650 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



never attempted the impossible. In his various reports and addresses 

 he especially urges more industrial schools, better care of children, 

 and more kindergartens, such as those established in San Francisco by 

 the late Sarah B. Cooper. And, indeed, who can read Kate Douglas 

 Wiggin's story of Patsy without recognizing the value of kinder- 

 gartens in the prevention of crime? The San Francisco police once 

 traced the careers of nine thousand kindergarten pupils, and found 

 that not one had ever become a law-breaker. 



Last summer San Quentin was the scene of an " epidemic of 

 noise " on the part of many of its inmates. Some of the newspaper 

 accounts of the affair were painfully exaggerated, and the prison 

 management in consequence was severely criticised. The fact is that 

 the outbreak was quelled rapidly and effectually, without outside 

 help, with only a few days' interruption of work on the jute mill, and 

 without injury to any person. A hose was simply turned into the 

 noisy cells until their inmates were subdued. 



There have been very few escapes in the history of the prison, and 

 none in recent years. Its situation, on the extreme eastern end of a 

 rocky peninsula of Marin County, projecting into the bay of San 

 Francisco, is extremely well chosen for safety and isolation. The 

 State owns a large tract here, but it is very poor soil, and much of its 

 surface clay has been stripped for brick-making, so that no income 

 from it is possible unless more bricks can be made and sold. The 

 prison accommodations are extremely cramped, and large quantities 

 of brick should be used in needed extensions. Many small industries 

 could be carried on here, if permitted, for water carriage to and 

 from San Francisco is very cheap. Heavy manufactures requiring 

 expensive steam power are not justified here. 



The abandonment of the large State improvements at San Quen- 

 tin seems contrary to the dictates of economy. Equally unwise is the 

 suggestion that it be made a prison to which only the most dangerous 

 classes of criminals should be sent. On the other hand, Folsom, with 

 its quarries and water power, seems fitted for a receiving prison, 

 where all convicts, without exception, should be placed on inde- 

 terminate sentences at hard labor, and from which, on good behavior, 

 on the credit system, they might be removed by the prison directors 

 to San Quentin, there to work at more varied but no less self-support- 

 ing trades. The ponderous jute-mill machinery should all be trans- 

 ferred to Folsom, where power is now running to waste. At San 

 Quentin, first, the State should adopt more advanced reformatory 

 methods. 



Official statistics of the two prisons contain many interesting fea- 

 tures. In mere numbers the increase during the past two decades has 

 not kept pace with the increase in the State's population. San Quen- 



