give to the governor, the executive council, the legislature, or to any other parties interested, a concise exhibit of the condition of each of the departments placed under such supervision.

It is to the experiences of older communities that we are now looking for instruction and suggestions in these matters.

I am not a member of this Conference, but desire to make a few remarks. We have no Board of Charities in our State, but have institutions which I believe are a credit to the State. Our Insane, Deaf and Dumb, and Blind Asylums, and Soldiers' Children's Home, and others of our institutions, are of the highest character for utility, creditable to the management, and honorable to the State. We have two State prisons for men, - North and South, in the hands of fair managers; and they are conducted creditably, so far as such institutions can be under the miserable system which prevails.

We

A year ago an effort was made to pass a new prison-law through the legislature, but it was lost by a small vote. If that bill had passed, I think we could have reported a desirable change in the condition of our State prisons ere this. The jails in our State are mostly in very poor condition. An attempt was made in that bill to introduce district workhouses or prisons to take the place of county jails to a great extent, which, however, was not successful. have a Women's Prison and Girls' Reformatory, managed wholly by women, which has been an eminently prosperous and successful institution, and has fully demonstrated the ability of women to conduct successfully prisons for their own sex. Two or three years ago there was a conflict between a board of men and the women managers of the prison, when it was suggested to the legislators to place it in the hands of a board of women. Some members said, "You really do not want to put the prison in the hands of a board of women?” I said, "Yes." They said, "You could not find a woman who could manage its financial affairs." I answered, "Well, I found one, many years since, who could manage mine very well, and I doubt not they could be found by the State."

The result was to take it entirely out of the hands of the men. Not a man is employed, except the engineer and one watchman; and testimony is offered on all sides that it is the best managed in every way of all the public institutions of the State. Its superiority consists not only in the lessening of the expense, but also its

reformatory character. I don't know that I have visited any institution in which there has been such a large amount of moral and reformatory influences brought to bear as in that prison.

A word as to pardons. A good deal of complaint is being made of the pardoning power of the governor. I think the pardoning power is a very necessary one. Under the present unequal sentences, many being sentenced a long time for small offences, and others a short time for serious offences, it is necessary that power should exist to equalize them to some extent, and to correct manifest errors which may be made, as well as to reward good behavior and thus aid in reformation. I don't believe in this outcry against pardons, although of course they may be carried to an

excess.

In our State the governor, before he signs a pardon, requires the signatures of all the county officials in office when the criminal was convicted, and also of the jurors who convicted him.

Just now the whole subject of prison discipline is one that comes before us with great force. It is very evident, the whole system needs changing. There ought to be modified institutions, in which persons convicted of crimes of lesser magnitude, and those young in years, could be confined, where reformatory measures could be brought to bear upon them better than in these large institutions where the first idea is to save expense, and the next to preserve order, and but little attention is given to separation, instruction, and reformation. In our own State, I think our men's prisons are schools for crime, and that they send out the inmates more hardened and more settled in criminal life than when they entered.

PENNSYLVANIA.

BY MR. MILLIGAN.

Ladies and Gentlemen,· I assure you I feel embarrassed to appear in place of Dr. Diller Luther, who would be the proper representative of the State charities of Pennsylvania. I have watched the operations of the Board of Public Charities very closely since 1869, when it was first organized; and the work has been going on with an earnestness, force, and efficiency, which, I think, will compare favorably with the work of similar boards in any of the States. We very sincerely regretted that Mr. George L. Harrison resigned the chairmanship two years ago; but, notwithstanding his resignation, the Board of Charities still stands very prominently before the public.

We have in the State of Pennsylvania very many things for this

Board to do. The tramp question has been wrestled with most seriously in Pennsylvania. There has been no recent legislative action taken; but an experiment has been tried in the county of Lancaster, which includes the city of Lancaster, where has lately been established, by municipal authority, a workhouse, to which all men who are found upon the streets as vagrants or tramps are sent, with the privilege of working as long as they will stay, and where labor is also enforced. The result has been to clear that whole neighborhood of tramps, who understand that if they are found upon the streets of the city a second time, they are summarily sent to the prison. A board of commissioners, elected by the popular vote of the county, has general supervision of the county workhouses, into which tramps too often get, and where they are sometimes too luxuriously kept; but, as these workhouses do not come closely under the supervision of the Board of Charities, it can do little to remedy this.

The question of district prisons is now being agitated; that is, with regard to dividing the State into districts, in which workhouses shall take the place of jails, which are now a bane to the State and schools for crime. The district prison should not be used for those waiting trial, but for those committed as vagrants, or summarily sent on short sentences. Of course this will require considerable changes in Pennsylvania, where we move very slowly in such things; but the matter is under discussion, and we feel that in time it will be solved satisfactorily.

