The legislature of Arkansas[317] passed a statute in 1903, directing that in the State penitentiary and in all county jails, stockades, convict camps, and all other places where prisoners are confined, separate apartments should be provided and maintained for white and Negro prisoners. Separate bunks, beds, bedding, dining tables, and other furnishings were required, and after they had once been assigned to a prisoner of one race they must not be changed to the use of one of the other race. White prisoners must not be handcuffed or otherwise chained or tied to a Negro prisoner. Georgia[318] does not allow prison-keepers, or firms leasing or controlling convicts, to confine white and colored convicts together, or to work them chained together, or to chain them together in going to and from their work or at any other time. Mississippi[319] provides that no discrimination shall be made on account of race, color, or previous condition, in working convicts. This does not mean that they shall not be separated, as they are in Georgia, but is simply a prohibition against discrimination in the quality of work assigned to the two races. At the last session of the legislature of North Carolina,[320] a bill was passed providing for the separation of white and colored prisoners in the State penitentiary and in the State and county convict camps during sleeping and eating hours. That a separation of the two races exists in the jails of Washington City is evidenced by a protest issued a year or so ago by the National Equal Rights Council of that city, a Negro organization, against the separation of the white and colored prisoners in the jails of the city. There was no allegation, however, that the cells were not equal in accommodation, the objection being raised solely at the principle of separation.[321] As to reformatories, Georgia[322] provides that they shall be so constructed as to keep white and colored inmates separate. West Virginia[323] requires that the white and colored inmates of its reform school for boys shall be kept separate, and the inmates of its industrial home for girls (also a reformatory) shall be separate as far as practicable. As to paupers, Alabama[324] authorizes the county commissioners of Washington County to keep separate accommodations for the maintenance of white and colored paupers.