the same we have been in a more favorable position to resist the tendency to fall into a life of institutionalism that sinks the individual into the mass, and forgets that each child has special needs and requires individual treatment and parental care.

We call no boy by his number. We have never locked a boy up as a discipline. We try to keep alive in the minds of all officers and teachers the fact that our children are like children at home, that they receive sympathy care and protection of the weak against the strong. Much that is set down to viciousness in a child from seven to twelve years of age, when properly understood, will be found to spring from the ignorance and inexperience of infancy. It not unfrequently happens that children of that age find themselves reproved or punished for what they thought innocent or commendable.

The king's daughter said to the mother of Moses: "Take this child away and nurse it for me." So society and the state says to all engaged in child raising: Take these children and bring them up for me. The nearer we approach in love for the children under our care, to the love of the mother for her charge, the better will we succeed in the administration of our trust.

The following letters were presented by the President

of the Conference:

F. H. Wines, Alameda, California, Sept. 19th, 1883.

President of the Annual Conference of Charities, Etc.:

Dear Sir—At the last moment, I regret to say, that I am prevented by unavoidable circumstances from attending your convention, to which I have been appointed by the Governor as the Commissioner from this State.

I enclose some memoranda from Mr. Dooly, the efficient Superink tendent of our "Boys and Girls Aid Society," of which I am a Trustee, 'for the chairman of the committee of Preventive Work among children, and which he desires me to say, he wishes to be considered rather . as showing attention to a request, than as embodying the full amount of information which he would desire to furnish.

I hope by the next conference to be able to furnish all needed information from this State and to be able to unite with you in your most important work.

I send you a "resolution" now under consideration of the Committee on Prison Reform, which will indicate generally my conclusions from my investigations and experience so far. I also send you some copies of a paper which was unanimously adopted by the convention here to represent its views on Prison Reform.

Will you be good enough to order for me ten copies of your proceedings, the amount for which I will remit by return of mail, as soon as I know what it is. I have mislaid the form of application you sent me.

Our Committee on Prison Reform is steadily pursuing its work, and the kind interest you have invariably shown in our proceedings will always be thankfully remembered by

Yours very faithfully, E. R. HIGHTON.

At a meeting of the Joint Committee on Prison Reform, etc., held at the office of Henry E. Highton, on the 27th day of August, 1883, the following resolution was proposed:

Resolved, That this committee in the present stage of its investigations would place on record its convictions as to the general principles which should govern the legislation of the State with regard to the . methods which should be adopted for the diminution of crime.

1st The utmost encouragement should be given to the formation of child-saving organizations, such as Infant Shelters, Kindergartens, Boys and Girls Aid Societies, Industrial Schools and Reformatories.

2d. The establishment of a system of penal discipline for those who have become criminal, at once deterring and rt formatory, in which while recognizing industry as an important factor in the reformation of criminals, its financial results should be of secondary importance, and the system should be so adjusted as to prevent all possibility of contamination, by separating the criminals during the early parts of their imprisonment and gradually fitting them for emancipation by some modification of what is called the "Machonichi" system of prison discipline. But that following an inexorable law the system should compel them to realize that "the ways of transgressors are hard," and that criminals must work out their own salvation under those just conditions in which they had placed themselves. That "love in law" should be the governing principle of their management, but no sentimental " treatment" of prisoners should be permitted.

That we consider the principle of indefinite sentences liable to very grave objections.

3d That encouragement should be given to all methods for aiding prisoners on their release, and some means for careful and strict, but judicious supervision of discharged prisoners should be adopted. t 4th. That some intcr-state method for the registration and identification of convicted criminals should be adopted.

Ordered that a copy of the foregoing resolutions be sent to each member of the Joint Committee for consideration.

(Signed) E. R. HIGHTON,

Chairman. (Signed) M. C. BRIGGS,

Secretary.

St. Louis, September 25,1883. Fred. H. Wines,

President of National Conference of Charities and Corrections.

Dear Sir: I had greatly hoped to be able to be present and take part in the proceedings of your convention now in session in my old native state, and the city in which I in the first years of my life resided, but I find it impossible.

