primarily to lecture, form county committees, and otherwise further legitimate publicity.

During the year, the magazine called The Review, now renamed the Delinquent, has been published monthly by the General Secretary, as the Secretary and Editor of the National Prisoners' Aid Association, which is an affiliated group of prisoners' aid societies throughout the country. This journal, which states that "no one profits financially from its publication except the printer and the postmaster," has completed three years of life. The magazine is meant to be a "trade journal in the field of delinquency." Special articles, book reviews, notes and longer items are published, bringing the latest facts and acts in the prison field. The paper circulates among more than a half-thousand wardens and other public and private officials and boards interested in the treatment of the criminal. The magazine is financed independently of the Prison Association and has continued through its three years of life to be self-supporting.

The annual report of the Prison Association has become an increasingly important organ of publicity. The report for 1911 entitled "The Treatment of the Offender contained two parts: First, a History of the Association during 1911, and secondly, an Account of the Summer Inspection Tour of the General Secretary Through Several European Countries. In 1912 the annual report presented, in addition to the History of the Association for the year an exhaustive Manual of the Correctional System of New York State. The current report presents similarly, in addition to our year's activities, an exhaustive account of inspections of county jails and other correctional institutions. We conceive that the fundamental purpose of an annual report is to get itself read. We are not in sympathy with any publication of the Prison Association which is not so constructed as to be both educational and interesting.

During the year a considerable volume of correspondence has been carried on with agencies and individuals both within and outside the State of New York. An average of several letters a day are received from persons, not only in the United States but in foreign countries, who request often lengthy advices regarding prison reform. This entails, if properly

attended to, a considerable additional burden upon several members of the staff. The Prison Association is well known nationally and internationally, and in the absence of any central bureau in the United States conducted specifically for the dissemination of information on prison reform and the treatment of the criminal, the Association is largely appealed to. Because of this fact, the General Secretary during the winter of 1913 appealed to the New York Foundation for a sum sufficient to establish a Bureau of Advice and Information on Prison Reform, under the auspices of the Prison Association. In the detailed letter of appeal to the Foundation the following items were cited as illustrative of the very varied nature of the requests for information received by the Association:

1. Statistical questions regarding crime.

2. The architecture of correctional institutions.

3. The administration of correctional institutions.

4. Modern methods of dealing with vagrants, the inebriate and the feeble-minded.

5. The administration of the indeterminate sentence.

6. The efficacy of parole.

7. The efficacy of probation.

8. A solution of the county jail problem.

9. Problems relating to prison labor.

10. Legislation, particularly requests for suggestions as to tentative laws.

11. Requests to study a situation in a given state.

12. Requests for information as to available persons for important positions in the correctional field.

13. Requests for reprints, leaflets and publicity material for the

press.

14. Requests for lectures, addresses, magazine articles, etc.

15. Requests for methods of organizing prisoners' aid societies. 16. Requests for methods of financing the same.

17. Many requests for information as to conditions and methods. abroad, particularly in England and Germany.

18. Requests for pictures and stereopticon views.

19. Requests for publications, books, etc., or bibliography.

From the foregoing it is evident how necessary, ultimately, such a centralized bureau will be. The Association believes that it should ultimately be a bureau of the United States

Government, similar in nature to the Federal Children's Bureau. The suggestion that the bureau be for the present under the auspices of the Prison Association has been made in accordance with the often proven principle that private initiative frequently must start a necessary undertaking in order to convince the government of the necessity of its continuation. A bureau could be well administered at an annual expense of from $3,000 to $4,000, which would include salaries of a secretary, a stenographer, incidental office and travelling

expenses.

The Association appreciates heartily the enthusiastic and successful efforts of Miss E. H. Davison to organize committees whose function it is to place libraries of from 25 to 50 new books in the county jails of the State. Many of the jails visited by the inspectors of the Association have been found deplorably lacking in reading material.

Libraries have been placed by the Jail Library Committee, acting in cooperation with the Prison Association, in the following jails:

During 1914 we expect to find very salutary results from

this work, and from its extension.

A

CHAPTER TEN

THE FINANCIAL YEAR

LTHOUGH during the last year contributions to many charitable societies have been more difficult than usual

to obtain, and although the Prison Association has suffered somewhat, we have continued to develop our staff, to undertake additional duties, and to strengthen our present departments.

Our income and expenditures for current expenses have nearly balanced. Our income amounted to $25,270 and our disbursements to $25,705. It should be stated, however, that including unpaid bills our deficit for the year amounted to nearly $1,000. Compared with the fiscal year ending September 30, 1912, both our income and our disbursements fell off, but the Association was fortunate during this last fiscal year in being relieved, through the appointment of parole officers for Elmira and Napanoch Reformatories by the State, of a volume of work that formerly was undertaken by this Association. Three former members of our staff have entered similar positions in the State service and conduct their parole work for Elmira and Napanoch Reformatories in offices in the Prison Association building.

Although we did not progress in our current income during the year, the year was made noteworthy by the raising of a special guaranty fund of $15,000, which has enabled the Association to engage two competent young men for the positions of assistant secretaries. On pages 128-135 will be found a detailed statement regarding this fund and regarding the duties of the assistant secretaries. Except for the Endowment Fund, raised during 1910 and 1911, this is the largest fund raised by the Association for many years. This fund is not included in the above statement as to current income. Mrs. Dean Sage has also generously contributed $1,000 to establish the position of visitor to prisons, whose special work shall be the befriending of worthy persons in prisons, a field until now only partially covered by the Association and one of great importance. For this position Mr. H. A. Steffens was engaged in 1913.

During the year the legacy of the late Samuel Macauley Jackson, amounting to $2,500, became available, of which the income is to be used for library purposes. Doctor Jackson was for many years the faithful and beloved Secretary of the Association. A legacy has also been received, to the amount of $3,000, from the estate of William Alexander Smith.

The four years ending December 31, 1913, have been primarily years of reorganization for the Prison Association. Comparing 1913 with 1910, we find that the current receipts have increased from $17,922 to $25,407. The endowment fund amounted in 1910 to $9,108; in 1913 to $74,553. Our reserve fund decreased during the four years from $6,412 to $2,987, due largely to withdrawals for necessary repairs to the Prison Association Building. In addition there became available in 1913, either paid in or promised, the sum of $15,000 for the salaries and other expenses of two assistant secretaries. The Association has set for itself a ten-year period of reorganization and necessary expansion. It hopes not only to increase materially its present income for current expenses, but also to greatly develop its endowment fund. The building at present owned and occupied by the Prison Association is by no means new, and among the visions of the future looms that of a central building for the Association, from six to eight stories in height, which will enable this Association to conduct not only its present activities, but to conduct industries, temporary dormitories for released and discharged prisoners and also to maintain a library, a prison museum and an adequate assembly hall. A memorial fund for this purpose would be one of the most useful gifts that could be made to the Prison Association.