Financial Secretary—H. H. Shirer, Columbus, Ohio.
Treasurer—Frederick H. Mills, New York city.
Convicts on Roads.—Warden Wolfer of the Minnesota state prison is quoted in the Des Moines, Iowa, Capital as follows:
“The use of convicts in building roads is wrong in principle. In the first place the sight of convicts upon the public highways has a detrimental effect upon the young people, it is apt to inspire in them any but the purest of thoughts. But the worst effect is upon the convict himself. He is subject to public shame and humiliation, and if he is making an effort to reform, he becomes easily discouraged. I have no objection to preparing the stone and other materials for road building by the prisoners, provided it is done within the prison walls. The talk that the use of convicts upon the highway will eliminate the conflict between convict labor and free labor does not prove out. The exhibition of the convict upon the highway only tends to aggravate the conflict, as it gives the lazy free laborer a chance to claim that he would work on the roads if it wasn’t for the convict. It is too expensive a method of road building.”
The Occoquan Workhouse.—The entire supervision of the District of Columbia workhouse at Occoquan probably will soon be given to the Board of Charities. Under the law charitable, correctional, and penal institutions in the District come under the board’s supervision. The workhouse will, it is believed, shortly emerge from the engineering stage and be ready to pass under the control of the board, as is the jail at present.
Grim Humor.—The Germans describe that grim humor that emanates from cynics in distress as “gallows humor.” Here is a bit of it from the monthly prison paper of the inmates of the Charlestown (Mass.) state prison. It is a drama synopsis.
Act I. Incarceration