city prisons, where it is most needed.

V. To facilitate the organization of local and state prisoners' aid societies and to act as a bureau of co-operation between them. The Association had a two-fold object in mind; the first of a practical nature and the second educational and preventive. During its ten years' history, the Association has adhered closely to these objects. The records of the organization show that 6,000 men from various penal institutions of the central west have been assisted. During the past three years a little over 1,000 men per year have been aided. Many of these have been paroled directly to the superintendent. The results of th's work have been most gratifying, as eighty per cent of these paroled men coming to the Association during a period of five years. have made good. Of the larger number discharged from all kinds of institutions, including workhouses, it is more diff cult to give actual or permanent results. It is believed, however, that the opportunity given to each one for a new start is worth the effort.

The other purpose of the Association, namely, that of securing advanced legislation in the direction of prison reform has, in the meantime, constantly been kept in mind. By means of platform and press the public has been educated to an understanding of the spirit of the new criminology, state legislatures have been appealed to for reformatories, parole and probation laws, and for the elimination of political and other adverse influences in the conduct of penal institutions. As a result of this systematic and persistent propaganda, a survey of the decade shows a large number of things accomplished. Through the efforts of the Association, together with other agencies, three new reformatories have been secured within the eight states which comprise its field of operations. In the same territory and time, the parole law has been newly established in five of these states, and a probation measure also adopted in five. An entire new prison is being built in one of the states, while new additions have been added to no less than six of the state institutions of this territory.

A constant campaign of education has been carried on against vicious jail systems, and for the overthrow of injustice involved in the fee system. More important than these outward signs of improvement have been the changes that have come, in great measure, through the efforts of the Association in refer ence to the personnel of prison officials, the partial elimination of political influences in their administration and the growing tendency to make provision for the parole of life prisoners under certain conditions, and for the payment of prisoners, especially with families dependent upon them. The Association, through its superintendent, has been in the forefront of the movement for the payment of prisoners, and has been the chief agency, so far as known, to emphasize the serious injustices, involved in the fee system.

The Central Howard Association has endeavored to demonstrate the superior value of individual, hand to hand, man to man, treatment of the prisoner, over the institutional method. It is the policy of the Association to earn a reputation for good judgment and sane methods. Its plan of treating applicants has followed, in great measure, associated charities principles, with the more human touch that seems to be essential in dealing with the downcast. The constant growth of the Association and the continuous enlargement of its work from year to year have reached beyond the fondest dreams of its founders. The results accomplished, in a dozen different directions, have surpassed the expectations of all those who have been connected with the movement. Nevertheless, the Association has set for itself a still greater task of advancement. With an ever-increasing number of applicants, and with multiplied co-operation on the part of prison officials and representative citizens, it is in a fair way to achieve still greater usefulness during the coming ten years. Among its plans at the present time may be mentioned the organization of a local co-operating committee in every county seat within its territory. With the strong central organization that has been effected, this plan for widespread local co-operation gives promise of well-nigh unlimited op

portunties for usefulness in the future. years. The Association gladly extends its pledge of co-operation with the various other prisoners' aid societies banded together in the National Prisoners' Aid Society.

The motto of the Association is: "A friend in need is a friend indeed." The Society's field of work is the central western states, including Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa; also to aid individual prisoners anywhere, and to bring encouragement to the cause of prisoners' aid anywhere.

WELCOME TO PRISON
ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA

The Prison Association of Georgia has applied to the state legislature for a twenty year charter. "The object and the purpose of the said organization is the investigation and study of methods for the prevention and punishment of crime, the reformation of criminals, the improvement of the moral and physical conditions of prison life, the treatment and encouragement of discharged prisoners, the publication and circulation of the results of such investigation an:1 study, and the advocacy of the improvement of the laws of Georgia with reference to the above stated matters of investigation."

Certainly a good program, in a state that has been characterized by very unfortunate prison conditions, and in most recent years by a rapid dévelopment of interest in the proper treatment of the criminal. Joseph C. Logan, secretary of the Associated Charities of Atlanta, has outlined purposes and methods in a recent letter as follows:

PURPOSE OF THE ORGANIZATION.

To decrease the criminal population of Georgia. Methods to be employed: Study the causes of crime in Georgia as found in

(a) Influences, hereditary and environmental,

(b) Court methods and attitudes, (c) Penal methods in their actual working.

2. Collection and interpretation of most modern methods successfully employed in any part of this country or abroad.

3. Publication without sensation of all facts valuable to the purpose of this organization by means of

(a) Personal interviews,
(b) Public addresses,

(c) Publicity in newspapers throughout the state,

(d) Printed annual reports containing those facts most valuable to legislators, the Prison Commission, and others in official position in the state.

4. Organization of friendly service to discharged or paroled prisoners.

5. Co-operation with juvenile courts, prison and court officials, and other associations which would tend to further the purposes of this Association.

UP IN MAINE

The Maine Prison Association (1908) is the logical outgrowth of an active but informal body known as the Cumberland County Prison Committee which had been active in securing reforms in the county jail and in the city and county penal system as well as in aiding and assisting the inmates of the jail.

