CALIFORNIA. 



83 



being discarded wherever the existing institu- 

 tions render it practicable to introduce reforms 

 in prison management. It is now recognized 

 by ail who have examined the subject that 

 every prison ought to be at least as much a 

 reformatory as a place of confinement; that 

 the reformation of criminals can only be under- 

 taken hopefully by such methods as give the 

 convicts definite desirable objects, which they 

 may attain by their unassisted efforts; that 

 rewards and punishments are the necessary 

 groundwork of any such system; that it must 

 be applied by men specially fitted for the work, 

 and who ought to have undergone a distinct 

 training in penology. It is also beginning to be 

 believed that when the sentence of the prisoner 

 is indeterminate that is, left to be decided by 

 his own conduct the prospect of reformation 

 is much greater than under the old method, 

 since the prisoner is thus afforded hope with- 

 out restriction. The Crofton Prison system, 

 and those which have grown out of it, all tend 

 more and more toward reliance upon the pris- 

 oner himself, and this is evidently the scientific 

 mode of procedure. For, if a man who has 

 fallen into evil courses is to be reclaimed, it is 

 clear that he must determine to help himself, 

 and that, no matter what assistance he derives 

 from without, all the really useful action must 

 come from within. 



It has been found that by appealing to men's 

 self-respect, and by treating them as though 

 they were by no means irreclaimable, the latent 

 ambition, the slumbering conscience, the par- 

 alyzed manhood, can be stimulated and given 

 new life, and that the reformations wrought by 

 these means are practically the only ones which 

 are permanent. It is important to observe that 

 economy goes hand-in-hand with humanity. 

 Not only is it right to attempt the reform of 

 the criminal, but it is to the interest of the 

 public Treasury to do so. Crime is waste, in 

 all its forms, and our old systems of dealing 

 with it have been as wasteful as itself. "In 

 fact, we have only continued to give crime a 

 fixed abiding-place and a central ral lying-point, 

 and there can be no doubt that our jails and 

 State prisons have made ten times more scoun- 

 drels than they ever cured. To alter all this in 

 accordance with the new lights is not only to 

 rid the community of its most dangerous ele- 

 ments, but to prevent the revival of these ele- 

 ments, and at the same time to make crime 

 largely self-sustaining in the prisons." 



By the new Constitution of the State the 

 management of the State prisons is vested in 

 a board of directors. Five persons were ap- 

 pointed by the Governor in 1880. Subsequently 

 charges of a serious character were made by 

 the public press reflecting upon the board of 

 directors and the warden of St. Quentin's Pris- 

 on; whereupon these officers requested the 

 Governor to appoint a commission to examine 

 into the general management of the prisons. 

 This commission made a report in August, 

 which contained some important statements 



relative to the general management of penal 

 institutions. It was subsequently followed by 

 a prison-reform convention, at which impor- 

 tant papers were read and questions discussed. 



The Drainage Act of the Legislature, for the 

 repeal of which a protracted and unsuccessful 

 effort was made at the last session, was finally 

 declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme 

 Court of the State. The principal grounds of 

 objection to the act were that it provided for 

 other purposes than those which are specified 

 in the title, and that it established double tax- 

 ation, and delegated unconstitutional powers 

 to local boards. This decision was final. 



The progress of the State has been of the 

 most substantial character. Banks of issue 

 being prohibited by her Constitution from the 

 beginning, and even when the national cur- 

 rency was adopted and made legal tender by 

 Federal law, the feeling against paper money 

 of any kind was strong enough to maintain the 

 gold standard all through the war, and through 

 the era of inflation which followed it. Cali- 

 fornia, consequently, did not feel the seeming 

 prosperity attendant upon the great rise in 

 nominal values which took place in the East as 

 the currency depreciated, and she also escaped 

 the inevitable reaction which came with the 

 appreciation of the currency and the fall of 

 prices. Yet the State did not escape the ef- 

 fects of the failure of some of the most produc- 

 tive mines and a consequent shrinkage' of val- 

 ues. This was strikingly manifested in stock 

 values, the highest prices of which were reached 

 in January, 1875, and is shown by the follow- 

 ing table : 



Aggregate value of mining stocks on San Fran- 

 cisco board, January, 1875 $282,305,404 



Aggregate value of mining stocks on San Fran- 

 cisco board, July, 1881 17,902,700 



Shrinkage $264,402,704 



Highest value consolidated Virginia, January, 



1875 75,600,000 



Value consolidated Virginia, July, 1881 945,000 



Shrinkage $74,655,000 



Highest value California, January, 1875 84,240,000 



Value of California, July, 1881 851,000 



Shrinkage $83,889,000 



Highest value Sierra Nevada, September, 1878. . 27,000,000 

 Value of Sierra Nevada, July, 1881 825,000 



Shrinkage $26,175,000 



It should be remembered that the famous 

 Comstock mine did not reach its maximum 

 until 1877, that in twenty years it yielded three 

 hundred million dollars, and that it dropped 

 nearly thirty-three millions in three years. 



The tendency of gold-mining to assume a 

 stable character is shown by the annual steadi- 

 ness of the crop. The great improvements 

 which have taken place in mining machinery 

 and methods now enable the working with 

 profit of low-grade ores, of which there are 

 regular and enormous deposits. How mining 

 of this kind is developing is shown by the fact 

 that the foundries of San Francisco during the 

 year have turned out machinery for over a 

 thousand stamps. The injunctions which have 



