greatest benefit from his labor. The working system of the prisons is admirable in the extreme. The convicts are well fed and clothed, and required to work a given number of hours, only, a day, depending upon the fatigue of the labor. Good conduct remits four days in each month, or fifty-two days in each year; extra work, when available, is furnished to them, and credited at the rate of the number of hours of that particular service per day, as so many days of their sentence served. This system prevails in all of the State prisons, but, of course, upon a minor scale. In them only such articles are manufactured as are required and used by the State governments." "How about pardons from these prisons?" inquired Cobb. "The President alone has the power of pardoning from national prisons; the governors, from State prisons. At each prison is a Legledom Cöda, and a pardon is never issued except this court has examined the case and recommended it. The Legledom Cöda of each prison also tries all cases of infraction of the laws of the prison, and fixes the punishment for the same. As a matter of fact, few, very few, pardons are given, and then only when it is apparent from subsequent evidence that an injustice has been done a man." "What are considered among the gravest crimes?" "Murder, perjury, rape, receiving of bribes, or giving of same, corruption in office, arson, mayhem, premeditated and willful. These are all life imprisonment offenses, and there is no reduction of sentence for any reason." "But does not this convict labor compete with the labor of the masses?" asked Cobb. "How can it? If the government needs a million dollars' worth of manufactured articles, one of two courses must be pursued to obtain them: either to buy or manufacture. If they are bought, the people are taxed to pay for them; if they are manufactured by convict labor, the tax-payers save just that amount of money, while a punishment is inflicted upon the worthless class by causing it to labor without reward." "True; but in my time the people howled and railed against convict competition. Now, turning from the subject, tell me if there are many labor troubles at the present day." "None worthy of the name. A great and just law was advocated, in 1920, by that eminent jurist, Attorney-General William Bean, of Pennsylvania, and passed the next year, that it should be unlawful for any firm or corporation carrying on any manufacture, to accumulate in any one calendar year a profit in excess of twenty per cent. on the actual money invested, and exclusive of that invested in the plant. Full provision was made in the bill for examination of accounts, books, etc. The bill further provided that each person, firm, etc., should regulate the price of the labor employed by them. Then further laws were enacted against combined strikes, intimidation of the employed, etc. It was a wise bill, and has worked advantageously ever since it was passed by Congress."