisoners are delivered to a contractor, who takes charge of nearly all the execution of the punishment. He employs the officers and pays the expenses of their support, and he furnishes the buildings for detention. In return, the contractor can work the prisoners at his will. According to circumstances, the contractor receives from the state an indemnity per head, or he is to pay a certain sum to the state; or, finally, the state pays nothing to the contractor, or the contractor to the state.

This kind of contract labor prevails only in North America, where the contractor sublets the prisoners to undercontractors who employ them in the construction of railroads, in mines, or in other enterprises. The prisoners are transported where the subcontractor wants them. They are there lodged in miserable barracks, and are poorly fed, so that, to speak truly, one-tenth die by sickness and ill-treatment. It goes without saying that in this state of things discipline can not be maintained except by the whip and by arms. [This system is the chain-gang lease system in the Southern States.]

In a pecuniary point of view this kind of contract labor is the least expensive to the state, and the execution of the punishment costs the state nothing, or nearly so. However, as in the execution of the sentence and for the work of the prisoners there never should be employed any system against which objection can be made in view of moral or penal law, and as the system presented above, apart from its other faults, is absolutely immoral, it can not be considered as a system applicable to the prison establishment of a civilized state.

The second form of contract labor practiced is the employment of prisoners in a state prison, under the supervison of officers named by the state, who undertake to provide for all the wants of the establishment, and in the meantime hire out the labor of the convicts. But the conditions for supplies as well as for working the prisoners are stipulated in the contract. This system is in vogue in France and the United States.

The third kind of contract work consists in this, that the labor of convicts in state establishments is hired to one or several contractors, and it is stipulated in the contract what trade the contractor should follow and how the state should be paid, by the head or by the day. The contractor must furnish the materials and the tools and designate a foreman for the organization of the work and the direction of affairs. The establishment should furnish only the shops and the workmen. In the state system, to the director is reserved the right to designate the workmen and to replace them. This form of contract labor is mainly applied in Prussia and in Hungary, in connection with state labor. It is also practiced in Saxony, Brunswick, Hamburg, and Austria.

Mr. Atzel then goes on to give his views at length of these systems and says farther:

The state system is employed in Bavaria, Baden, Italy, England, Sweden and Norway, Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, Würtemberg, Hungary, and Croatia. At the same time it should be remarked that in Holland, Würtemberg, and Hungary they employ at the side of the state system the contract system also.

In conclusion he says of the state system :

1. It can accommodate itself to all systems of detention, for it can be applied to the cellular systems as well as to prisons in common and progressive.

2. It will not be found in collision with the regulations for safety and discipline. The prison direction can form a plan of labor in conformity with the regulations. It can also exercise the supervision and control which the best conditions of safety and discipline require.

3. To the directors is given the means and appliances for vigorous bygienic measures, suppressing such work as is injurious to health, and introducing no industry that is prejudicial in a hygienic point of view.

4. The prison directors are allowed to choose such industries as will offer resources to prisoners at their discharge. They can institute others at discretion, and consequently employ prisoners in a manner that accords with their strength, health, and aptitude. Finally, the directors can introduce only those industries that are not in operation in the locality of the prison by small manufacturers.

This question was also discussed at length by Mr. Paul Guéorguiew. ski, professor of the University of St. Petersburg, Mr. F. Chickerio, director of the penitentiary of Lugano, Switzerland, Baron Francois de Renzis, deputy of the Italian Parliament, and Mr. Etienne de Balkay, director of the prison at Sopron, Hungary.

M. HERBETTE ON CONTRACT LABOR.

Among those who presented reports on the question of contract or state labor was M. Herbette, the distinguished chief of the French prison administration. He recognized that the question presented different aspects in different countries, which rendered the question a difficult one to answer. In the mean time he believed that certain conclusions could be reached. The necessity of labor for prisoners appeared to him one of these, the want of work some times being the cause of revolt in prison. But this labor must be regulated; it should not be useless nor unproductive, nor should it lower the prisoner by giving him an occu pation which would degrade him. The work should accord with the interest of society in serving to reform the prisoner. In this respect, if government labor will best secure this end, it is necessary to employ it; but if it will not answer, some other means must be tried. The gov ernment system of labor is always difficult, because it requires numer. ous employés. The contract system offers advantages when it is well regulated. The condition necessary to success in the government sys tem is to have profitable customers; but it is difficult for the state, which may deceive itself as to the profits of its operations. The system of government labor, well organized, offers the best facilities for the control of labor.

We should examine, then, the conditions for managing state labor, which requires the greatest precaution. On the other hand, it is nec essary to remember that the labor of prisons should not be for the purpose of public profit. The best way is to apply the work as much as possible to the use of the state itself, and manage it so that all orders will be utilized by the state. The conclusions reached by M. Herbette are as follows:

1. Useful, and as far as possible productive, labor being necessary for prisoners in some penitentiary régime to which they are submitted, it is proper in each country to inquire, considering the individual case, how labor can be practically furnished to respond to the regulative and diverse necessities of penitentiary life.

