The prison population on September 30, 1913, was 3,926, all of which force is employed on State account, 733 of the prisoners being in or near Rusk and Huntsville prisons and 2,965 on State plantations. These plantations now include certain rented lands, adjoining the lands owned by the State. The prison population is classified as follows: White 1,244, blacks 1,919, mulattoes 335, Mexicans 405 and Indians 3. The number includes 92 females, 7 of them white, and 85 black. The acreage cultivated by the 2,965 prisoners on State farms in 1913 was 36,993, as compared with 62,140 acres cultivated by 2,807 persons at the time the new law took effect. The reports of the prison commissioners and of chartered accountants show that in the two years next following the date the act of 1910 took effect the prison system’s losses from operation were $722,773.41; that debts aggregating $1,528,458.04 accrued, and that $310,000 appropriated from the public treasury had been expended. Marked difference of opinion as to the cause of this fiscal situation exists. Obviously, the debt is due in part to the operating losses, and both the debt and the losses were in part caused by lack of operating capital. A part of the debt represents outlay for improvements and equipment necessary to provide housing and employment for the convicts withdrawn from the hiring-out system. A part of it, as already suggested, represents lack of operating capital. When a large proportion of the convict population was hired out, the men who hired the convicts furnished the land, mules, implements and houses. When the State withdrew the convicts from hire, it had to provide all of these things. When the convicts were hired out, their wages were paid to the State monthly, regardless of the profits or losses of the contractors. This income furnished an operating capital for the prison system as a whole. It was a substantial income: the State received $31 a month for each first-class convict, making a large profit after it had paid for food and clothing and for guarding. When the convicts were withdrawn from hire, this steady and dependable income stopped. Expenditures continued steadily throughout the year; the bulk of the receipts came at the end of the crop year, and, of course, the income was as uncertain as is the weather and the crops. Thus, much of the indebtedness is explained. However, the wisdom of the commissioners in abolishing the contract system almost three years before they were required by law to do so has been questioned. It has been asserted that if they had permitted the contracts to continue during the three years, receiving the income therefrom, they would have been prepared to enter upon a complete State account system with much better chance for it to succeed. It should be noted, however, for what it may be worth, that some of the contractors said they did not want to keep the convicts under the conditions as to hours of labor, etc. imposed by the act of 1910.