CONVICT LABOR FOR ROAD WORK. 115 



is due largely to the carelessness of the kitchen force, which allows 

 the screen doors to remain open much longer than is necessary. 

 Screen doors should be provided with firm springs in order to keep 

 them closed, and knot holes and all other spaces in the walls of the 

 dining room and kitchen must be stopped if flies are to be kept out. 



At camps in which the responsibility for keeping these quarters 

 neat and clean is placed upon one man much better results are 

 attained than is the case when the kitchen force in general is sup- 

 posed to attend to this duty. The kitchen and dining room should 

 be cleaned thoroughly at least once a week and the floors should be 

 mopped daily. 



Tables should be brushed after each meal, scrubbed with soap 

 and hot water, rinsed with clean water, and dried. Saltcellars, pep- 

 per boxes, vinegar cruets, mustard pots, and sugar bowls should be 

 wiped with a dry cloth after each meal, and care should be taken to 

 see that they are filled properly. 



Dishes should be washed first in water in which there is plenty of 

 soap and should then be scalded. Flatware — knives, forks, spoons — 

 should be washed clean in a separate pan, and then scalded and wiped 

 dry. The scalding of dishes and flatware is of great importance and 

 never must be omitted; otherwise there is danger of infectious dis- 

 eases being carried from one person to another. 



HEALTH CONDITIONS AND CARE OF SICK AND INJURED. 



Complete physical examinations are seldom made at the time the 

 men are sent to the road camps. Prisoners are examined upon their 

 admission to the penitentiaries and their records thereafter are known 

 in a general way to the prison physicians. If they have not been 

 sick during their stay in the prison they generally are considered as 

 being in good physical condition. In some States the only necessary 

 qualification is that the men shall apparently be able to work. When 

 the men enter the camps under these conditions, the ones who are 

 able to work do so and the others are sent to the State farms or 

 county hospitals for treatment. It is not intended that prisoners 

 suffering from venereal diseases should be permitted to enter the 

 road camps, but in the vast majority of camps visited venereal dis- 

 eases wore not entirely absent. 



PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OP CONVICTS IN CAMPS AND DISEASES PRESENT. 



The physical condition of the convicts employed on road work 

 depends very largely upon the care which has been used in their 

 selection and the motives which have actuated physicians and war- 

 dens in their choice. Camps in which the main purpose is to accom- 

 plish the greatest possible amount of work usually are composed of 

 stalwart laboring men in tlio prime of life, well suited in every way 



