R.M. RENICK, TREASURER, In account with the Missouri Institution for the Education of the Blind.

November 3, 1856. To balance on hand subject to order.........

$5,567 20

R. M. RENICK, Treasurer, in account with the Missouri Institution for the Education of the Blind.

BUILDING FUND ACCOUNT.

DR.

November 3, 1856. To balance on hand subject to order........

$918 19.

$11,506 86

CR.

ROBERT K. WOOLS.

REPORT OF THE

INSPECTORS AND OFFICERS

OF THE

MISSOURI PENITENTIARY,

TO THE

Nineteenth General Assembly.

OFFICE OF INSPECTORS OF PENITENTIARY,

January 4, 1857.

To the General Assembly of the State of Missouri:

The Inspectors of the Penitentiary respectfully submit the following

REPORT:

The accompanying reports of the Warden, Physician and Chaplain, and the tabular statement, marked “A," are referred to, as furnishing in detail, the facts and information appropriate to their several departments, which it is made our duty to lay before the General Assembly.

From the accounts rendered by the Factor for the years 1855 and 1856, of receipts and profits, disbursements and expenditures, which were examined and settled by the Inspectors, on the first of December, in each year, and from a general account rendered for four years, we present the following summary, exhibiting the financial condition and business of the Institution during that period:

1855.

Stock on hand..

Debts duc Penitentiary...

ASSETS.

Leaving balance of assets over liabilities, of......

$56,402 75

$19,406 34

Receipts from all sources for the year 1855, were $33,860 09. Disbursements the same. Receipts for 1856 were.

Disbursements...

36,996 41

$48,760 86

47,088 69

Leaving cash balance on hand.....

$1,672 17

If, to the present liabilities of the Penitentiary, ($19,406 34,) we add the yearly salaries of officers, and hire of guards, paid out of the Treasury, say $10,000, or $10,000 for four years, the total indebtedness is $54,406 34.

To pay this, the Prison has, in debts owing by individuals, $6,930 22, and the State of Missouri $10,320 21, making $17,250 43. Cash on hand, $1,672 17, and inventory of stock, consisting of machinery, manufactured articles, and other property, amounting to $37,480 15; making a total of assets to pay liabilities, $56,402 75.

Deduct this amount from the total indebtedness, and there is left a balance against the Penitentiary for four years, of $3,003 59, or $750 89-100 per annum.

An act of the Legislature of March 5, 1855, authorized the Warden, under the direction of the Governor, to employ convicts in grading and improving the public grounds around the Capitol, and allowed them eighty cents per day, for each hand thus employed.

Among the improvements made by convict labor, is the excellent stone wall, which has been commenced around the Capitol.

The Warden, misconceiving the law, by making a distinction between the price allowed day laborers in grading and working upon the streets, and in making improvements around the Capitol grounds, has undertaken and progressed thus far with the stone wall, charging therefor, not by the day at the stipulated price of eighty cents, but as a job, according to the customary prices of mechanics for such work, by the perch and foot.

In executing the job, materials were furnished, and wagons and teams employed, by the Warden; and we are informed that if the estimates were made for the work at eighty cents per day, and for the materials, &c., furnished, there would be but little difference in the account thus rendered, and the amount as charged against the State, which is $5,138 74.

Although the account rendered one way or the other, neither puts money into the treasury, nor takes it out, it was deemed proper in this place to make the explanation.

Besides the annual accounts rendered by the Factor, he has submitted to us the whole account of the State, running through four years, (the period the present system has been in operation since the prison was last leased,) showing the total appropriations made by the Legislature for the benefit of the Penitentiary during that period, to be $48,586 43. This amount includes $9,153 43, paid T. L. Price & Co., for materials purchased by the State at the expiration of their lease.

During the same period, the Penitentiary has paid back to the State, in cash paid to discharged convicts, and arresting escaped convicts, $2,290 16; and in improvements authorized by the Inspectors, and work done on the streets and public grounds, $56,616 48, making a total of $58,906 64. Deducting from this amount the appropriations mentioned, leaves a balance against the State, of $10,320 21.

The sum of twenty-five thousand dollars was appropriated by the last General Assembly, to be expended in extending the walls of the prison, building, additional cells, &c., but the same was not drawn from the treasury for reasons that will be given hereafter.

The foregoing exhibit of the financial condition and business of the Penitentiary, though certainly not so favorable as could be desired, is nevertheless as much so as could be reasonably expected, considering the adverse circumstances which have embarrassed its operations, and prevented. it from giving systematic employment to about one-half of the convicts, within the walls, for the last two years.

It appears from the Warden's report and tabular statement accompanying it, that of the two hundred and fifty-nine convicts, there is only room within the walls for one hundred and thirty-five laboring men, including coopers, wagon-makers, blacksmiths, washers, tailors, shoc-makers, and all. More than one hundred had to be worked on the public grounds, brick-yard and quarry.

Of those employed within the walls, fifty-seven are coopers, thirteen are blacksmiths, and nine wagon-makers. These are the only branches of business carried on to any considerable extent in the Penitentiary.