The present set of officers is practically the same as when it was first formed:

OFFICERS.

Edwin P. Wentworth, Portland, Pres.
Howard R. Ives, Portland, Vice-Pres.
Edward P. Mayo, Fairfield, Vice-Pres.
George E. Fogg, Portland, Treasurer.
Philip G. Clifford, Portland, Sec'y.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
Edwin P. Wentworth,
Philip G. Clifford,
George E. Fogg,

Rev. Raymond Calkins, D.D.,
Mrs. John Howard Hill.

Although the Association is comparatively young, it has been remarkably effective, due no doubt to the impetus which it received from the county organization. During its first year, it obtained the passage of two important laws by the legislature. One extended the probation system which existed in Cumberland county to the entire state. providing for a paid probation officer for each county at the option of the county. Five counties have already taken advantage of the law. The second law gave the prison inspectors of the state the power to make alterations, etc..

in any jail in the state, with the consent of the Governor and council and after the refusal of the county commissioners in any given county to make repairs or alterations as suggested. The inspectors could charge the repairs to the state and the state would then require the county to reimburse it. The effectiveness of this provision can be readily perceived and its effects are already apparent in a remarkable change in the point of view in some of the commissioners.

The Association has also been able to procure a change in the method of feeding prisoners in the Cumberland county jail, the antiquated cell-feeding being superceded by communal feeding. This it hopes to have adopted by the other counties. It has also from tme to time assisted released prisoners and maintains a committee which waits upon all prisoners sentenced from the various courts to the State Prison. There is also a correspondence committee which keeps in touch with such of the State prisoners as are likely to be benefitted.

The general object of the Association, as stated on its leaflets, is "to interest the public in the right treatment of criminals, and to promote effective measures for their cure and rehabilitation and for the prevention of crime." The Association has been assiduous in educating the public along the lines of reform and preventive effort. It has either brought or assisted in bringing to Maine the following speakers: Samuel J. Barrows, late president of the International Prison Congress; Judge Ben B. Lindsey, Dr. Katherine B. Davis, and Ex-Judge Brown.

The Association has kept in touch with kindred movements throughout the country, sending a delegate to the National Conference of Charities and Correction at Buffalo in 1909 and also to the International Prison Congress in Washington this fall. Its president, Edwin P. Wentworth is well known in the national bodies, having served as President of the National Conference on Backward. Truant, Delinquent and Dependent Children and at present is a member of its Executive Committee, as well as secretary for Maine for the National Conference of Charities and Correction.

The present year, its activities are centered in an attempt at procuring legislation along three lines: A juvenile court system for the state, a farm for inebriates in large counties and a state reformatory for women. The bill for the juvenile court system was drawn by George E. Fogg, Chairman of the Childrens' Committee, and upon being referred to Judge Ben B. Lindsey for suggestions was returned by him with a long letter of commendation in the course of which he said: "The bill is the best, most up-to-date measure yet proposed to protect and correct helpless, neglected The State of and offending children. Maine may well boast the best law of its kind in the country if it is passed." The campaign for this bill is being pressed vigorously and is being taken up by all progressive organizations through

out the state.

In the matter of the inebriate farm. Cumberland county will, in all probability, obtain one and Penobscot county is pressing hard for one as the conditions there are flagrant. The Reformatory for Women will have to face a legislature pledged to retrenchment but the fight will be carried forward in every

event.

Indiana, has been elected warden of the Edward J. Fogarty, of South Bend, Michigan City (Ind.) State prison.

The biennial report of the California State Board of Charities and Corrections shows that the paroled men have earned during the seventeen years since the passage of the parole' act, $643.822. Had they been kept in prison each man would have cost the state $180 a year. The San Francisco Chronicle states that there are at present 300 prisoners in the prisons of California who are legally entitled to parole except that they are unable to raise the $25 deposit required by a rule. of the Board of Prison Directors.

In New Hampshire a canvass of cities is being made for signatures to a petition praying the legislature to pass laws providing for a more thorough medical inspection of discharged prisoners, to ascertain if they are fit to mingle in the world again. Petition is being ade also for the establishment of a central workhouse and reformatory.

PRISON STRIPES. The Des Moines, Iowa, Capitol reports Warden Barr of the Anamosa Reformatory as advocating the abolition of stripes, the lockstep and the shaved head. He believes that prisoners should be permitted to receive callers and to wear "boiled" shirts while in jail. "The work of reforming prisoners," said Warden Barr, "is a larger duty than that of disgracing them.".

A NEW EXPERIMENT IN CANADA. The Provincial Prison Parole Board of the

Province of Ontario, Canada, consisting of seven members, is a new experiment in penology in Canada, and meets at intervals at the Provincial Prison Farm at Guelph. The board recommends or refuses to recommend the granting of paroles in individual cases. Any prisoner whose conduct has entitled him to consideration will have the opportunity of appealing to the board and conducting his case before it. The functions of the board are advisory rather than executive. Its decisions will be forwarded to the minister of justice, whose co-operation so far indicates his readiness to be guided by its recommendations.

