viction of any criminal offence by any court having jurisdiction thereof; and any such court may, in its discretion, sentence to said reformatory any such male person, convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment in a State prison, who shall come within the requirements of this section. The discipline to be observed shall be reformatory, and the said managers shall have power to use such means of reformation, consistent with the improvement of the inmates, as they may deem expedient. Agricultural labor or mechanical industry may be resorted to by said managers as an instrument of reformation. The contract system of labor shall not exist in any form whatever in said reformatory, but the prisoners shall be employed by the State.

§ 10. All provisions of existing law requiring the courts of this State to sentence male criminals, between the ages of sixteen and thirty, convicted of any criminal offence, to the State prisons, shall, from and after the appointment and confirmation of the board of managers provided for by section six of this act, apply to said reformatory so far as to enable courts to sentence the class of persons mentioned in the ninth section of this act to said reformatory.

§ 11. The sum of seventy-five thousand dollars is hereby appropriated or the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this act. § 12. This act shall take effect immediately.

Further legislation will, as a matter of course, be necessary before the institution is fairly launched on its great mission of beneficence. It will, we doubt not, prove a "reformatory" in a double sensereforming not only the young criminals committed to it as inmates, but prison discipline itself, both in our own and other States. It is to be hoped, however, that, when all the details come to be settled, and to assume the form of a statute, the maximum age will be fixed at twenty-five for admission instead of thirty, and that the number to be received will be limited so as not to exceed 500.

The project of a volunteer adult reformatory has already been referred to in a note appended to the report of the Commissioners on the State Reformatory, and in the letter of the corresponding secretary to M. Demetz. The following is the act of incorporation, authorizing the creation of such an institution:

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

SECTION 1. Horatio Seymour, Augustus Frank, Linus W. Thayer, William Bristol, William H. Merrill, David McWethy, Elias H. Russell and Isaac Butts, together with five other persons to be appointed by the Governor of the State, are hereby constituted a body corporate, under the name of "The Board of Managers of the Educational and Industrial Reformatory of Warsaw."

§ 2. The first eight persons named in the foregoing section shall hold their office during pleasure, or until removed by a vote of two-thirds of the board of managers, and shall have power to appoint their own successors in the manner designated in section three of this act; and the five managers appointed by the Governor shall hold office for ten years, but the first five so appointed shall be so classified that the term of one shall expire at the end of each two years during the first ten years.

§ 3. The board of managers shall consist of not less than thirteen persons, seven of whom shall constitute a quorum to do business; but the board may at pleasure elect honorary members, with advisory powers, but no authority to vote. Vacancies occurring in the board by death, resignation or removal, among the first eight persons named in section one, shall be filled by the board itself; vacancies occurring among the five appointed by the Governor shall, in like manner, be filled by his appointment.

§ 4. The object of said reformatory shall be the reclaiming of persons who have been convicted of first offences, the punishment for which would be imprisonment in a State prison for a term not exceeding five years.

§ 5. The said corporation shall have power to purchase the necessary grounds, which shall not be less than two hundred acres, and erect the necessary buildings for the accommodation of not less than two hundred persons, from moneys to be raised by voluntary gifts from the people; to make all rules and regulations they may deem necessary for the management of said reformatory; to elect or appoint all necessary officers, and determine the salaries of the same; and these officers shall not be removed except for cause set forth in written charges, and after a full hearing.

§ 6. Said corporation shall have power to make by-laws for their own government, to make and use a corporate seal and alter the same at pleasure, and to sue and be sued in their corporate name. Said corporation shall also have power to receive bequests of real or personal property to be devoted to the interests of said institution, subject to the provisions of law relative to bequests by last will and testament.

§ 7. The managers of said reformatory shall receive under their care and instruction such persons, convicted of first offences, as shall be intrusted to them, in the discretion of the courts of this State, under such rules and regulations as shall be prescribed by law.

§ 8. The board of managers shall make, annually, to the legislature a full report of their proceedings and of the condition and working of the institution.

§ 9. The said managers shall receive for their services no compensation except for expenses incurred in the discharge of necessary official duties.

§ 10. This act shall take effect immediately.

XXXI. PRISON LABOR AND THE LEGISLATURE.

BY THE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

For some years past there has been an annual struggle, on the part of a portion of the working men of the State, to strike down industrial and especially skilled labor in the State prisons, through the action of the Legislature. In the session of 1868, a bill passed the assembly, having this object in view, but was defeated in the senate. We think that no action was had by either branch of the Legislature in 1869. In 1870, the assembly, early in the session, again passed a bill relating to this subject, but of a far more sweeping character than the former. The bill is entitled "An act for the better protection of the mechanics of this State, by regulating the use of convict labor in the several prisons of the State, and for other purposes." It is in the words following, to wit:

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

SECTION 1. From and after the passage of this act the labor of the convicts in the several prisons, penitentiaries, and of the inmates of the houses of refuge in the State, shall not be let or hired out upon

contract.

