56 
BULLETIN 583, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
All the reports were prepared without difficulty by the camp 
clerk, and the information was presented in such form as to render 
the segregation of costs for the various items herein reported com- 
paratively simple. 
A supply of the forms sufficient to serve the camp of 40 men for a 
period of about 2 years was printed for $95. The cost for the period 
from January 10 to July 10 therefore was less than $25. As the 
other duties of the camp clerk were of sufficient importance to have 
required such an official, even if the records had not been kept, 
the sole additional expense chargeable to the system of cost keeping 
for the 6-month period was this cost of $25. To indicate the value 
of the reports properly kept and used, it is necessary to state only 
that the saving on food alone made possible by the use of the forms 
during the period amounted to more than $350. 
SUMMARIZED COSTS OF MAINTENANCE. 
The various items entering into the maintenance of the convicts 
have been fully described in the foregoing paragraphs, and the cost 
of each has been stated on the basis of a convict calendar day. 
These costs are now summarized in Table 32, which shows that the 
total cost of maintaining one convict one calendar day during the 
period from January 10 to July 10 was 55.09 cents. 
Table 32. — Cost of maintaining convicts. 
Cost of 
Cost of 
mainte- 
mainte- 
nance 
Propor- 
nance 
Propor- 
Item. 
per con- 
tion of 
Item. 
per con- 
tion of 
vict per 
total. 
vict per 
total. 
calendar 
calendar 
day. 
day. 
Cents. 
Per cent. 
Cents. 
Per cent. 
.36 
0.7 ! 
Fuel and light 
.89 
1.6 
Interest and depreciation on 
Subsistence 
17.47 
31.7 
6.23 
1.71 
.57 
12.4 
3.1 
1.0 
Medicine and medical atten- 
tion 
1.62 
4.75 
2.9 
8.7 
Clothing 
4.12 
10.49 
19.0 
Laundry 
2.26 
4.1 
Tobacco 
.81 
1.5 
Furniture and equipment 
2.91 
5.3 
Kitchen and mess equipment. . 
.30 
0.5 
Total 
54.49 
To obtain the cost of maintaining one working convict one working 
day, which is equivalent to the wage of the labor, it is necessary to 
modify the above cost by dividing it by the percentage of time 
actually applied to the work after deductions have been made for 
bad weather, Sundays and holidays, camp duty, and sickness. The 
losses are shown clearly by the camp reports and are given in table 
33 in terms of convict days and percentages of the total available 
time of 7,174 convict days. 
