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[Governors Message]

several prisons in this State, of whom all but eleven were committed within the past year. More than fifty of this number, being sentenced to solitary confinement and hard labour, would probably have been ordered to a State prison, if one had been provided. These prisoners are now supported in the several counties without Labour, at an average annual expense of one hundred and four dollars each, exclusive of clothing. From evidence derived from many of the other States, there is reason to believe the charge for their subsistence in a State prison, well arranged and properly managed, would be much less. In the adjourning State, the whole expense, including clothing, superintendents guards and every other charge averages to between fifty and sixty dollars only for each convict, annually, and this the prisoner fully pays by his own labour. By a statement which has been obligingly furnished, shewing the situation of the penitentiary in that State, and which will be laid before you, it appears that the annual receipts arising from the sale of articles manufactured therein, exceed the whole annual expenditure. There is reason then for hoping, that from a like establishment in this State, similar results might be realized. A better opportunity would likewise be afforded of varying the grades of punishment so as more fully to meet the different degrees of guilt, and of adapting imprisonment in the several county gaols, by a proper classification, to the character and circumstances of the prisoners remaining therein.

The contaminating influence of corrupt society is such as to render it manifestly improper to confine the suspected, held for trial only in the same apartment with the convict. If uncorrupted