It is- feasible to introduce and establish the proposed prison labor
system in the prisons of any Stale. It will serve to quell hostile agita-
tion, and will surely lead up to a rational and reformed prison sys-
tem ; for it is the root of the whole matter. The difficulties of the
prison labor problem at present inhere in its consideration apart from
the other departments of prison organization and government. Its




PRISON REFORM II9

difficulties will disappear when the whole question of prison disci-
pline is thoroughly understood ; for then, and then only, will the true
relation of prison industries to the purposes of imprisonment be appre-
ciated.
The state of the question throughout the country is most favorable
for a beginning. The contract system is abolished by law in New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and California; and Michi-
gan would have been added to the list but for the veto of the bill
passed by the legislature, because no substitute was then provided.
In California, the amended constitution prohibits the contract system ;
but the public-account and the piece-price systems are in use, the lat-
ter being most favored and there classed as a phase of the former,
while in New York it is considered as belonging to the contract sys-
tem. Illinois is to vote this fall for or against a constitutional provision
prohibiting the contract system, and the canvass against it is already
espoused by Mr. Wines and other penologists in that State. New
Jersey and Ohio have adopted the piece-price plan by law. Massa-
chusetts, in one prison at least, practises it by common consent;
while Pennsylvania is supposed to be operating the prisons of that
State on the public-account plan.
