The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-03-24
WANTS TO RID OF JAIL;
 US ON TOWN
ResiG Say Prisoners Are Competing With Citizens
 in Labor Fields.

Hartford. March 24.-Persohs inter- ested in labor questions appeared be- fore the committee on labor yesterday afternoon. Three bills were up for hearing House petition, No. 72s was a matter concerning employment or prisoners in Ldtchf1eld county jail. This petition remonstrates against the enn- pIoyment of prisoners as being detri- mental to the best inteersts of the town and a serious menace to the in terests. of the laboring men by unfairN competition.
 IT. F. Ryan of LsitchfeId, represent ing the petition. said that for many wears the town of Iitchfeld had the jaiI and that the institution had proved no blessing to the place. Gardeners and others, he said, were injured by the competition which arose because Of the jail labor. The institution was an incubus on the place, he said. From ten to twelve families had been obliged to leave the little community because of the urgent and unfair competition. The men, he said, were sent out from the jail, to cut lawns, to do having and numerous other things which labor would otherwise be distributed among the laborers in the town but for this moral and economic wrong. The jail labor brought only $1-5O a day against $2 which the labor of the community demanded It was an injury to the .di gnity of honest labor Such classes of labor as performed by the derelicts from the jail would in time, he said, come to be looked down upon It was an injustice to the manhood of the la boring man and it busted the 1aboring man from his rights in Lltchfield In their desire for relief the speaker said that they had been Juggled about and finally the citizens had decided to ap- peal to the General Assembly for re- lief. t4 Patrick Burke of Litchheld, a. select man of LitchdeId, advocated the meas ure because the competition had re- duced the population something like goo in ten or fifteen years. From com
 mon labor the jail labor had gradually reached out and entered into nearly every branch of labor.
 Editor George c. woodruff of the sIitchfieId Enquirer,'' appeared in op- position and said that some of the pe- titioners, and all who spoke in favor of the bill, at one time or another had employed the Jail labor which they now condemned.
 w. T. Marsh said he did not think that the difference Of 9 cents a day in the pay was unfair competition. All the men who desired to work in the summer could ind all that they could do. He thought that the passage of the bill would work injury to the town.
 MT. Ryan in rebuttal said notwith- tsanding what the previous speakers had said. that the principle was en- tire1y wrong. and if 1t was to be ad- vocated throughout Connecticut, the labor men would rise up in arms against such a principle. If the bill passed, he said that he would guaran- tee to plant six families in Litchfeld next week. The labor interests favored the petition.
 House Petition No. e4 concerned the passage of an act providing one days rest in seven for the employees of res- taurants and hotels.
 Rev. Dr. Rockwell Harmon Potter favored the principle upon which the bill was based in behalf of the Fed eration of Churches. Albert Forni rep resented S7, GOO walters, cooks, etc, in the United States, and pleaded for the bill, by reading a comprehensive thesis on the subject, in which he said that the hours ranged from ten to sixteen. Walters waitresses and cooks alike were subject to the same drudgery and long hours, there was no time off, 1t was work, work, work seven days a week, dfty-two weeks a year. said the speaker He asked the passage Of the bill as a matter in the name of hu- manity. Many could be brought to tell of the existing conditions if they were moi afraid of losing their jobs.
 Frederick M. Gurney of New Haven advocated the measure. saying that he worked 79 hours a week.
 w. $. Walker of Waterbury appeared in opposition and said that the hotel men had already appeared in large numbers before the judiciary commit tee, on a bill relating to bill of the same nature and that probably that was the reason they were not present at the hearing. He said hotel work was peculiar in it's nature and work had to be done seven days a week.
 Al appointment of labor commission and abolishing certain offices. The bill provides for the appointment of a la Dor commissioner for term of two years by the governor at a salary Of g, 800 and necessary expenses, who shall perform the duties of the com missioner of the bureau of labor sta- tistics and factory inspector. It also provides for the appointment of a clerk who shan receive a salary not to exceed S1 800. It also provides for the appointment of an advisory com mission for the appointment of fe- male factory inspector. No one ap- peared in favor of the bill, but Miss Mary C. WeI1es, of the Consumers League, submitted a. substitute bill founded on the Massachusetts law. She said the object was to combine the two commissioners akinga it. non political and ass a matter of economy The substitute bill also provided for two deputy health inspectors to look after industrial diseases. Julius C. .Stren4 eau of N1eriden opposed the sub-