I beg leave to enclose to you some thoughts of mine published in the St. Louis Republican, on the 12th of March, 1883, headed "Penitentiary Convicts — Their Treatment. Crime Inherited."

I would be glad to see your convention memoralize congress to establish prisons for all Federal prisoners to be controlled by commissioners appointed by the President. Such prisons would become models for the states.

I would be glad to see your convention memoralize every state legislature in the Union to abolish the system of hiring out convicts to contractors, who can have no interest in them except to make their labor to them as profitable as possible, and who I am sure, are often most brutally cruel, as the reports from Sing Sing and other penitentiaries show, and to recommend instead that all penitentiaries be managed and controlled by a Board of Commissioners and that when a person is convicted of crime and sent to the penitentiary, he or she should not be sent for a term of years but until this Board of Control could recommend the release of such criminal on the ground of reformation—upon being released the prisoner to keep himself registered with the Board of Control as to his locality and occupation. This would induce.good behavior in the prison to get released and out of the prison not to be returned, and on failure to keep up this registration the criminal should be returned to to walls of the prison. A person once convicted and sent to the penitentiary a second time for criminal offence should be confined for life as having given evidence of an uncontrolable character that could not refrain from wrong to his fellowman. Society must protect itself against the criminal classes, and all such should be inside prison walls, humanely treated, or under surveillance, and if all the spates would adopt this system and communicate with each other, tjie commission of crime would be tgreatly lessened. To carry out my views would require some legislation in most of the states which would, in most cases, amount to this; that juries should simply find the party guilty or not guilty, and if guilty, then the party should be sent to the penitentiary, there to remain until this "High Prison Commission" of the state could recommend to the Governor to pardon the person so convicted, and no pardon should ever go until this commission could recommend the pardon on the ground of the reformation of the convicted man. No criminal man should be again turned loose upon society unless he is a reformed person — keep the criminal in prison if forever unless he or she is reformed and under surveillance during life if outside the walls, that we may know they are not again preying on society.

'If capital punishment were abolished I would counsel that the pardoning power be taken from the Governor and that no person convicted of murder should be pardoned except by the unanimous recommendation of the legislature to the Governor. Persons have been wrongfully convicted of murder and if it can appear that such was the case, the legislature would not hesitate to recommend pardon.

The inhumanities perpetrated under the Contract System and the neglect of all that is essential for reformation cry aloud to God that every Christian in the land raise his voice to abolish the hell-born system of inhumanity and cruelty of man to man.

Our great hope is in the pulpit and the pre^s for these reforms. The Press does cry aloud as now and then some startling act of barbarity gets outside the prison walls, for be it remembered that the contractors and those who inflict punishment are in alliance to show the humanity of their treatment, and the poor prisoner is afraid to speak to the Legislat've Committee or others who come to him, for he knows they will soon be gone and then he will be for another two years at the mercy of his tormentors to be punished for any complaint.

There is no remedy except to abolish the Contract System, and establish in all the States Boards of Control of the highest and best men in the state, with women for women prisoners.

The Savior says: "I was in prison and ye visited me not, etc.," and the Psalmist says: "The sighing of the prisoners came up to God, etc," God promises the greatest of blessings to us for performing our duty to them and a curse for failure. Remember those in bonds as if bound with them, all of which means that the Savior condemns all barbarity to the powerless ones under the control of others. It has application to the treatment of children by parents and guardians as well as prisoners. The Lord knew there would be prisoners, but He enjoins on us to see that they are humanely treated; and let us whilst we insist on their being treated humanely insist also that unreformed persons shall not be turned out of nenitentaries to again prey upon society. The idea seems to be or is the idea our opponents try to create, that all Prison Reformers are a sort of maudlin sentimentalists, a sort of crack-brained people—impracticable in their ideas and would empty the penitentiary of criminals to rob and murder, when all we contend for is humanity to the prisoner and his reform, and instead of again letting loose a vicious person on society, we could keep the criminal until a high commission would recommend his pardon on the ground of reformation.

