The regulations provide for lights in the cells until ten o'clock, and for the use of the prison library. A letter may be written once a month and all proper letters received at the prison will be delivered after examination. The prisoner may also receive a visit of a half hour's duration in presence of a keeper once in two months and at the same intervals a box of proper eatables may be received from friends, or purchased from private funds. For breach of the prison regulations, a prisoner may lose a part of the time which would otherwise be gained by good behaviour, and may lose his privilege of receiving visitors. Serious infractions are punished by confinement in a dark cell, and in spite of the regulations, by physical punishment in many cases. Formerly the labour of the convicts was contracted to outside parties at a fixed price for each individual. While the contractors were not supposed to inflict punishment, by bribing prison officials the reluctant were forced to do the amount of work required. Undoubtedly there were grave abuses. Some convicts were worked beyond their strength to satisfy the greed of the contractor. During this period there was a stone shed, a foundry, a hat shop, a file shop and a laundry, all of which paid good profits to the contractors, and from a financial standpoint were advantageous to the state. The prejudice against this form of convict labour was sufficient in 1887 to cause the passage of a law absolutely forbidding contract labour. At the same time an appropriation was made to purchase the plants then existing and continue them on the state account. The results were not satisfactory, especially as another law later required all goods manufactured to be stamped "prison made." The labour unions continued to object to the competition of convicts with free labour and by a constitutional amendment adopted in 1896, it was finally forbidden. For a time the prisoners were idle, but shortly they were ordered to manufacture so far as possible goods required by other public institutions, and these institutions on the other hand were ordered to submit all lists of supplies desired to the prisons, in order that they might have the opportunity of furnishing them. Since that time, the prisoners have been partially employed in manufacturing stone, knit goods, clothing, furniture, window sash, shoes, etc., but the demand is not sufficient to require full work, and the system is wasteful and uneconomic. The management is not stimulated to do its best and little or no attempt is made to keep the men from loafing. The system furnishes sufficient physical exercise but no training in systematic work which will be of value when the prisoner is released.