The Indianapolis journal., 1898-10-18

the rigid adherence to these rules. the
only exception which should be made being
IN a case where the mental condition OF the
prisoner throws grave doubts upon his re-
sponsibility for the crime. in which event
ne should be committed 10 an asylum Tor IN
sane convicts. Concluding he said:
successful when compared with the sys-
tenn Of definite sentences to which 1t has
system, defective a it is. with the old sys-
tern. especially in States where the jury
nxed the length of sentence, and where al
most every sentence which did not reflect
the prejudice of the locality that furnished
the jury, was a compromise, reacted after
scheme of marking and averaging or
sometimes of gambling or casting lots in the
jury room, that tended to destroy in the
minds of both prisoner and people all re-
spect for courts of justice and presented in
the prison such a hodge-podge of sentences
for the same crime, as to effectualy destroy,
IN the prisoners mind all notion of justice
Yet, when we compare even the defective
present with the hideous past, we may well
initiate the example of the Great Apostle
thank God and take courage and go reso-
lutely on unto the perfection of a system
that has in 1t more of hope and blessing for
fallen and criminal humanity than all the
past centuries have shown"
CLASSIFICATION OF PRISONERS.
Warden w. N. Thayer, Of Dannemora
Prison, spoke on 1.-The Classification of
Prisoners" He said that penoIogists gen.
orally agree that it lessons the chances OF
sociated with old criminals, yet most of the
grade systems mix new and old indiscrim-
fnately providing that the conduct of both
is good. He thought, however, that If evil
associations have a corrupting influence
outside of prison they would logically have
corrupting influence inside. In this con-
necuon, he said, 1t had been his experience
mat the old prison Bird was generally
Ihe best behaved of any of the men in con-
nnement The aim of the Prison Associa-
tlon, he said, is to try to make the convictS
live better lives outside the walls and to
make the life of the Comeback harder
inside the walls by making it impossible for
MN to ever hold any easy place in the
Commissioner Remington, of New York,
Following Warden Thayer said: Every
one, as far as know, is well pleased with
the present prison-labor law of New York,
ana we have every reason to believe that 1t
VIII be great success, not only financially,
but also in the interests of the men and
women incarcerated in the institutions. We
nave had experience with all the other SyS-
TENS in use in prison and are opposed to
them. We know well that the influence of
the contract system is bad on the prison
ers." Warden Thayer, in corrobOrating
these statements. and in answer to a Dues
tion as to what stand organized labor took
on the New York plan, said: "Organized
labor proposed this constitutional amend
ment, Which was opposed by prison men,
Organized labor also forced its adoption.
President Gompers, at the recent meeting
of the Confederation of Trades, recommend
ed that the delegates go home to their sew
eeral States, and urge the adoption of the
New York law
Mrs. H. S. Earl, of Detroit, Mich, in
paper on Employment of Prison Labor"
the Improvement of the highways.
pr. G. F. Keene, of Howard r. l., read
long and exhaustive paper on The Prin-
cipal Underlying Causes of the Heavy Nor
Prisons from TnhQranf0GiS'