is tongue, for he has
nothing else, and he may or may not have a towel on which to wipe them,
but his jacket sleeve or pants' leg is wonderfully convenient.

What a dehumanizing system! Why not let the men eat at tables the same
as the women, and have some decency about the matter? Then how much
better in another respect. By the present system, rations must be dealt
out to all alike, giving the same quantity to each, with the result of
having more or less food returned or a part not have enough, some eating
more than others. But if at a table, each can eat as he needs, and thus
avoid suffering or waste.

The men are provided with means for ablution by a few bathing-troughs in
their wash-room. An old man gave me quite an amusing description of the
operation, thus: "The bathing department here is a wonderful
institution. They will march a file of men into the wash-room, old and
young together, fill the troughs with water, put in a little soap, then
a nigger or two to grease it with; when done, the men must strip and go
in one after another. A wonderful institution! I never would go that."

The female prisoners are employed in mending and making apparel for the
men, and in domestic labors in the family apartment. The feeble men are
employed in light work about the hall, such as dusting, carrying water
to the cells, whitewashing, sweeping, &c., or in repairing clothes. Two
able-bodied men are required in the cook room, another in the wash-room
and to do chores, and part of the time still another. The remaining men
are let to a contractor, who pays a stipulated price per day for each
when he works.

The needed officers to the institution are the warden, deputy,
physician, chaplain, hospital steward, four overseers, four guards, and
two night watchmen, fifteen at least. All of these must be paid from the
prison earnings. When to this is added the cost for supporting the
prisoners, the ordinary repairs, printing the Report and annual
apprisal, we have the net prison gain. But the outsets, with the
strictest economy, must always of necessity be large, showing that crime
is an important drawback to industry and thrift.

When I commenced my labors at the institution, it was about emerging
from an experience which had brought no little opposition to the warden
from some in the city, especially in the line of his reform moves.

He took the prison in '65, the inmates, numbering seventy, being let on
a contract of forty cents p