May God crown the labors of your convention with his blessings and may the ministers of God and christians in every land as well as all humane persons become aroused to their duty to the voiceless prisoner, and never rest their agitations in the press, in the pulpit and everywhere untiJ the prison contract system is utterly overthrown in every state, and the convicts of the country placed under the control of a high christian commission. He that saves a soul covers a multitude of sins. Let us try to.reform the criminal, give him a good trade and restore him, if possible, as a useful member of society.

Very Respectfully.

ISAAC H. STURGEON.

New York, 33 Pine Street, 21 September, 1883.

My Dear Sir — In the State of New York, the contract system of convict labor in the Sjtate Prisons has become an element in the political canvass for the approaching fall elections. At the last* session of the State Legislature persistent efforts were made to secure the abolition of contract labor, and though the efforts failed of direct success, they resulted in the passage of an act by which the proposition to abolish the contract system in the State Prisons was to be submitted to the popular vote at the general election to be held in November next. According to present indications, it seems likely that the vote in favor of such abolition will secure a very large majority. The measure thus to be submitted to the vote of the people is not, as seems quite generally to be supposed, a proposed amendment to the State constitution; it is simply a plan to obtain an expression of the popular opinion as to the policy of abolishing contract labor from the prisons. The vote' can have no legal force in itself to effcet either the maintenance or removal of the present system; but, as the expression of the will of a constituency, it is certain to be used with marked political effect in shaping the legislation of next winter.

This Crusade against the contract system hasjmginated mainly in the trades-unions and labor organizations which, in this State especially, command a large political following. The opposition is, nominally, to contract labor in prisons; the opposition, in its real animus, is directed against labor in prisons. Prison labor is the only kind of industry over which the trades-unions have thus far been unable to exert a controlling influence; hence, the determination to secure the suppression and abolition of industrial labor of whatever kind, in prisons. The prevailing indifference and lack of public enlightenment upon questions pertaining to prison management have prevented many intelligent men from understanding the drift of this movement and from making any effort to check it.

The point of attack upon prison labor has been skilfully chosen. The contract system, even under the most favorable management, is hard to reconcile with a highly reformatory discipline; but the contract system, as actually administered in the prisons of this State, is characterized by some substantial and grave abuses. These abuses have been brought prominently into public notice, and have been made the basis of an attack on the entire contract system. The Knights of Labor have thus been able, while completely masking their ultimate object, to attract the attention of the public to real wrongs that actually demand correction.

It is a noticeable fact, and significant of the true aim of the movement, that while demands have been made within the past year for the abolition of the contract system, they have been unaccompanied by the suggestion of any other system as its substitute. The question to be submitted to the people for their vote is simply for or against the proposition to abolish contract labor. It would seem to require little argument to show that the abolition of contract labor without supplying some other mode of prison labor in its stead, would be a reckless measure. While enlightened opponents of the contract system believe that other modes of administering convict industry may be made to yield higher reformatory results, there can be no question that contract labor is preferable to idleness — better than a recurrence to the treadmill and crank. It is an axiom of prison science that industrial labor is the sine qua non, not only of convict reformation, bat of orderly prison discipline.

In the possibility that the next legislature of New York under the stimulus of the popular vote may be induced to adopt some radical measure hostile to prison industries is the danger that now confronts the people of this State. The disastrous influence that such a precedent would exert upon the cause of Prison Reform throughout the country is sufficiently apparent.

An encouraging feature of the situation' is found in the fact that a question of prison management is brought forward as a political measure. The whole subject of the treatment of criminals by the State ought to be presented to the public as an element of civil government, affecting the prosperity of the entire body politic; its problems are those of statesmanship, of social science, of political economy, bearing upon every citizen — not mere questions of benevolence and humanity toward the convict. When the public shall be brought to regard and to comprehend the subject in its political and economic relations, then, and in that way only, will Prison Reform become popular and its triumph become assured.

Yours respectfully,

EUGENE SMITH, Secretary Prison Association of New York.

Dr. H. P. Mathewson, Superintendent Nebraska Hospital for the insane, reported for Nebraska as follows:

REPORT FROM NEBRASKA. Nebraska has no organized Board of Public Charities, but certain persons have been commissioned by the Governor to represent the State at this Conference. The Constitution of the State of Nebraska provides for a Board of Public Lands and Buildings, consisting of the