“1. The Commissioner of Labor is hereby authorized to organize and establish in connection with the bureau of labor a free public employment bureau for the purpose of receiving applications from persons seeking employment and applications from persons seeking to employ laborers. “2. No compensation or fee shall be charged or received directly or indirectly from persons applying for work, information, or help through said department. The Commissioner of Labor is hereby authorized to employ such assistance and incur such expense as may be necessary to carry into effect the purpose of this act, but such assistance and expense shall not exceed $500.00 per annum,” etc., etc. In compliance with this act of the legislature a free public employment bureau has been established at Wheeling, twelve miles from Moundsville penitentiary. This will not only be the means of furnishing men with work who have never been in prison and thus keep them out, but will be a privilege much appreciated by those who have just been released. It would be wisdom on the part of the lawmakers of every state to thus provide a similar institution somewhere near their state prisons. To the prisoner whose term has just expired we desire to give a few words of advice. You now start out in life anew. There are great responsibilities before you. No doubt many of you the world will meet with a frown, and look disdainfully upon you because of your past career, or that you have been in prison. Do not give way to discouragement under such circumstances; face the world with a smile, shun the places of vice and wickedness, shun evil companions; and on the other hand, seek society that will be elevating. If strong drink was at one time a temptation to you or the cause of your downfall, shun the places where it is sold or used as you would shun death itself. Likewise shun the card-table and pool-room, which only lead to a drunkard’s life. Always have courage enough to say No when evil companions seek to lead you astray. There is a God in heaven who will help you. Let not a day pass by without prayer to him for his direction and his protection. If you have never received a change of heart, do not rest satisfied nor cease pressing the battle on that line until you have obtained the peace of God in your soul, which is beyond understanding and flows as a river from the throne of God. You may have many temptations to fall back into your old habits of life, but by persistent resentment and applying to the Lord for help you will be enabled to come out victorious. I remember a few years ago a young man was released from a prison in New York because of his good behavior and was given an honorable discharge. He did not care to take up his old habits again, but as he wandered about from place to place meeting old companions and associating with them, he found great difficulty in refraining from picking people’s pockets, as he had been in the habit of doing in former years.