CONVICT LABOE FOE ROAD WORK. 35 
accounts are kept. This failure to keep adequate cost accounts is 
responsible for the extreme paucity of reliable information with 
regard to the economy of convict labor, and it is needless to say 
that if practices and methods are to be much improved, a reform 
of procedure in this direction is vitally necessary. To this end it is 
proposed to state in detail the reasons for the introduction of cost 
accounting and reliable personal records, and to indicate the general 
form which a system of such records and accounts should take. 
Briefly, the specific purposes which a system of accounts should 
serve are as follows : 
(1 ) To make proper account, for the information of the public, and 
especially the appropriating body, of the total expenditure of funds. 
This function is more or less adequately served by such simple sys- 
tems of accounts as are in general use. But though this is the only 
function of accounting that is generally recognized, it is really the 
least important of the services which a properly designed system can 
be made to yield. 
(2) More important in the present beclouded state of the question 
is the value of records and accounts indicating whether convict labor 
is being employed at a profit. This function can be served only by 
the introduction of cost accounts which make it possible to analyze 
the total cost in such a way as to indicate the cost of each process and 
of the results in detail. It is undoubtedly true that convict labor is 
conducted at considerable advantage in numbers of instances, but 
it is also an established fact, that lacking such information, many 
communities unwittingly employ convict labor disadvantageous^, 
and are daily paying more for such labor than it would have been 
necessary to pay for free labor. 
(3) In addition to indicating what may be termed the " total 
economy" of convict labor, cost accounts also furnish a means of 
checking what may be termed ' ' internal economy. ' ' A system of con- 
vict labor may be, as a whole, economical with respect to free labor, 
and still there may exist many sources of waste and inefficiency in 
the system which, if remedied, would make for even greater economy. 
Such elements of weakness are to be found in unintelligent super- 
vision, improper distribution of labor, wastefulness in the handling 
of material and supplies, and unreasonable losses of time. In many 
cases it is only necessary to know of these weaknesses to remedy 
them, yet they may well escape attention if only general results are 
known. Furthermore, it is to be observed that such a detailed record 
of cost kept daily indicates to date the existence of faults and affords 
the opportunity to correct, in its incipiency, any tendency to overrun 
proper costs. 
(4) An adequate system involving a subdivision of cost accounts 
provides the means of recognizing merit and of detecting and eliminat- 
