“An ordinary wire fence, about five feet high, is the only enclosure about the farm. There are four buildings on the land, all of wood. One is for the women who are sent to the farm, and one for the attendants, consisting of a warden, a cook, a physician and several guards and helpers. The other two are used by the prisoners. The buildings for the prisoners are equipped with shower baths. “The prisoners are taught to work on the farm. They raise all the vegetables used on the farm, and the sole cost to the city of operating the farm is for meat and clothes which averages about seven cents a day for each prisoner. The prisoners do not wear striped clothes, but overalls and ordinary jumpers. Neither is a ball and chain fastened to them when they go to work. During the last two years but one prisoner has escaped or tried to escape, and he came back of his own volition two days later. “The average number of men on the farm runs from 75 to 100, while the number of women averages about three to five. Both whites and negroes are sent to the farm. Besides the farm work carried on, the men work on roads, ditches, at cutting timber, and in planting new trees. The men are divided into squads. “No prisoner is sentenced to the farm for more than ninety days. “By a peculiar architectural arrangement one man can guard all the buildings. Each building has but one door. These doors all face a common center, about 25 yards away. The walks from the doors to the center are bordered by a high wire fence. At the center is the gate, which admits the prisoners to the farm. Here the guard sits with his rifle, and he can cover the buildings easily. “The increased value of the land since it was purchased by the city, due to the draining of the swamp, its high degree of fertility and the good roads on it, have more than offset the purchase price, and the money expended by the city to keep the prisoners in meat and clothes. “I think the day is not far distant when Detroit will consider the advisability of establishing a prison farm. “Most of the prisoners at the Jacksonville farm are drunks and petty offenders, and the steady work in the open air away from other workmen and congestion of one kind and another, has a salutary effect on their mental processes, which is highly beneficial. The average number of prisoners who come back to the farm for further offenses is relatively small, according to Justice Anderson. I think it is a step in the right direction. “In Jacksonville persons who carry concealed weapons are sentenced by the police judge and not by the judges of the recorder’s court, as is the case in Detroit. A police justice also has the power of pardoning any person he sentences to the prison farm. Justice Anderson told me he would not be police justice if he did not have the pardoning power.” * * * * *