privileges as well as in reformatories. Let it be clear to prisoners that they can earn them and there will be less temptation to buy them.

This Committee feels that a great improvement could be effected in the administration of the parole laws in this State so far as they apply to state prisons, by connecting them with a grading and marking system. It has invited the attention of the State Commission of Prisons and the Parole Board to the importance of revising existing laws. It is to be hoped that, as a result of full consideration of the subject, the parole system may be changed so as to make it possible to extend the indeterminate sentence to a large class of prisoners who need the incentive it furnishes.

THE FEE SYSTEM.

For several years past this Association has conducted a campaign against the method of compensating sheriffs by fees in criminal cases, and the payment of so much per diem for the board of prisoners while held under the sheriffs in county jails. As there was some reluctance to passing a general law on the subject, the only way of effecting a change was by appealing to the boards of supervisors and by conducting a campaign of education in the different counties. It is gratifying to note the steadily diminishing area in which the fee system now operates. Forty-seven counties have, at the date of the presentation of this report, either placed the sheriff on a salary or provided that such change shall be made at the beginning of the next sheriff's term. Bills are now in the Legislature to place the counties of Cayuga,

Cortland, Ulster and Warren on the salary system.

In his second annual message Governor Higgins called the attention of the Legislature to other important conditions and problems.

"Your attention is directed to what seems an anomalous condition in regard to our laws regulating the punishment of boys, sixteen years of age and over, convicted of misdemeanors. No class needs reformatory treatment and trade instruction more than these boys, of whom some 10,000 are committed annually to jails and penitentiaries, because no other provision is made for them. Youthful male felons may be sent to Elmira; boys under the age of sixteen may be sent to Randalls Island or Rochester; girls and young women to Hudson, Albion or Bedford. Some provision should be made to save these boys from permanent criminal careers and keep them out of jails and penitentiaries, where they can receive no reformatory treatment. The county penitentiaries might be taken under State control and one or more of them utilized for this purpose. No good reason seems to exist for dividing between State and county the charge of persons convicted of crime. All such have sinned against the State and should be under State supervision. The population of the penitentiaries has decreased from 4,608 in 1895 to 2,229 in 1905, a decrease of more than 50%. The jails should be used only for the detention of civil prisoners and persons awaiting trial, and, possibly, petty misdemeanants sentenced for short terms for public intoxication and minor offenses."

Governor Higgins has set forth succinctly in a paragraph subjects which ought to receive the early attention of the Legislature. His recommendation as to State control for State offenders, the establishment of a reformatory for misdemeanants, the taking

over of the penitentiaries by the State and the use of jails as houses of detention are matters which have been commended to the attention of the Legislature in previous reports of this Association. The need of a reformatory for misdemeanants is urgent. The complications of the industrial system and the prevalent idleness in the jails and penitentiaries can only be corrected by State control.

While it is not possible to effect all these changes at the present session of the Legislature, it is to be hoped that provision may be made for their serious consideration during the coming year. Progress in our penal system must be realized along these lines.

EUGENE SMITH,

Chairman.

REPORT OF THE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

In reviewing the activities of the last year it is pleasant to notice the growth of public interest in our work. This is seen in the increased number of contributors and in the increased amount contributed. The Association has never had such a large number of subscribers. With this stronger support its work has been enlarged in various directions. It is trying to meet more effectively its obligations to society and to the offender.

Those who have generously contributed to the support of the Association may have the satisfaction of knowing that no discharged prisoner appealing to us for aid from any part of the State or from any part of the country has been turned away because we could not furnish food, shelter, or clothes. So long as the Prison Association is amply supported there will be no excuse for prisoners entering the field of mendicancy or committing crime because of want.

But aid to discharged prisoners is only one form of benevolent activity in which we seek to help the individual and to help the community. Our probation work is of vastly greater importance since every probationer saved relieves the State from the cost of his imprisonment and relieves the community from the necessity of supporting a discharged prisoner, or of adding another unfortunate man to the role of "rounders."

Next in importance to probation work comes the oversight of paroled prisoners conditionally released from the Elmira Reformatory. The parole system is so much better than the system of

absolute discharge that it ought, in time, entirely to supersede the older and less effective method. One of the best ways to help the individual prisoner is to extend the range of the indeterminate sentence and parole laws so that every prisoner shall have the advantage of these incentives while in prison and of the better conditions under which he obtains his release. Let the State deal properly with the prisoner while he is under its discipline and he is less likely to become an applicant for charity upon release. Even employment will be guaranteed to him before he is discharged.

Such changes cannot be effected in our laws without an active education of public sentiment. The corresponding secretary regards this as of the highest importance and feels that no portion of his time has been better invested than that devoted to endeavors to awaken and guide public sentiment.

Not a little time and attention must also be given to the study and promotion of legislative measures both at Albany and Washington. While this Association, in the long course of its history, has done much to enlighten and instruct public sentiment, such work would be relatively fruitless if this sentiment did not crystalize into law and institutions.

The reports made from month to month by the corresponding secretary to the executive committee trace from step to step the initiation, progress, completion or defeat of measures and schemes which demand constant and vigilant attention. It is hardly necessary to review them in detail in this annual report. In looking over the detail of such activities one is impressed, however, with the continued necessity of persistent and well directed efforts to obtain results in philanthropy as in every other line of human endeavor. In this age every effort must be organized if