DeSoto times. (Hernando, Miss.) 1879-1898, 1890-12-18

'NAo AAeJ ho'o uOcA iolb u0peuuenG Oh
the ono he has murdered. ANY COM
monwealth can furnish its convicts
with employment on this basis. If not
on public works, such as canals,
bridges and buildings, then by hiring
them out, as is now done, only for a
little more money. .,5E
Another advantage of this would be
to raise the price of convict labor, and
consequently to advance the price of
the products of penitentiary labor,
which are now produced so chearly as
to force honest laborers to work in
many instances for almost starvation
wages. All over the land to-day,
honest men, who are industrious, law
abiding citizens, are crying out against
this to them, ruinous competition of
convict labor.
A large boot and shoe manufacturer
contracts with the great State of Illinois
for one hundred convicts at eighty
seven and one-half cents per day per
man, puts his machinery into the
prison and sets them to work He has
ploys, perhaps, two hundred men, boys
and girls. He forces them into com.
petition with his prison-paid labor and
compels them to accept wages that will
barely keep soul and body together,
| and all because he is able to hire con-
vict labor SO much cheaper than he can
get honest workmen. The reader will
perhaps agree with me that the man who
wants to bo honest and respectable,
| who' desires to live free and upright
life, can not compete with the man who
does not, and who by violating the
laws of the land becomes convict and
slave of the State. The latter pays no
rent, pays no board, has no clothes to
buy, has no position in society to sus
tain, and, above all, has not gthe dispo-
sition Of his own time, nor any thing
| to say concerning the wages he shall re-
ceive for his labor; while the former
has all these, except the last, and here
in effect, the State, which ought to pro-
tect and encourage honest industry,
steps in to reduce the honest mechanic
to practically the same level with the
convict. But the Restitution System
would do away with this.
Another point in its favor: 1t would
tend to discourage the commission of
this class of crimes. Under our present
system a man steals say ten thousand
dollars; he is sent to the ponitentiary
for six years, which would be eonsid-
cred pretty severe sentence. He
serves his time and comes out nearly
ten thousand dollars ahead; supposing
of course he has saved his money, or
| rather some other mans nooney. Let
US, on the other hand, suppose that he
knew that a theft of ten thousand dol
lars would mean, If he were caught and
punished, a sentence at hard labor for
life, at fifty cents day, that money all
to 60 towards reimbursing those he has
robbed. Would he not hesitate to incur
such fate? This system would, I be-
lieve, almost completely abolish petty
thieving; would most effectively stifle
the ambitions of a large class of our
criminals, such as house breakers, foot
pads, till-tappers and sneak thieves. A
theft of one hundred dollars would
mean to them, perhaps a years hard
labor, at the end of which time they
would have been compelled to make full
restitution.
In cases where the stolen property
has been recovered the same system
could still be employed, the convict's
earnings going to the State instead of to
the injured party.