INDETERMINATE SENTENCE IN INDIANA. Amos W. Butler, secretary of the Board of State Charities, has prepared a statement of the workings of the indeterminate sentence law during the last thirteen years which shows that 5,690 persons, confined in the State Prison, the Indiana Reformatory and the Woman's Prison have been paroled during that period. Of the total number only 921, or 26 per cent. have proved delinquent during the period of their parole.

Mr. Butler points out that of the 5,515 men and 175 women paroled during thirteen years, 103, or 2 per cent. have died; 3,160, or 55 per cent, served satisfactorily the full parole period and were given final discharges; the sentences of 444, or 8 per cent. expired during the parole period, and 517, or 9 per cent, are reporting at the present time.

Paroled prisoners have earned for themselves, during the period they were under supervision of the parole agents, an aggregate of $1,540,310.55, and they have expended $1,266,180.66, leaving a net saving of $274,129.89. Many of the persons were not, before their incarceration, earning members of society.

FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS RAISED. The Prison Association of New York has recently raised a $54,000 permanent endowment fund. Smith Ely, a wealthy philanthropist of New York, subscribed $25,000 on condition that an equivalent amcunt should be secured by the Association by December 1, 1910.

SHOCKING CONDITIONS AT ALBANY, (N. Y.) PENITENTIARY. The State Commission of Prisons, in a recent open letter, calls the above prison "unfit and degrading," and recommends that a contiguous county no longer send prisoners there. "Bunks are without bed clothing, ventilation is wretched, blankets remain unwashed throughout a prisoner's term. Prisoners remain in cells fifteen hours out of twenty-four; when two prisoners occupy one narrow cell, conditions are intolerable. The idleness of the prisoners is deplorable. The prisoners are not even kept clean." In short, a scathing arraignment of county mismanagement.

JAILS IN VIRGINIA. Dr. J. T. Masten, secretary of the Virginia state board of charities and correction, stated recently that the conditions in most jails throughout the state are very unsanitary, and are rendered still more intolerable by the cheap food provided, which in many instances represents an outlay of not more than four cents a day for each plate. Tuberculosis is widely spread through the medium of the jails of Virginia, the prisons doing more to spread disease than any other agency in Virginia, according to Dr. Masten.

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DR. ROSENFELD ON AMERICAN PRISONS. Under date of December 3rd, the following interview was cabled from Berlin. Dr. Rosenfeld is a noted German criminologist who attended the International Prison Congress at Washington, D. C.

"Americans have discarded the idea that a prison is a place of punishment only. They come as near as any nation to promoting the mental and moral improvement of prisoners. Except in cases of vice which are incurable by human agency Americans treat crime as something, partly, at least, equivalent to disease.

"I had the opportunity to inspect the principal State and Federal prisons, reformatories and industrial schools in

America. I was struck by the general excellence of the methods of dealing with prisoners and especially by the sanitary and hygienic arrangement of American prisons.

"But I did not like the system which places tiers of cells in the middle of a prison building without direct access to the external light and air. The result is that as the cells have no individual heat-ing apparatus, but depend on the general heat of the building, the lower tier of cells is cold while the upper tier is almost insufferably hot.

"The cages in some American prisons have not solid doors," the great criminologist proceeded. "In them communication between prisoners is easy; a prisoner can stretch his arm through the grating of his cell door and reach the hand of the prisoner next to him. I noticed, too, that some prisoners had arranged small mirrors in their cells at such an angle that they easily get a view of the corridor's whole length and could watch the warder's movements.

"Because of lack of accommodations in some prisons two prisoners are put in one cell, an upper and lower berth having been provided for them. This is bad' from every point of view. If it is not possible to provide a cell for each prisoner three should be confined together; two, never. Personally I am convinced that the isolation of prisoners, as in Prussia, is the best plan. I am convinced, too, that our so-called 'panop

ticon system,' which admits light and air to each cell direct from the outside world is better than the American cage system.

"It seems to me that another grave error in the American prison system is that most of the prisoners have no occupation. Of course I know well that industrial objections are raised in all countries against prison labor because of its supposed competition with free industries. Nevertheless, I believe prison labor is the lesser of the two evils; I am certain that prisoners should not be allowed to remain idle under any circum

stances.

"Perhaps the most impressive American institution I visited was the New York State Agricultural and Industrial School. The entire organization of that model school, with its supervisors and matrons, is so excellent that I propose to recommend warmly the establishment of a similar institution in Germany. I am preparing a confidential report to the German government on this subject. One of the very best features of this industrial school is the effort to secure the confidence and good will of the boys sent there.

"I feel that the American penal system, taken as a whole, is progressing along the right lines."

AN ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF MAGISTRATES. About forty judges of police and children's courts, and a number of other persons met at Albany, New York, on December 10th, in all-day conference. They adopted the following resolutions:

That the conference approves of the discretionary use of the summons system in bringing children, and in cases of minor offenses, other persons, before the court without subjecting them to arrest; and that the conference recommends that the legislature amend the code of criminal procedure so as to authorize the use of the summons system throughout the state.

That the conference respectfully urges newspapers throughout the state to refrain from publishing the names and descriptions of children brought before children's courts.

That the conference recommends the