The design for the new flag was selected by a committee consisting of John B. Pine, Francis C. Jones, R. T. H. Halsey, and I. N. Phelps Stokes, of the Art Commission Associates, an organization of former members of the commission. They had been at work on the selection for a year.
The design recommended by this committee and by the commission in turn to the city’s legislative authorities provides for a flag consisting of three perpendicular bars of orange, white, and blue, the blue to be nearest to the flagstaff, with the seal of the city in blue on the middle bar of white. The colors are to correspond as nearly as possible to those of the flag of the United Netherlands in use in 1626.
The commission also recommends the adoption of a model of the city seal submitted by the flag committee. This seal corresponds to the present city seal in all essential details, but it is executed somewhat more faithfully than the majority of the present seals after the pattern of the original city seal. The commission recommends that in order that there may be no further confusion in the use of the city seal in decorations or otherwise, a cast of the new pattern be made in bronze and kept in the safe in the mayor’s office, to be copied whenever necessary.
At present the flag used as the city flag is the one officially adopted for the mayor. It has a solid white ground, with the seal of the city in blue.
Big Increase in Prison Ranks.
A marked increase in the population of the various State prisons, reformatories, penitentiaries, county jails, and New York City institutions reporting to the State commission of prisons for the year ended September 30, 1914, is shown in statistics collected by the commission. The total prison population on that date was 16,678, an increase of 1,817 over the preceding year. The increase for the year 1913 over 1912 was seventy. Ten years ago the prison population was 12,793, showing an increase in a decade of 3,885. A marked increase is also shown in the number of actual commitments. The number jumped from 101,611, in 1913, to 118,027, in 1914.
The number in custody in the four State prisons, including the State prison for women, at Auburn, was 4,955, an increase of 235. There was, however, a decrease in the number of inmates of the women’s prison from 116 to 103. The number of prisoners in the State prisons at the close of the fiscal year was 1,503 more than it was ten years ago.
The population of the three reformatories for males—the New York State Reformatory, at Elmira; the Eastern New York Reformatory, at Napanoch, and the New York City Reformatory at Hart’s Island—increased fifty-one, from 2,026 to 2,077. This is an increase during ten years of 421. The New York City Reformatory statistics date from 1906.
A decrease of fifty-five is shown in the combined population of the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford and the Western House of Refuge for Women at Albion. The population in 1913 was 708, and this year it had decreased to 663. The population of these two institutions increased 241 in ten years.
The greatest increase in population is shown in the five penitentiaries. These institutions in 1913 had 2,488 inmates; this year the number was 2,965, an increase of 477. The increase since 1905, when the Kings County Penitentiary was in existence, has been 736.