“This country,” he added, “is regarded all over the world as a great laboratory where all sorts of theories have a chance to be tried out. This is because of our federal system. The United States has nothing to do except with a few federal prisons. Each State of the forty-eight has its own penal institutions. Thus, as you go about the country you may see almost every sort of plan, the most advanced and the most belated, in operation. For that reason deputations from foreign countries are sent here often for observation and study. Massachusetts ranks high, and deservedly so, although there are many opportunities for improvement. “One thing that must be remembered is this, that it is almost impossible to tell in advance how a plan is going to work. It may be wrought out with great care. But we have human nature to deal with, and exceptions to rules occur pretty frequently. Often a seemingly unimportant provision may prove very valuable. Then it must receive the place of importance that it deserves, and be adapted to varying conditions everywhere. And often what has seemed to be important will turn out to be of very subordinate consequence.” VERMONT’S STATE PRISON IN “THE HONOR SYSTEM LINE” [The Boston Globe has recently published the following article. Warden Lovell of Windsor seems to be running Sheriff Tracy a close second.] Wilson S. Lovell, the superintendent of the Vermont State Prison at Windsor, has advanced ideas concerning the management of convicts. “When I can’t treat them like human beings,” he says, “I’ll give up the job.” Certainly his prisoners have privileges not generally accorded elsewhere to offenders against the law who are serving sentences. They are permitted to keep razors and to shave themselves. If an occupant of the electrically lighted cells doesn’t like the white-wash on the walls, he can replace it with a paint of cheerful red or any other color which does not offend his artistic eye. Many of the men, who have nearly served out their terms, work about the town under a keeper and on the prison farm. For the work about town they receive approximately 50 cents a day for their own personal use. The prison cows are driven out to pasture, some distance from the institution, but there is nothing in the garb or manner of the persons who drive them to suggest that they are convicts, but nevertheless they are. They are allowed to go unattended—in a word are trusted—put on honor. The women inmates, who do all the housework of the prison with the exception of the cooking, which is done by the men, have unprecedented liberties. They are allowed all over the place. One can see them of a morning carrying baskets of clothes to the clothes-yard outside the walls. They gather raspberries and strawberries in the prison garden, which is unsurrounded by any barrier.