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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Under the system of biennial State appropriations, nearly all in- 

 stitutions suffer at times from mistaken kindness, and at other times 

 from undue parsimony. Since there is no general supervising board 

 for the two State prisons and the two State reform schools, and no 

 settled ratio of appropriation based upon the number of inmates, the 

 friends of each institution naturally do their best to obtain as large 

 appropriations as possible from each new legislature. Hence arise 

 special visiting committees and combinations between legislators 

 from different parts of the State to " take care of " institutions whose 

 regular annual income should not be dependent in the least upon 

 politics. 



The appropriations made by the last two legislatures for all pur- 

 poses connected with prisons and reform schools, including salaries 

 of officials, are shown in the following table : 



State Appropriations from July 1, 1895, to July 1, 1899 (Forty-seventh to Fiftieth 



Fiscal Years, inclusive). 



Some small appropriations for improvements are necessarily in- 

 cluded in these totals, but nothing more than may be expected every 

 year or two. It is proper to rate the average annual expense of these 

 institutions at nearly half a million dollars, nor can this sum be 

 materially reduced until the State accepts the fundamental principle 

 that prisons should be made nearly or quite self-supporting. 



San Quentin was once managed to some extent on the contract 

 system. Furniture-makers and other manufacturers paid half a dol- 

 lar a day for each convict employed, and at one time as many as 

 eight hundred men were thus utilized, giving the prison an income 

 of twenty-four hundred dollars a week. The system was so violently 

 attacked by labor unions that it was finally abandoned, and now I am 

 told that convict-made furniture, stoves, and other articles such as 

 were formerly made at San Quentin are brought to California from 

 Joliet, Illinois, and other places by the carload. 



Having abandoned the contract system, the State decided to 

 make jute bags, chiefly for grain, and to sell them as nearly as pos- 

 sible at cost direct to the consumers, so as to help the agricultural 

 classes. Machinery costing $400,000 was obtained in England, and 



