Our General Agent is unremitting in his endeavors to assist those confined in the prisons of the City of Philadelphia. The ladies of the Committee to visit the women prisoners at Moyamensing have been faithful in looking after their interests. Situations have been found for many, and not a few have been restored to their families. In all, 6,707 visits have been made to the inmates of the County Prisons.
We take pleasure in reporting that striped clothing as a distinctive prison garb was relinquished, except as a punishment for misbehavior, at the Holmesburg Prison on the first day of July, 1910. Gradually both in this country and England this ancient custom is being dropped. This is a further indication of the growing belief that the convict, after all, is a human being, and does not need the degradation of stripes in order to be distinguished from the rest of humanity.
COUNTY JAILS.
The Western Penitentiary and the Allegheny County Prison have been regularly visited by one of our committees, and there has also been regular visitation of some of the county jails. The evidence afforded that this service has been acceptable and useful has been encouraging to us, and arrangements are being made for its extension to other parts of the state.
There is need of continual agitation to educate the public with regard to the necessity of some change in the administration of many of the smaller county jails of the State. They furnish little or no employment, herd a miscellaneous lot of lawbreakers in entire idleness, often keep the young and the old, the suspected, who may be innocent, and the hardened criminals in the same apartments, and thus become hotbeds for the dissemination of vice and lawlessness. We have already in these reports spoken of the usefulness of establishing district workhouses where employment can be furnished and where habits of industry may be engendered. The labor of the prisoners should so far contribute to the maintenance of the jails as to relieve the counties from the chief part of this burden. Sooner or later, we believe, all our States will adopt some such plan, and why should not the legislators of this great commonwealth give some earnest attention to the improvement of the county jails? Already we have in this State an institution which in many respects could be taken as a model for an industrial penal establishment. We refer to the Allegheny County Workhouse at Hoboken, Pennsylvania. Without infringing on the present laws of the State respecting prison labor, they give employment to all the prisoners. Located on a large farm, they supply their tables with vegetables from their own gardens and often have a surplus for the market. When new buildings are constructed, most of the work is done by the convicts. They have those who have been sentenced to terms of from twenty days to some years, and without difficulty they find work for all of them.
The legislature of Massachusetts has been considering a measure contemplating the establishment of such a system of district workhouses. It is quite possible that the State of Indiana may enact a measure of this kind within the next two years. Let Pennsylvania move forward in this work.
VISITS OF THE PRESIDENT.
The President of the Society has made visits to the Eastern Penitentiary, and to some of the County Jails of Pennsylvania. He has also visited the Maryland Penitentiary and the city jail of Baltimore; and has made two visits to the United States jail at Washington, D. C.
In the Washington jail and at the Maryland Penitentiary, he addressed the assembled convicts at their respective Sabbath afternoon chapel services.