THE Missouri penitentiary contains 1,894 convicts. This is the most populous penal institution in the United States.
Crime is on the increase.
The number of prisoners is gradually becoming larger. Reformation is not the success that it should be. A great many of the prisoners return a second, third and many the fourth time. There is one old convict now an inmate who has served nine different terms in this prison. The highest number that was ever at any prior time in this penitentiary, was reached on Thanksgiving Day of 1889.