Litchfield enquirer., 1876-03-09
PRISON REFORM.

The following brief account of prison in Pennsylvania shows that the work pri- son reform is making some progress in that State, as it is in the interior of New York, and in many of the states of the Union.
 z In Allegheny county, Penn, at Clare mont, near Pittsburgh, is tassworkhouse and prison combined. In 1t are confined all the miscellaneous offenders of small city and of a mining and manufacturing region, the principal offences being, as among the prisoners on BlackwelPs Island, drunkenness, vagrancy and disorderly conduct, while occasionally persons are sentenced for more grave offences, as rob. bery, assault, burglarly and larceny.
 Out of the 2,385 prisoners for 1874, ], ,346 were committed for thirty days and less, and only 106 for more than twelve months and for less than eighteen months.
 1.-The board of managefsf of this prison being anxious to relieve the county of the excessive pecnniary burden of supporting so many idle hands, and, at the same time. to do what was practicable to reform these offenders, set about securing this end in business-llke way The first engaged a very experienced prison superintendent, with that kind of organizing talent which commands high salary in, the market, and they paid him an ample salary This gentleman, MT. Henry Cordler, is we'll known both for his ability and his human ity. His first step was to select certain branches of manufacture which were easi- iy learned and which would produce arti- cles in Fair demand These were the man. ufactnre of barrels, brick making and laundry work; and to these was added the making of white-lead kegs. He rigidly excluded all contract work, but made Lis arrangements himself with both the cus- toners and the convict workmen. To se- cure good and active work from the latter, he allowed them a certain proportion of their earnings. This allowance of wages is now considered necessary element in the reformatory influence of any we'll managed prison.
 In tire Claremont factory each convict was required to finish seven barrels for the institution without any gain to him. self, the average days labor outside being thirteen or fourteen barrels; after this, for every additional barrel finished, he gets three cents for himself A prisoner under this stimulus will sometimes make twenty four or twenty y-five barrels day, and the average production is from sixteen to eighteen, or one and one fifth days work outside.
 In the shop for unskillked labor where unit of production could not we'll be fix ed, every days labor, where the conduct and industry had been unexceptionable, was reckoned as ten cents to the credit of the prisoner Under this rule few fail to receive the credit, and the amount of work performed is much increased. So stimulating is the prospect of wages that but little strictness of discipline IS said to be required in this shop. The men do not talk together because they are anxious to earn money.
 The amount thus paid to the prisoners for overwork in 1872 reached the consider able sum of $27O471.
 The net financial result is remarkable. In 1875 the barrel factory brought into the prison 3.675.9 98; the brick yard, S4, ,08.9 98; the laundry, $3,267. .65, and per manent Improvements in building with the labor of the conyicts, $5 5,338, or a total of receipts of 76.3Hs61. st
 The expenditures during the same time for clothing, bedding, provisions, materi al, salaries, etc., were $57, ,639. .84, leaving a surplus to be turned over to the county of $28, ,52l.77. That is nearly twenty four hundred vagrants. drunkards, rnfiIans and thieves were punished and partly re- formed in the Pittsburgh workhouse dur ing 1875, and they not only cost the tax payers nothing, but paid the county more than eighteen thousand dollars %s
 The moral and sanitary effects of this workhouse have been equal to the indus trial efforts. The Chaplain reports an in- telligent use the prison library and will ing attendance at the prison school, with great improvement in habits and charac- ter. TAephysician reports death-rate surpassing in quadruple proportion that of Dr. Richardson's ideal "City of Health, or less than two to the thousand.