The South Dakota act, the others being quite similar to it, is as follows:

"Whenever any person shall be convicted of any felony, the judge, before whom such conviction was had, and the state's attorney are required to furnish the warden of the penitentiary with an official statement of the facts constituting the crime and all information accessible with reference to the career of the convict prior to the commitment of the offense; also as to his habits, associations, disposition and reputation. The duty of the warden is, on this report, to study the life and habits of the convict with a view of recommending him to be paroled, and, when in his opinion, the convict has been in the penitentiary a sufficient length of time to accomplish his reformation and can be released temporarily without danger to society it shall be his duty to recommend his case to the Board of Charities and Corrections for investigation, and if they are of the opinion, after examination, that the case is a meritorious one they shall join with the warden in a recommendation to the governor to grant a parole. If the governor grants it, the warden is to provide the convict with suitable. clothing, not to exceed fifteen dollars in value. During the parole the convict is still to be regarded in the legal custody of the warden of the penitentiary and under his supervision, and whenever, in his opinion, the public safety demands it the convict may be rearrested."

Penitentiary commissioners in Tennessee are allowed to give persons released from the penitentiary from one to five dollars in their discretion.

An act of the State of Illinois provides that the Board of Prison Industries shall see to it that under no circumstances shall any of the products of labor of convicts be sold upon the open market, and the Board of Prison Industries are prohibited from making any contracts by which the labor of any convict in that state shall be contracted, let, farmed out, given or sold to any person, firm, association or corporation; while the wardens of the penitentiary are required to see that all convicts who are physically capable thereof shall be employed at useful labor not to exceed eight hours of each day, other than Sunday and public holidays, but such labor shall be either for

the purpose of producing supplies for said institutions or for the state or for any other public institution owned, controlled and managed by the state, or for the purpose of industrial training and instruction, or for the making of crushed rock for road material and for the improvement of public grounds owned by the state, or for agricultural pursuits for the support of the inmates of the institutions. The seventh paragraph of the act provides as follows:

"The labor of persons of the first grade in any of said penitentiaries and reformatories shall be directed with reference to fitting the person to maintain himself by honest industry after his discharge from imprisonment as the primary and sole object of such labor, and such prisoners of the first grade may be so employed at hard labor for industrial training and instruction, even though no useful or salable product result from their labor."

New York has passed an act providing for a commission to be appointed by the governor to make careful inquiry into the operation of the probation system in that state, and to make a full report of their work to the governor to be transmitted to the next legislature. This report will be looked for with interest.

The Board of Prison Commissioners in Massachusetts, with the approval of the governor and council, are authorized to establish a hospital for the treatment of prisoners having tuberculosis.

For the identification of criminals the keeper of a prison in Massachusetts is authorized to cause to be taken the photograph, name, age, height, weight and general description of any persons confined therein for a felony, together with copies of all finger prints in accordance with the finger print system for identification of criminals, and, if deemed advisable, the measurement of such person in accordance with the said Bertillon system.

Massachusetts provides that in cities and towns which provide lodging for tramps and vagabonds, said cities or towns may require said tramps or vagabonds, if physically able, to

perform labor of some kind in return for the lodging and food furnished them.

Missouri appropriates $125,000 for the purchase of raw material required in the manufacture of binding twine in the penitentiary of said state.

Kansas enacts that the right and power to make contracts in respect to any property, both real and personal, is conferred on all persons confined in the penitentiary for a period less than life as fully and completely as if their civil rights were not suspended.

The warden of the penitentiary in Kansas is authorized to employ the surplus convict labor in extending and repairing the state and county roads, and upon other work exclusively for the benefit of the state, and at the State Plant Penitentiary and oil refinery.

PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY.

No student of social or municipal problems can fail to note the wide extent of legislation by the states providing for the health and safety of the people.

Pennsylvania provides by an act that no municipal corporation, or any other corporation authorized to supply water to the public within that state, shall be authorized to do so unless it shall file with the commissioner of health a certified copy of the plan and survey of the water works and a description of the source from which the supply of water is derived, and a written permit must first be obtained from the commissioner of health. The commissioner of health may decline the permit and the applicant corporation may within thirty days appeal to the Court of Common Pleas to set aside such decision. Under the same act no corporation or municipality is permitted to discharge or permit to flow into any waters of the state any sewerage, but the governor, attorney-general and commissioner of health may, upon a case presented, permit the discharge of sewerage into waters where, in their opinion, the general interest of the public health would not be injured.

The same state has passed an act giving to the health department of cities of the first class full power to make such rules and regulations as in their judgment may be proper and necessary for the protection of the public health from the diseases of cholera and malaria, typhoid, scarlet, puerperal and relapsing fevers, smallpox, varioloid, chickenpox, diphtheria, diphtheritic, membraneous croups, cerebro-spinal-meningitis, measles, mumps, whooping cough, tuberculosis, pneumonia, erysipelas, plague (bubonic), trachoma, leprosy, tetanus, glanders, hydrophobia and anthrax. The scope of their power shall include reports of physicians in attendance upon persons afflicted, quarantining and disposing of infected bedding and clothing, burial of the bodies of persons who have died from any of said diseases, making rules for the same, the disinfecting of conveyances used in the burial of such persons, the admission to public or private schools or other educational institutions of persons subjected to said diseases and the compulsory vaccination of persons attending the same.

The same state creates a department of health with large and extensive powers, along with powers to abate nuisances detrimental to the public health and to enforce quarantine regulations, and to carry out these provisions the health officer may enter on the premises of any owner or occupier who refuses to allow him to do so in order to abate or remove such nuisances.

The same state creates the Water Supply Commissioner of Pennsylvania, whose duty it is to secure all the facts necessary to advise thoroughly of the situation of the water supply of the state and to adopt such means for preserving and distributing such water supply to the various counties of the state as shall be equitable.

It is provided by law in New York that the State Board of Charities shall have the power, subject to the supervision of the board of managers of the Craig Colony for epileptics in that state in the case of death of any patient who shall have been maintained there wholly at public expense, to cause to be made

by a member of its medical staff an autopsy of the body of such patient, provided, among other things, that such autopsy be confined exclusively to the brain; and provided also that said Craig Colony shall give notice of the above stated powers in admitting patients to the institution.

Wyoming creates a food and oil commission with power to enforce all laws against frauds and adulterations in food, drinks and illuminating oil.

West Virginia adopts a compulsory vaccination law; and Vermont provides for tree wardens of the towns.

California provides that any person who owns, leases or hires to any person any room in any building within an incorporated city for the purpose of a lodging apartment, which room contains less than five hundred cubic feet space in the clear for each person occupying such room, and any person found sleeping in or who hires a room which contains less than five hundred cubic feet space in the clear for each person 80 occupying such room is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Colorado provides that the State Board of Stock Inspection. Commission shall have the power to compel the dipping, spraying or other sanitary treatment of cattle or of domestic animals afflicted with any infectious or contagious disease, with power to seize them, and sell the same at the cost and expense of such seizing, treatment and sale.

Oregon adopts a pure food law, with the usual limitations; while Michigan, Kansas, Missouri and other states provide for the protection of coal miners and the inspection of mines.

South Dakota provides a drainage system to be maintained. at the expense of the state for the public health; also a State Food and Dairy Department and Live Stock and Dairy Department; and creates a live stock commission, which provides for the inspection of all animals to be slaughtered and for other purposes.

Minnesota provides for a food commissioner to guard against the adulteration of food produced in the state; and also with power to open and inspect articles brought from