“It is related that the 500 Ohio prisoners who were allowed to work in the open last year on their promise not to run away only twenty-four escaped. That is to say, ninety-five per cent. showed the stamina to stay on the prison job and five per cent. yielded to the temptation to make a break for liberty. The ninety-five per cent. capable of staying in prison when they might have escaped should be capable of keeping out of prison after their release. Every statistical table showing a diminished proportion of ‘repeaters’ is evidence that the new training is really accomplishing in the way of abolishing the ‘comebacks.’” * * * * * _The Situation in New Jersey_--The Plainfield (N.J.) Courier outlines it as follows: It is claimed that politics interferes with the harmonious solution of the new labor system in the State Prison, replacing the prison labor contract system. The interruption has created an annoyance, because all the present labor contracts at the State Prison expire on July 1, and a serious condition will be presented for the majority of the 1,400 convicts will be thrown into lives of idleness. State Prison Keeper Thomas B. Madden regards the prospect as menacing. On July 1 all the prison contractors will cease their work and will remove their machinery from the prison shops where so long the prisoners were kept busy manufacturing shoes, clothing, brooms, brushes, caps, handkerchiefs, overalls, etc., will be closed until the new prison labor methods can be put into operation. It will take at least six months to get the new system fully installed. No definite plans exist for an immediate resumption of labor in the prison, although the act abolished the prison labor contract system and substituting the “State use” method under which the convicts manufactures articles for use in all the State institutions, was passed in 1911, three years ago. The new Commission is composed of Cook Conklin, of Bergen county, president; Commissioner of Charities and Corrections Joseph P. Byers, of Trenton, secretary; Joseph M. Dear, of Jersey City, representing the Board of State Prison Inspectors; Freeman Woodbridge, of Middlesex county, representing the Board of Managers of the Rahway Reformatory; Richard H. More, of Bridgeton, and Henry Isleib of Paterson. “The condition is a serious one,” said Prison Keeper Madden today, “and I do not know what we are going to do after July 1 when all the prison shops must be closed. I know what it means to have a big lot of prisoners idle, for I was here back in the hard times of 1873 when one of the big prison contractors failed and the shops were closed down. We had trouble then, and there were not nearly so many prisoners as we have now.”