MARYLAND PENITENTIARY.

This reformatory institution of the State, was the first vis-
ited and is under the very efficient wardenship of Mark W
C. Thompson, Esq., assisted by a corps of faithful officers.
From a careful and thorough examination of the building, its
arrangements, workings and accommodations, your commit-
tee must express its astonishment that the Board of Visitors,
are enabled to present such a very gratifying exhibit of its pros-
perity, freedom from debt, surplus in hand, security, and ex-
cellent sanitary condition. When erected, (over fifty years
since,) the building was only designed to confine about 350
prisoners, and for this number the arrangements were suffi-
cient, but now, when 636 human beings are incarcerated
within its walls, it must be observed that proper prison dis-
cipline, sanitary rules and regulations, (absolutely indispen-
sible to health,) cannot bs enforced, and consequently con-
tributes to breaking down the objects and aims of the institu-
tion in so far as some of the convicts are concerned, and of
introducing among them a spirit of idleness, notwithstanding
the untiring efforts of the warden and his assistants to pre-
vent it. But little more than one-half of the convicts are
employed under the contract system inaugurated by the vis-
itors, and this on account of want of room in which to work
them all, or space on which to erect suitable buildings for
workshops.

Of those at present employed there are engaged as follows :
In Manufacturing Brooms and Wooden Ware, 116

Manufacturing Chairs and Cabinet Ware, 90

Manufacturing Tin Ware, &c., 70

Manufacturing Boots and Shoes, - 35

—— 311

And of Females employed in Binding and
Lining Shoes 30

This leaves 295 convicts not contracted for, namely :

242 males and 53 females.

The ground occupied by the penitentiary and enclosed by
the walls, is about four acres in extent. So much of it is
covered by buildings that the room required for the storage of
stock belonging to the institution and to contractors, is in-
sufficient for the purpose.

Not a single shop or room is now vacant, in which any
kind of business can be pursued. The prospect, therefore,