all crushed out by this abominable system, becomes a public nuisance or a public danger?

Thanks to our Bureau of Statistics, we have begun to learn something of the extent of the clientage of our "training schools of crime." Let us hope that once knowing them, we may set about their cure.

But here, also, the cry against convict competition confronts us and defeats our efforts. The remedy for the jail is the work-house, and every work-house in which prisoners are made to earn a part or the whole of the cost of their support, is, or will be, a competing element in the great mass of productive labor, and therefore, must be opposed, as prison reforms are opposed, by the same parties and for the same reasons. We can have no thorough reform of either prison or jail without productive labor, and productive labor is the one thing which the Labor Reformers are determined to banish from our penal institutions, and therefore, until these very earnest and ardent advocates of the rights of labor can be made to realize that convict competition, whether great or small, can best be extinguished by diminishing crime, and that crime is attacked most effectually by drying up its sources, and destroying its training schools, of which the jails are by far the most effective and certain, the jails of New Jersey must continue to disgrace us.

IN HER TREATMENT OF PAUPERS,

New Jersey has little more reason for complacency than in that of her minor offenders. The poor laws of the state remain almost as they were a hundred years ago. Each township votes at its annual town meeting a certain sum "for the support of the poor," and elects an " Overseer of the Poor," to look after its paupers, who is under the supervision of the Township Committee. Any county may, either by itself or in conjunction with one or more of its neighbors, establish a poor-house, and provide farms or shops for the occupancy of its poor; and each township has the same privilege. Many of the rural townships have preferred to " bond," or " farm" out their poor, sometimes under the Overseer himself; often among the farmers of the community, who keep one or more of them for their labor, supplemented by a small sum weekly or monthly from the township funds. There are no statistics of pauperism, and no means of getting any have been provided by law. The Overseer of the township poor reports, or should report, to the township committee. The committee should report to the people. But both duties are undertaken m most cases by men with no special aptitude — generally, indeed, with a special inaptitude for thorough work. The county institutions being larger and more costly, receive some attention. Those of the townships are quietly ignored by even the very best citizens, and no one can tell the number even of tne poor-houses in the state, or give any reasonable idea of the location of one in twenty of them. Under such circumstances supervision is difficult and abuses easy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, with praiseworthy energy and zeal, has attempted during the present year to collect facts and figures with regard to New Jersey pauperism, but "up to this date has not met with all the encouragement and success its efforts deserve. The legislature, near the close of its last session, passed ah act to provide for the creation of

A COUNCIL OF CHARITIES AND CORRECTIONS,

composed of six members, to be appointed by the Governor, " by and with the advice and consent of the Senate," and presided over by him. By some unfortunate combination of circumstances, this law was made to take effect after the adjournment of the legislature, and the Governor has held that he was, in consequence, prevented from making the appointments, and the matter stands over until the meeting of the legislature in January.

This council, if it shall be organized, will have full powers of inspection of all local, penal and charitable institutions, established under stg,te laws, and if the legislature can be induced to appropriate the necessary means for its work, will doubtless do much towards remedying the worst evils of our jails and poor houses. Sanitary inspection of these places was made one of the duties of the State Board of Health in 1882, and has been performed as far as the limited means at command of that Board have permitted.

Such is a hasty resume of the situation of State Charities and Corrections in New Jersey. In a few particulars our progress has been, if not flattering, decided. The establishment of our State Deaf and Dumb Institution, the collection of our jail statistics, the attempt now making to gauge the character and conditions of New Jersey pauperism under the auspices of our Bureau of Statistics and Board of Health, are advances, and the council of Charities and Corrections which we need of* all things, and from whose establishment we hope to date the beginning of a better system of treatment for paupers and jail prisoners, a more thorough acquaintance with the causes and means of prevention of pauperism and crime,, and a reform in many parts of our criminal legislation, would have been another advance, but for the blunder I have mentioned.

Against these we have to chronicle the ugly effects of the laws regulating the distribution of convict labor, the full mischief of which is yet to be realized, but which have already revealed enough unpleasant features to alarm and sadden any friend of prison reform.

