Though the system of ventilation is by means of flues attached to the ceiling and door, still these rooms, in which are herded individuals of all ages and classes, must become exceedingly foul and unhealthful; while the opportunity which this congregate system affords the prisoners for concocting plots and outbreaks is undeniably assured.
Of the prison industries the jute mill is of sole importance to the outer world; all other products being consumed there. Some eight hundred convicts labor at the mill, and five million sacks are annually sent from the prison.
There are paint and tin shops which supply all the tin-cups, hand basins, pails, etc., used in the institution; tailor shops in which are made all the clothes; carpenter shops for repairing and furniture, while sixty pairs of shoes are turned out each week from the boot shop. In the machine shops where are manufactured all the needles used in sewing the jute bags half a dozen excellent sewing machines were recently made.
The extensive laundry where numerous Chinese convicts are employed, is only one of the many evidences of cleanliness witnessed in this institution, where order and system are apparent to even the casual observer. But however orderly, systematic and cleanly a prison may be kept, that is only one means toward eliminating crime; for so long as we continue in our congregate system of indiscriminate herding together of all classes of offenders so long will our penitentiaries be hot-houses for fostering crime. Instead of eliminating, we confirm; instead of inciting decency and self-respect, we incite indecency and rebellion.
Lagunitas, San Rafael's Water Supply.
At the time of our visit there were in San Quentin about a dozen lads, the youngest but fourteen years of age, imprisoned on charges of murder, who, had it not been for the supervision of Warden Tompkins, would have been placed with the confirmed, hardened criminals.
