CONVICT LABOR FOR ROAD WORK. 29 
Example 111. During the months of November and December, 
1913, certain work was performed by convicts at State camp No. 2, 
in New Jersey, which at prevailing contract prices, as given by the 
engineer in charge, would have cost as follows: 
Earth excavation, 4,700 cubic yards, at 45 cents per cubic yard $2, 115. 00 
80 acres removed at $4 each 320. 00 
Grubbing 0.22 acre at $75 per acre 16. 50 
Fence removed, 4,600 feet, at 6| cents per foot 299. 00 
Hedges replanted, 200 feet, at 20 cents per foot 40. 00 
Total 2, 791. 50 
The actual cost of the maintenance of the camp during the two 
months in which the above quantities were accomplished was as 
follows : 
Rent of camp grounds $20. 00 
Coal 84. 53 
Feeding men, guards, and superintendents 602. 57 
Guarding 648. 54 
Team hire 573. 75 
Dynamite 64. 25 
Tobacco, medicine, telephone, and gasoline 208. 04 
Interest at 6 per cent and depreciation at 10 per cent per year on buildings 
and furnishings valued at $3,066.69 81. 77 
Interest at 6 per cent on $1,022, cost of well 10. 22 
Interest at 6 per cent and depreciation at 75 per cent a year on hand tools 
valued at $449.90 60. 73 
Supervision 850. 00 
Total 3, 204. 40 
_n the above costs the interest and depreciation on machinery, 
which was valued at $12,734.78 in the list of cost items, has been 
omitted, as probably little of it was used on the work performed during 
the two months under observation. But omitting this item it appears 
by a comparison of the two totals given above that the cost of the 
work by convict labor was $412.90 greater than it would have been 
had it been performed by contract. 
MANAGEMENT AND OPERATION. 
All prisoners employed at road work in the United States are 
termed either State convicts or county convicts, according to the 
political subdivision, whether State or county, by which they are con- 
victed and imprisoned. The employment of county convicts on 
roads is rare in the North but common in the South; in fact, the 
earliest employment of convicts in this manner in the United States 
was by the southern counties, and the numbers of their convict road 
forces still greatly exceed those employed in a similar manner by the 
States. 
County control, therefore, has been thoroughly tested and the 
experience has revealed a number of inherent faults which render it 
