THE CALIFORNIA PENAL SYSTEM. 653 



This was a typical year, and will serve to illustrate for all and at 

 both prisons. 



The terms of imprisonment are long: out of 1,300 men in one 

 annual report, 143 were for life, and 392 for ten years or more. Over 

 300 prisoners had served more than one term, and some were even 

 serving their eighth term. Some at Folsom have reached their 

 twelfth term. The ages of the prisoners have ranged from sixteen to 

 eighty-six, but the danger period is evidently between eighteen and 

 forty. 



All of the prison officers agree respecting the bad physical con- 

 dition of the convicts. Many of them are weak and ill when they 

 enter the prison; many are the victims of unnamable personal vices. 

 The physicians at San Quentin in 1895 reported 27 cases of scrofula, 

 30 of syphilis, 22 of epilepsy, 29 of opium habit, 62 of rheumatism, 70 

 of typhus fever, and 124 of general debility. Medical statistics at Fol- 

 som show similar conditions, aggravated by the malarial climate of 

 that locality. The death rate, formerly higher at Folsom than at 

 San Quentin, is now considerably lower, owing to the much better 

 accommodations for the prisoners, and the hard outdoor labor re- 

 quired. In 1896 it was but .79 of one per cent. 



It is gratifying to observe that the cost of maintenance of the 

 prisoners has been gradually reduced. Nearly thirty years ago legis- 

 lative committees reported that the cost of running the State's prisons 

 was four or five times as much in proportion to the inmates as that of 

 any other State in the Union, and that the prisoners lived better than 

 the average landowner. More economical methods were gradually 

 adopted, and by 1891 the cost per diem of a convict was 40 cents. 

 This has been still further reduced; at San Quentin to 30.45 cents, 

 and at Folsom to 32.50 cents. 



There will always be outside criticisms of the food supplied as 

 " too good for convicts," but it is merely that of ordinary field laborers, 

 with much less variety. Under California conditions it could not well 

 be made cheaper. If the food statistics of the prisons were so com- 

 piled as to separate the butter, olives, raisins, canned fruit, etc., 

 properly used on the tables of officers and wardens, from the articles 

 purchased for the prisoners, much misapprehension would be pre- 

 vented. 



As long as the State pays the entire expense bill, however, there 

 will be a natural restiveness on the part of the taxpayers; the prison 

 management, no matter how careful it is, must suffer for the sins of 

 the system. The present directors and wardens are intelligent and 

 honest men, who could put the prisons on a self-supporting basis if they 

 had the authority and the necessary means for the plant required. A 

 comparatively small amount of manufactures would pay the daily 