2. Labor being the principal feature of prison life, should remain subordinate in its organization and in its operations to public authority, which alone can secure the execution of the penal laws. It should not allow the abandonment of prisoners to private interests.

3. In a general manner the system of state labor seems better to facilitate the control of every department of prison management, as well as the work to be accomplished. But, on account of the difficulties which the organization of public labor presents, it can be conceived how administrations can resort to contractors or private industries, provided that utilization of institution labor does not give the contractor control of the person and life of the prisoner.

4. In the organization of prison work, and especially in the system of state labor, it is desirable that the advantages of prison hand labor should be reserved to the state, and that the state should consequently, in as great a measure as possible, be both producer and consumer of the objects manufactured by prison labor.

As to the conclusions relative to the second question, M. Herbette formulates them as follows:

1. That hand labor should be utilized as far as possible, and without doing wrong to the necessities of prison labor, to the wants of the prisoners, and to the operations of the institution.

2. That the advantages which may result from this hand labor should be reserved as far as possible to the service of the state, and should not be for the benefit of private contractors.

3. That the naming of the effective force of each industry in any place, the choice, the variety, and the supplying of the industries, the determination of the salaries, and prices of work should combine so as to constitute neither protection, privilege, nor abusive power capable of depressing corresponding free industries.

4. That public authority should always preserve, in some mode of organizing work, whatever it be, the mode for guarding against all abusive combinations, without reducing the prisoners to idleness and without abandoning them to the control or

power of contractors.

THIRD SECTION-PREVENTION.

MR. RANDALL ON PREVENTION.

There were only two American reports at the St. Petersburg Congress, one by Mr. Z. R. Brockway, the able and distinguished superintendent of the New York State Reformatory, which paper will be found in the prison section of this report, and another paper in the preventive

section, by Mr. C. D. Randall, of Michigan, on the third question of the third section. Incidentally his paper also answers in some respects the seventh question of the first section. Mr. Randall's paper is as follows:

I bave presented in detail to the International Prison Congress of Stockholm and of Rome the system adopted by the State of Michigan for the protection and supervision of dependent children, a system which consists in the temporary maintenance in a public school, where they are educated, and then placed in respectable families during their minority. I have treated the same subject in the Bulletin de la Société Générale des Prisons. The different papers which I have published have drawn European attention to this school. Senator Roussel, of France, writes me: "Your interesting communications to ancient Europe, and especially those you have made to my country through the Société Générale des Prisons, have too vividly struck my attention to allow me to neglect the duty I have imposed on myself to present to the French Parliament an account of the admirable work for which the State of Michigan is indebted to you."

In this remarkable report, presented in 1872 by Senator Roussel to the French Senate, will be found an extended description of the State Public School of Michigan and a copy of the laws under which it operates. The Bulletin de la Société Générale des Prisons in the year 1878 published a discourse which M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who was minister of Louis Philippe, delivered before the Institute of France, approving highly the system of this institution, placing the State of Michigan in advance of Europe in the care and education of dependent children. This institution has been appreciated in a very favorable manner at home and abroad by most eminent economists, and it is doubtful whether any similar school has ever met with such general approval. The most complete account of its plan and operations will be found in a report presented by me to the Paris Exposition of 1889, which comprises three volumes, which have been presented to the library of the Société Générale des Prisons. On this report the institution was awarded a gold medal. From these different sources of information the reader will learn that in 1871 the State of Michigan, which then had existed only about 40 years, took a new departure in social science, assuming the right and duty to protect, assist, and educate the dependent children, receiving them temporarily in an educational establishment and then placing them as soon as possible in respect able families during minority, in accordance with written contracts guaranteeing to the children a good education and treatment as members of the family where placed. This school has no connection with the penal or reformatory system of the State. Poverty alone admits the children. The law of the State provides for a complete separation of the dependent from delinquent children. Formerly they were brought up together by public or private charity. The child is placed in a family, in which, according to the contract, he is to be treated as one of the family, and sent to the public school. He is not in the position of a domestic, and he has every opportunity to become in time a useful, independent, and respected citizen. During his minority he is the object of active supervision by county agents, one in each county and by a State agent from the school, whose mission is to secure the faithful performance of the contract. It is not a boarding-out system. There is no compensation for their support. This institution receives all the dependent children of the State between 2 and 12 years of age who are healthy in body and mind. At the same time, those who have lost a limb are not excluded. Such children have been taught telegraphy, and some are now receiving $100 per month. Up to the present time 2,900 children have been received, and when the prison congress meets the number will be probably 3,000. The number of these children who have had the beneficial influence of this school and the homes where placed is great, and many are already respectable and self-supporting. The advantages this system presents for the children of the poor is evident, and it is also evident that its influence has reduced the number of dependent children in the State. The result would be more certain if