NEW JERSEY. 



613 



educates its children, to make that education tend, 

 in some measure at least, to the benefit of the com- 

 mercial and other industries of the State. 



In the Normal School 241 pupils have been 

 enrolled during the year, of whom 59 were 

 males and 182 females. 



There are 44 feeble-minded children cared 

 for by the State in the institution at Media in 

 Pennsylvania. There are also 126 deaf and 

 dumb and 25 blind children educated at the 

 expense of the State at institutions in New 

 York and Pennsylvania. In the Insane Asy- 

 lum at Morristown there are 523 patients, of 

 whom 281 are men and 242 women. The 

 number 6f cases received and treated from 

 May 15, 1848, to November 1, 1878, is 5,363, 

 of whom 1,922 were discharged as recovered 

 and 1,442 as improved. The receipts during 

 the year were $140,306, and the expenditures 

 $126,207, leaving a balance of $14,099. There 

 is also a Lunatic Asylum located at Trenton, 

 and there are numerous county asylums. The 

 Reform School at Jamesburg for boys and the 

 State Industrial School for girls are very effi- 

 ciently and successfully conducted. 



At the session of the Legislature in January, 

 1878, complaints were made of cruel acts done 

 to convicts in the State Prison by the officials. 

 A committee of investigation was appointed 

 by that body, which reported on March 19th. 

 They exonerated the officers entirely from all 

 the charges. In their reports they thus de- 

 scribe the instruments of punishment com- 

 plained of : 



From this testimony your Committee have ar- 

 rived at the following conclusions : 



1. That the boot-heel gag is a device made of 

 leather, somewhat of the shape of a. boot-heel, and 

 is used to compel silence on the part of persistently 

 noisy prisoners ; it is so constructed as to cause the 

 least inconvenience consistent with the end de- 

 sired, and is less painful and otherwise an improve- 

 ment upon the old form of gag. Its use is not dan- 

 gerous or cruel, and the Committee see neither ne- 

 cessity nor propriety for its removal. 



2. That we are unable to find from the testimony 

 that such an instrument as the " paddle " has ever 

 been used. 



3. That the charge that prisoners have been pun- 

 ished by having cold water thrown upon the naked 

 body is unfounded. The only fact which could 

 bear out such an assertion is, that a prisoner who 

 had maliciously defiled his cell and his own person 

 was washed off with a hose. 



4. That there has been in use for a number of 

 years and under several keepers an instrument of 

 punishment to which, since the commencement of this 

 examination, the name of the "stretcher" has been 

 given. This is an arrangement by which the pris- 

 oner, having been fastened to the floor by means of 

 a loose chain attached to one ankle, so as to pre- 

 vent his climbing up, has his arms drawn up to a 

 bar overhead by means of a chain attached to the 

 handcuffs on his wrists. The severity of the pun- 

 ishment by this method has been shown by the tes- 

 timony to ba entirely dependent upon whether the 

 culprit is allowed to remain wholly or partially upon 

 his feet, or to be entirely withdrawn from them, 

 and the weight correspondingly thrown upon the 

 wrists. On assuming the charge of the prison, Gen- 

 eral Mott, the present keeper, found this system of 

 punishment in vogue, and naturally presumed, with- 



out any question arising in his mind, that it was 

 such as was contemplated by the law. He has since 

 continued its use, with this change : that instead of 

 drawing the prisoner up against the wall, as had 

 formerly been done, the arrangement is placed in 

 the center of the cell, so as to allow more liberty of 

 movement. 



The expense of the prison during the year, 

 with the necessary repairs, was $61,106. 



The reported number of marriages in the 

 State for the year was 5,375. The number of 

 births was 19,427, of which 9,943 were males 

 and 9,273 females. The deaths were 14,085. 



A National Greenback - Labor Convention 

 assembled at Elizabeth on August 28th, and 

 formed an organization and adopted the fol- 

 lowing resolutions : 



1. The greenback dollar to be a full legal tender 

 for the payment of all debts, public and private, and 

 by the Government issued, protected, and received 

 as absolute money. 



2. The immediate payment of all bonds strictly 

 in accordance with the original contract. 



3. A constitutional amendment prohibiting the 

 issue of any bond by the Government. 



4. Immediate repeal of the resumption act. 



5. Immediate repeal of the national banking act. 



6. Immediate demonetization of gold and silver. 



7. A penal offense to pay wages in anything but 

 lawful money. 



8. No more competition of prison labor with hon- 

 est labor. 



9. No more imported Chinese contract or other 

 servile labor. 



10. Eight hours a legal day's work. 



11. Equal taxation of all property, and a graduated 

 income tax. 



12. A protective tariff, prohibiting the importation 

 of all manufactured articles of which the raw mate- 

 rial is produced and the labor to manufacture the 

 same is found in this country ; all articles which we 

 do not or can not produce to be admitted free. 



13. The public lands, belonging to all the people, 

 to be sacredly held in trust for the homes of Ameri- 

 can citizens. The Government to furnish aid to 

 families desirous of settling thereupoiij in amount 

 sufficient to enable them to cultivate and improve the 

 same, instead of squandering the public domain upon 

 corporations or private speculators. 



14. The highest object of government should be 

 to educate and protect man. We deprecate and de- 

 nounce all seditious and violent measures, and appeal 

 only to the good sense, love of justice, and" patriot- 

 ism of the people, and invoke them to redress their 

 cruel and outrageous wrongs only through the bal- 

 lot-box. 



15. Want of harmony of sentiment on the finan- 

 cial question, in both the Republican and Democratic 

 parties, renders it absolutely necessary that those 

 who demand financial reform should abandon old 

 organizations and unite together in the National- 

 Greenback-Labor party to save business men from 

 bankruptcy, the working classes from starvation, the 

 whole country from revolution, and the nation from 

 repudiation. 



No other State political conventions were 

 held during the year. The election was held 

 on November 5th, for the choice of members 

 of Congress and the State Legislature. The vote 

 for members of Congress was as follows : First 

 District Robeson, Repub., 14,924; Stratton, 

 Dem., 6,225 ; Grosscup, Nat., 9,879. Second 

 District Smith, Dem., 14,610; Pugh, Repub., 

 13,699; Baker, Prohib., 568. Third District 



