but they go to school all the same, and have never expressed any objection. They seem to take delight in it; and they progress well.

I believe in compulsion in a state prison, under all circumstances. I believe when a man forfeits his right to citizenship, and is sent to prison, he has ceased to be a citizen, and has no rights. He has forfeited all those rights, consequently, he is turned over to the tender mercies of our good wardens and the prison management, to be reformed. He is properly restrained there, and may be made to comply with all the rules and regulations of the prison. Now I have thought a great deal on that question of corporal punishment; and I do not care to take up your time to give you my ideas in reference to it; but I think I occupy the position of being the only warden now here' who has been investigated, and I had a little trepidation about getting up, because I found the good fellows were all on one side. They are not using the whip any more,— they are using the lash.

I apprehend there are but two things in reference to corporal punishment,-those are, sentiment and judgment. The sentiment is all on the outside, and the judgment is inside; and a great many of these gentlemen have expressed themselves when they say you have got to resort to punishment; and I am surprised to see Captain Pope, one of our old Indiana men, raised right down within sound of the bell of the old prison there I am surprised to see him carry his army ideas into this congress. I know he is very liberal, and we have been running along for five or six years together in these things, trying to reform ourselves, so that we can go back and reform our prisoners. I do not believe there is a warden in the United States who is

cruel or inhuman, with the possible exception of myself. I do not believe there is any one but desires to treat his prisoners in the right kind of a way. I have met these wardens, and I think they are a big-hearted set of men, full of humanity. I hate corporal punishment as bad as any man living; but it seems to me there are cases where it

is absolutely necessary. I have a man who has committed four murderous assaults, and I would give any man a hundred dollars who will give me a recipe to keep him from fighting in prison. They fight on the outside, and when they come to the prison they keep it up. I think if we could solve that problem, we would be doing away with one of the greatest difficulties in the way of our prison work.

PROCEEDINGS.

ΤΗ

THIRD DAY-FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1893.

HE congress was called to order in the Art Palace, Chicago, at 10 o'clock, A. M., by Vice-President ROELIFF BRINKERHOFF, of Ohio, and the meeting was opened with an invocation by the Rev. JOSEPH RUSHTON, of Chicago. The president introduced Dr. P. D. SIMS, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who addressed the congress on the subject of

THE LEASE SYSTEM IN TENNESSEE AND OTHER SOUTHERN STATES.

I have not had

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen: an opportunity to prepare a written paper. I have been requested to give a sort of history of the lease system in Tennessee, or the prison system in Tennessee. Under the circumstances, I can only make a brief running talk on that subject; but if I should omit anything that any member of the association would like to know with reference to this system in our state, or other southern states, I would be glad to have inquiries made, which I will try and answer so far as I am posted.

In order that you may correctly understand the condition of the lease system in Tennessee, I will give you a little history of our prison system, ante-dating the lease system, and leading up to it. Our prison was built in 1828 and 1829, for the penal wants of our state at that time, when our prison population amounted to one hundred or one hundred and fifty, and providing only, at the outside, for the accommodation of some three hundred peo

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ple, and not providing very well for that number. We ran along through the years following with our prison managed on ordinary state account. Some time between 1840 and 1844, the state undertook the project of building a new state-house, and they devoted largely the labor of the penitentiary to that work. Those who were not employed in that were employed in the manufacture, mostly, of agricultural implements. Beginning in the forties, the prison labor was continued in that work until the completion of the building. As soon as the prison labor began to be employed in this way, it of course cut off the revenue that had come into the state from the sale of the products of the prison; and demands were made upon the state, at each meeting of the legislature, for appropriations to meet the expenses of the penitentiary. At last there began to be a clamor about the penitentiary costing too much; and in 1855, I believe, a committee was appointed to investigate this question. That committee went back over the history of the penitentiary from its erection to that date, and gave it credit for the work it had done on the state capitol, which credit had not been given in the criticisms of the management of the state penitentiary.

This report showed a net profit of $174,000 to the credit of the penitentiary account, from the time of the erection, including the cost of erecting, repairs, and all other incidental expenses connected with the prison; and that is the record on the journals of the legislature. For a year or two after, these appropriations were made, but the public generally lost sight of this favorable report,-it was buried finally on the journals of the legislature, and the criticism of the expenditure continued until after the

war.

Soon after the close of the war, everything was in a demoralized condition. Our prison population was largely increasing, and we needed facilities for working the force profitably in the penitentiary. A clamor was again raised for cutting down the expenses, losing sight of the fact that the penitentiary had paid a profit. It had been self-sustaining;