These facts will not be surprising, when it is considered that there are neither shops, nor space within the prison walls, to erect additional ones, with the necessary machinery and fixtures to make it practicable to prosecute, by any systematic labor, the various mechanical trades and branches of business usually conducted with profit, in State prisons.

To do this, the Warden and Factor, after experiencing the inconvenience and disadvantages of the present imperfect arrangements, concur in suggesting such an extension of the walls as will afford sufficient space for all the practical purposes indicated, and allow of the rearrangement of the entire plan of the prison structures.

Although the Inspectors, Governor and Warden, have, under existing laws, a general authority to determine what improvements shall be made in the extension of the prison walls, erection of cells, work-shops, &c., the appropriation applicable to the purpose, is inadequate to such a plan of improvements, as is believed to be necessary, and they have not deemed it expedient to undertake it without the sanction of the Legislature, and such further appropriation as will be required to complete it.

Such a plan will require the removal of some of the present structures, and a rearrangement of others, so as to give unity, convenience and adaptation, to the architectural design.

The original prison buildings were projected upon a small scale, and very imperfect estimates of the demands for room, and the various prison accommodations; and the additions made from time to time, have been made with a view to little else than the temporary necessity that suggested them, without reference to future wants, or a comprehensive plan, and consequently without economy in the expenditures incurred in their construction.

The economy of a plan, aiming at the objects indicated, could not be better shown, than by referring to the actual necessity, now existing, of again enlarging and rearranging the present structures, and the removal of some of them as real obstructions to the completion of a suitable one.

The execution of such a plan will require an expenditure of money, of which we have made no estimates, but they can be furnished to the committec of your body, who may be appointed on the Penitentiary, by the Factor, if desired.

We may remark, however, in this connection, that much the heaviest item of cost can be discharged by the Penitentiary itself, in convict labor; and the building material, existing abundantly near the prison, will still further economize the expenditures of money for the purpose. Appropriations will be necessary, of course, to complete the shops and purchase. machinery.

We will state, in this connection, that most of the machinery and tools now on hand, are so much worn as to be scarcely fit for longer use; and whether the Legislature shall think proper to authorize the improvements suggested, or not, new machinery and implements are indispensable to the profitable employment of the convicts now worked within the walls.

If, as has been suggested, a remoddeling and enlargement of the prison is necessary to its mere pecuniary interest, it is certainly not less so, in order to the attainment of the higher and primary aims of penal institutions.

An enlightened philanthropy has been manifested in nothing more strikingly and beneficently, perhaps, than in the successive improvements in prison architecture, discipline and government, which have been introduced, from time to time, into many of the Penitentiaries and other prisons of this and European countries; and whatever practical results have been achieved in this direction, are due to a theory touching the design of human punishment, and the relation of the State to the criminal, which regards him, though a felon, as a human being, with mind and heart, hopes and fears, and affections, which are to be impressed for good or evil, by his prison servitude, and its disciplinary influences.

The Penitentiary will have been substituted in vain, for the whippingpost, pillory, and like inhuman and barbarous punishments, if the amount of receipts and profits of such institutions are to be taken as a true index of their usefulness or prosperity, or if the face of the ledger must furnish the facts and figures, which shall alone or mainly determine the proper policy in regard to them.

While pecuniary results are not to be disregarded, it is presumed that the utmost that should be aimed at, in this respect, in the structure, discipline, administration and general economy of the Penitentiary, would be to make it self-sustaining, and if more than this should be realized, it would be due to judicious management, under a system looking to dollars and cents, as of secondary moment.

The Inspectors deem it proper to ask the attention of the General Assembly to the necessity of providing a suitable apartment for female prisoners.

There are now in the Penitentiary four women, who, for the want of more suitable accommodations, are confined, from day to day, in their cells. The effect upon the health of body and mind of such restraint, is too obvious for comment; and, under present arrangements, the Warden, cannot otherwise dispose of them without abandoning them to a condition of hopeless vice and depravity. In the rearrangement of the prison building, as already indicated, a suitable prison could be constructed, or some of those within the enclosure could be converted, at no great expense, into a suitable female prison, and we suggest that authority be given for this purpose.

We concur with the Chaplain, whose report is herewith submitted, in asking an appropriation for the Penitentiary Library. It is very small and not judiciously selected. The amount suggested by the Chaplain, with that which may now be drawn from the Treasury annually, it is supposed will

be sufficient.

The Inspectors close their remarks by expressing the hope, that the State will consult her true interests and best policy in reference to her Penitentiary, by adapting it as far as practicable to its legitimate purposes of reforming the unfortunate criminal, while it punishes him, and that she will not continue to linger longer in the rear of her sister States, in respect to one of her most important public institutions.

Trusting to the liberal and enlightened views of the Legislature for such action as the exigencies of the institution require, we respectfully and earnestly commend the subject to their consideration.

Very respectfully,
WM. H. BUFFINGTON,
E. B. EWING,
A. W. MORRISON.

Inspectors..