§ 2. Hereafter such convict labor as may be at the disposal of the inspectors of the several State prisons, penitentiaries, and the labor of the inmates of the houses of refuge in the State, at the disposal of the managers of the houses of refuge, shall be employed in such branches of industry and such articles thereby produced as are, or may be, imported exclusively from other countries, or such as may least conflict with the mechanics and workingmen of the State; and any goods or wares manufactured by the convicts in the several prisons, penitentiaries, and inmates of the houses of refuge in the State, shall not be sold in the market, or elsewhere, at a less rate than their market value at the time of said sale: Provided, that nothing in this act shall be construed to interfere with existing contracts.

3. The earnings of the several prisons, penitentiaries and houses of refuge shall be paid into the treasury of the State, including the earnings of present fiscal year, which shall constitute a separate and distinct fund, to be known as "the prison and house of refuge fund ;" and the Legislature shall annually appropriate such sums as may be needed to carry on the work or business at the several prisons, penitentiaries and houses of refuge in the State.

§ 4. Any prison inspector or inspectors, prison wardens or managers of any prison, penitentiary or house of refuge in the State, who shall evade or attempt to evade any of the provisions of this act, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on sufficient proof thereof, shall be suspended from office by the Governor of the State; and if any board of managers of any house of refuge in the State, incorporated by an act of the Legislature, shall evade or attempt to evade any of the provisions of this act, they shall be deemed guilty of a violation of the same, and, on conviction thereof in any district court, the charter of incorporation under which they may have authority shall be suspended from all operation, and the said court shall at once designate and appoint a commission, which shall consist of five members, who shall superintend and manage the affairs of such house of refuge until the Legislature shall provide in what manner it shall be permanently managed: Provided, that any member of the board of managers under the said corporation shall not be appointed a member of the said commission.

§ 5. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed. § 6. This act shall take effect immediately.

In the Senate the above bill was, as a matter of course, referred to the standing committee on State prisons, which gave long and repeated hearings to both the friends and opponents of the measure. Much credit is due to the committee for the patience and evident candor with which they listened to arguments on the subject, till every body, having any thing to say, was satisfied with the opportunity afforded him. The result of the several hearings and the subsequent deliberations of the committee is embodied in the following report presented by them to the Senate:

The committee on State prisons, to whom was referred Assembly bill, No. 78, entitled "An act for the better protection of the mechanics of this State, by regulating the use of convict labor in the several prisons of the State, and for other purposes," ask leave to submit the following report:

The management of our penal and correctional institutions, in their industrial, financial, educational and reformatory relations and agencies, constitutes a vital interest of the State. We have four State prisons (three male and one female); six penitentiaries and four great reformatory institutions, which, though but two of them have the legal designation, are all, in effect, houses of refuge, and are all embraced within the scope of this bill. The average number of inmates in these three classes of institutions, in 1868, was: In the State prisons, 2,881; in the penitentiaries, 1,891; in the houses of refuge, 2,865; total, 7,637. The whole number of officers and employés-wardens, superintendents, chaplains, physicians, teachers, overseers, etc., is as follows: State prisons, 262; penitentiaries, 172; houses of refuge, 194; total, 628. The ordi

nary expenditures of these institutions for 1868 were: State prisons, $844,374; penitentiaries, $302,689; houses of refuge, $366,846; total, $1,513,909. Excess of expenditures over income: State prisons, $242,735; penitentiaries, $138,333; houses of refuge, $268,673; total deficiency, $649,741.

In view of the foregoing statements, it is obvious to remark, indeed the observation lies on the surface of the subject, that legislation in reference to interests so vast and varied, to be safe must be cautious. It will not do to rush upon changes without carefully weighing the consequences likely to flow from them. Even an apparently slight alteration in the law, where the machinery is so complicated and delicate, might cause injury and disaster which no human sagacity could foresee; much more, then, might such a result ensue upon a complete change in the labor system of these institutions, and especially a change which threatens the destruction of all labor therein. The questions raised by the bill referred to the committee are grave and important; and we have therefore felt it to be our duty to examine, with all the care and candor we could bring to the study, the nature, bearings and probable results of the measures which it embodies.

The bill proposes to give legal effect to the following propositions: 1. It abolishes the contract system of labor in all the State prisons, penitentiaries and reformatories of the State.

2. It requires that all the articles manufactured in these institutions, or any of them, shall be such as either are, or may be, imported exclusively from other countries, though there is an alternative added, which seems to allow the manufacture of articles produced in the United States, but restricts it to such products as will least conflict with the mechanics and workingmen of the State.

3. It provides that no goods manufactured or produced in the institutions designated shall be sold below the market price.

4. It changes the character of the penitentiaries and reformatories, making them State institutions equally with the State prisons, by requiring them to pay over all their earnings into the public treasury, and by making it the duty of the Legislature to annually appropriate whatever moneys may be needed for their support.

5. It makes all violations of the provisions of the bill misdemeanors, punishable in the case of individual officers by degradation from office, and in that of boards of managers by forfeiture of charter.

6. It annuls all acts or parts of acts inconsistent with the above propositions.

It cannot be denied that this is, to say the least, both comprehensive and radical legislation. It sweeps away, as if they were but cobwebs, traditional policy, sources of revenue, agencies of reformation, and legislative enactments, on which anxious thought and studious toil have been expended by the men of other days, not less wise or patriotic, it may be,