Mrs. J. K. Barney, of Ehode Island, presented the work of the* Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in relation to jails and police stations as follows:

Mrs. Barney: "I am here to represent the Woman's National Christian Temperance Union, which had its organization in nearly every state and territory of the republic, with an ever increasing membership, numbering at this time nearly 80,000, with the significant motto, 'For God, and Home and Native Land.' Among the thirty departments of work outlined by the leaders, is the Prison, Jail,- Police and Almshouse visitation, of which I am National Superintendent. The moments allowed me are so brief that I can only call the attention of this body .to one point — the need of matrons at police stations — and in all correctional institutions where women are detained, either for trial or punishment." She cited cases ranging from the United States Jail, at Washington, to smaller cities, where women were committed daily, and where sick, or well, they were without any assured seclusion or privacy and in the care of men, unless as in some cases, one of the criminal women was placed in temporary authority. She also read extracts from a letter written by Chief of Police Childs, endorsing the work of the police master in Providence, where the experiment had been tried for three years, and urged the question upon the attentiop of the conference, claiming that arrangements should be made in every city to have women appointed and stationed at central places, into whose hands every woman arrested should be given, to be searched and cared for. In several cities the movement had already been inaugurated and gave universal satisfaction — the prejudice against it vanishing before the actual work of a plan—so readily seen to be in the interests of good morals and reform. The following papers were then read:

DISCIPLINE IN PRISONS.

BY ELIZA M. MOSHER, M. D.
(Read, in her absence, by Mr. Sanborn.)

The subject of prison discipline is one upon which much has been said and written, and still the question "how shall criminals as a class be reformed" is one which remains practically unanswered. Confinement behind bolts and bars alone, has failed to do more than rid society for the time of a dangerous element. Imprisonment with hard labor, great physical discomfort and privation, with harsh treatment and gloomy surroundings, has ended only in greater moral and physical degradation. Justice demands that offenders against law shall be punished! Christianity demands for them a discipline which shall correct and reform their evil natures, changing them frbm criminals to God-fearing, law-abiding citizens.

The present century has witnessed much improvement in the management of penal institutions, and yet a large proportion of those who leave our Prisons and Houses of Correction to-day, return more or less speedily to the lives they led before imprisonment began.

In order that we may rationally judge of the needs of this class, let us for a moment consider the condition of the men and women who comprise it. We find them in the main, individuals of unsymmetrical mental development, whose "moral sense" is weak, whose consciences are perverted, without self-control, with no will to do right, or having it, they are too weak to resist opposing influences. Add to all this the habits of intemperance and unchastity, so general among them and who can wonder that the task of reformation is one which assumes gigantic proportions.

Discipline in its broad sense, means education, instruction, correction, hence the discipline of a prison includes all influences calculated to elevate and improve the spiritual, moral or physical natures of the imprisoned. Meagre as have been the good results, even of the most successful modes of prison management up to the present time, enough has been achieved to show that .we are working in ttie right direction. Education, instruction, correction, in a word discipline, rightly directed and long continued, is the force which alone can re-adjust such imperfect and wrongly developed natures. What are the factors of such discipline, is the problem of to-day! The elements which we have thus far found may be included under the following heads, viz.:

1. Careful religious instruction.

2. Regular employment.

3fc A firm and unyielding, but kind enforcement of wise rules and regulations.

4. Classification, or division into grades.

5. Definite and certain advancement for continuous, good behavior.

6. Intellectual culture, by means of study, reading, eta The influence of a good chaplain in any penal institution is great and far-reaching, but too much has been expected from it in the past. ISTo person, and no one influence, acting from without, can be relied upon to change the moral natures of such a class, as the one with which we are dealing. One act of injustice on the part of an officer, an angry word spoken by one who should always maintain a quiet self-control, is sufficient to undo all the good work which the words of a chaplain may have begun in the heart of a prisoner. The Sunday sermon may almost as well remain unpreached, if its truths are not exemplified in the lives of those who stand in the responsible position of keepers of these misguided beings. To be in the highest sense successful therefore, a chaplain's work must be supplemented by all the other influences which surround the imprisoned.

Regular employment has long been considered one of the most important elements of prison discipline, and justly so. Any body of well disposed persons would soon become demoralized if shut up together, without physical or mental employment; and how much less can we expect wicked and indolent members of society to acquire steady habits of industry under such a regime. The question "how to employ prisoners," has long been a difficult and vexatious one, both in Europe and America. What employment can be provided which will not "take the bread out of the mouths of honest people?" How make prison labor profitable to the state, and at the same time healthful and instructive to the impris