Amador ledger., 1905-01-13
Letter From Sacramento.

cisco they endorsed Harry Bunkers for
senator in the eighteenth district. He
was elected and voted as democrat
during his first session, but this year
he announces that he is, and always has
been, republican, and will vote for a
republican for senator. He demanded
admission to the republican caucus, and
after hot fight was admitted, and the
democratic party now has exactly the
same number of mem mbers-four-in
both houses.
The senate and assembly both offered
the democrats the same patronage as
the majority, and considered them in
all respects members of the majority.
In the senate the senators declined to
accept anything more than a stenog-
rapher each, but the Assem- blymen
had not at last reports declined to &C
cept the gifts which were brought
them by the Greeks. The chances are
they will accept, because 1 see a num-
ber of democrats on hand willing to
serve their country for a reasonable
per diem.
There will be no bills introduced until
next week, but there are number
ready to spring as soon as the word is
given. Among those of general inter-
est is the one by Esmudillo giving
back the Yosemite Valley to the con-
troll of the federal government. That
will be bitterly fought, and will attract
much attention. The bills to license
the carrying of guns or rifles, and for
bidding the sale of ducks or trout in
the state of California, the measure
| being in the interest of the various gun
clubs OF the state. There will be bill
establishing fire marshal, whose
duties it will be to examine into all sus-
picious fires in the state, and prosecute
those who are supposed to be guilty of
arson. There will be bills to improve
the MALTA, and several bills in the in
terest of the agricultural department
of the university. The university asks
for new building for the college, a
dairy and an experimental farm.
Assemblyman Whiting has bills to
create the office of mining inspector,
and to require mine owners to give
bonds that they will pay their men.
One of the most important matters
that will come up will be the bills to
provide for banks of deposit all over
the state for city, county, and state
funds. At present they have to be
kept in the vaults of the public treas
urer, but the new law will allow banks
to give certain approved bonds as Sc
curity, and when they have been de-
posted with the treasurer he must de-
posit his funds with the banker. That
will add, it is estimated, $50, 600, 600 to
| the money in circulation in this state,
| and will add the interest at least 2
per cent on that sum to the revenues
of the state, counties and cities of
California.
Prison reform is attracting a great
deal OF attention, and some very radical
legislation is certain to be put through
this session in that matter. At the last
session of the legislature the assembly
created committee consisting of AS
semblymen Prescott now speaker) Nc
Kenney and Dunbar to study the prison
question thoroughly and report when
the legislature met again. The COM
mittee collected an immense mass of
information from all parts of the coun-
try, and Europe, Asia, and the rest of
the world which they carefully ex-
| amlned, aud as result have prepared
an elaborate report, accompanied by
numerous bills, to carry out their sug-
gestions. They propose that the prison
system OF the state which is now all
chaotic shall be made uniform; that is
to say that each of the reform schools
and state prisons or penitentiaries shall
be utilized for the care of different
class of offenders. Thus Whittier will
be devoted entirely to the needs of a
truant school. 1t will be place where
wayward boys just starting On a Grim
inal career can go: where boys who
will not attend school can be sent, and
where petty offenders may be pun
ished. No older boys, young men as is
the case in many instances now, will be
sent to Whittier under this plan, and
no one guilty of serious crime or a
hardened criminal, even though he be
a youth.
lone will be managed on the plan of
the Elmira Reformatory at that town
in New York, which is the model in
stitution of the kind in the world.
| Boys from 16 to men of 80 will be sent
to lone, when there is reason to believe
that they can be reformed. The worst
cases which now go to Whittier will 90
to lone under that system.
To San Quentin will be sent the
milder criminals, those who are not
desperate, who can easily be controlled.
who are sent up for milder crimes. as
for instance forgery, ETC., first offenders,
etc. While to Folsom will go the des-
perate men, the ''red shirters" as they
are called in prison parlance.
Under that system if man is too
bad for one place he will go to the more
advanced stage; if he is better than
the grade where he is he will be placed
where he can reform. In word re-
form, more than punishment is the key
note of the committees recommends
tions.
The committee will also present bills
for the enforcement of the Bertillion
system of measuring criminals, and
will endeavor to have the authorities
in all the jails and prisons in the state
take such measurements and exchange
them with the other prisons, so that as
soon as a man or woman is arrested it
will be possible to know if they have
ever been in a California prison before.
By extending this system to the whole
country, and indeed to the whole world
as is proposed by penologists, crimital
could at once be detected in any part
of the civilized world that he might be
arrested.
The committee has also prepared
bills for the creation of the indeter-
inmate sentence, which means that a
man will be sent to the prison with a
maximum and minimum sentence and