1868.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 871

The numbers employed under contract at mechanical labor
were divided as follows :

At broom and cedar and oak ware work, 71 white males,
and 57 colored males. Total. 128.

At manufacturing of cabinet ware, 57 white males, and 34
Hack males. Total, 91.

At tin can work, 30 white males, and 26 black males.
Total, 56.

At shoemaking, 29 white males, and 6 black males. To-
tal, 35.

Making the gross number of white males 187, and the gross
number of black males 128.

There are, also, under contract at paper match-box mak-
ing 40 colored females. Total engaged under contract, 350
persons. With the exception of those engaged in washing,
cleaning up and cooking, the balance have no work to per-
form., and hence are a "dead expense" to the State,

It is gratifying to be able to say, that the comfortable and
cleanly clothing of the prisoners, the bed and bedding, ap-
pointments of the dormitories of the prison, the general ap-
pearance of the grounds, and the workshop departments,
all evidence the most faithful and effective management
upon the part of those charged with conducting the institu-
tion.

Such, however, has been the very great increase of prison-
ers i'or the last two years, that it has produced a truly lamen-
table deficiency of sleeping room. The accommodations in
this respect are not more than ample for the comfort of four
hundred. There are but 320 single cells or rooms in the
eastern dormitory, and 64 of these should not, with a due
regard for the physical condition of the convicts, be occupied
for sleeping apartments. In the old or west wing of the
prison, the sleeping apartments are much larger than those
of the east wing, and might, if space was the only desidera-
tum, accommodate four persons to each room. These are
now occupied by nine to each apartment, which is much be-
yond their proper capacity. This is objectionable, not only
on the score of the health of the occupants, but it is to be re-
gretted, because in the contact of numbers it opens the door
for plots and contrivances for prison escapes, and becomes a
school-house in the teaching of crime, and by familiar reci-
tals of offenses, places upon the horrid image of vice a come-
lier front. Notwithstanding this expedient necessarily
adopted for the want of room, the Warden has been compelled
to sleep in a single room (measuring less than fifty feet each
way) one hundred and sixty colored male prisoners. In such