If there are no prison buildings to be made, and no heavy work to be
undertaken for the State, the prisoners must remain idle.

To the convicts, idleness is the most cruel punishment that they can be
given. They have nothing to interest or amuse them, nothing to think of
but their own sad lives; they cannot speak to each other, as talking is
absolutely forbidden, so taking their work from them is a very great
cruelty.

Since the law first went into effect, some of the convicts have become so
unhappy that they have lost their reason.

The wardens, seeing how their prisoners were suffering, have been much
troubled, and have all been trying to think of some means of exercising or
drilling, which will interest the convicts, and make up to them for the
work they have lost.

There have been so many complaints about convicts being allowed to do work
that honest men can earn money by, that little by little all employment
has been taken from them.

A very good change has been made in the management of the prisons in New
York State, by General Austin Lathrop, the Superintendent of Prisons.

It has long been felt by people who have given serious thought to the
matter, that it was wrong to mix all the criminals together. It was
thought that men who had been dishonest should not be put with men who had
tried to kill, or were guilty of other awful crimes. Many people have
thought that some difference in the class of the prisoners should be made.