Since the last report of Dr. Luther there has been some talk about appointing female inspectors of the State institutions. A bill for this purpose raised quite a breeze in the legislature, but finally it passed, though it has not been signed by the governor.

Some time ago a labor commission was appointed by the legislature to investigate the subject of labor in the prisons. Many persons desire to break up the contract system which is pursued in the Western Penitentiary; and that commission reports that all labor in the State prisons should be performed on State account, opposing entirely the right of the inspectors of State prisons to hire out convict-labor upon contracts. In the Eastern Penitentiary

at Philadelphia, with some eleven hundred convicts, individualization is impossible, owing to the crowded condition of that prison. Where two or three men are together in one cell, there is little chance for reforming them. There is now a movement for a small penitentiary, similar to the State reformatory at Elmira, N.Y.,

with power of transfer thither from the Eastern and Western Penitentiaries, for young men from sixteen to twenty-five years of age; and this proposition is looked upon favorably by the friends of prison reform. Such a penitentiary would doubtless be built on the most improved plans of prison architecture. The whole matter of the penitentiaries of our State has been very much agitated during the last summer and winter, and the result is that the Western Penitentiary has obtained an increase of power and privileges. The old prison at Pittsburg will probably be extended or rebuilt on new plans. The men will be separated at night and when not working, and we shall have them labor both on State account and by contract. We have found by experience that an alternative was the best way.

In Pennsylvania the gentlemen who manage the State prisons are not subject to political changes. In the Western Penitentiary the president of the Board has been in office for twelve years, and the same is true of the Eastern Prison; they are not subject to political caucuses.

One word with regard to reformatories in our State. We do not keep the boys and girls so separate as they ought to be. We have a large farm in our State, which is intended to be conducted on the Lancaster plan, which is familiar to all of you. The boys are taught to labor on the farm, and as yet no other labor is taught. I am not well enough acquainted with the other State charitiesthe Insane Asylums at Harrisburg, Dixmont, Danville, Warren, and Philadelphia, the Blind Asylum and the Deaf and Dumb Institution at Philadelphia, or the other institutions—to report concerning them as Dr. Luther would do if he were here.

CONNECTICUT.

Prof. Wayland, of Yale College, said that in Connecticut the power of pardon is confided to the legislature, which he thought unwise. There was necessarily an absence of personal responsibility when final action was taken by so numerous a body. It would be better to intrust the power of pardon to the executive, aided perhaps by a council, as in Massachusetts. Then, again, great harm results from a want of uniformity in the term of imprisonment when the circumstances of the crime committed are substantially the same. The temper of the judge when sentence is pronounced often governed his action; and of two men convicted of the same crime, with no mitigating circumstances, one receives a

sentence of three years and one of eighteen months. The experiment which is being made in the prison at Elmira, N.Y., under the direction of Mr. Brockway, of indeterminate sentences, is well worthy of consideration. The plan contemplates the confinement of the convict until there is reason to believe that he is cured of his moral disease.

NEW YORK.

Dr. Hoyt, Secretary of the State Board of Charities of New York, addressed the Conference regarding the charities of that State, and also as to the work of the Board and its relations to those institutions. The estimated value of the property held for charitable purposes in New York is now: real estate, $27,708,952; personal estate, $5,260,060: total, $32,969,012. The receipts of these institutions the past year amounted to $8,921,538, of which sum $992,724 was from the State treasury, $4,786,115 from cities and counties, and $886,439 from private munificence. The expenditures during the year were, for buildings and improvements, $957,802; for supervision and maintenance, $7,648,750: total, $8,606,552. The average number of persons under care in the various classes of institutions of the State during the year was: In the State insane-asylums, 2,714; in the asylums for the blind, 356; in the institutions for deaf-mutes, 922; in the State School for Idiots, 230; in the State Inebriate Asylum, 61; in the houses of refuge, 1,347; in the county poorhouses, 6,841; in the city almshouses, 9,203; in the orphan-asylums and reformatories, 15,990; in the homes for aged persons, 3,907; in the hospitals, 2,064 total average of all classes under care, 43,095. To this should be added the number of persons temporarily relieved by city, county, and town officials, and by the various medical charities and other benevolent organizations.

The control of this large amount of property and these enormous expenditures, as well as the oversight and care of such great numbers of beneficiaries, is given by statute to local officers, managers, or trustees. The State Board has no executive duties in the matter, except in the case of certain insane, and as regards State paupers. The Board possesses full powers of visitation and examination, and may call the attention of the attorney-general or the district-attorneys to any matters requiring legal action; who are required to make investigation, and institute proceedings. The suggestions of the Board, however, have generally been kindly