Does it not seem absurd for two grown men to quarrel about a title which neither of them has the slightest use for? * * * * * On the 1st of January, 1897, a new law went into force, forbidding the convicts in State's prisons to do any other work than hard labor for the benefit of the State. Up to the time of passing this law, when a prisoner went to jail, the warden found out the work for which he was best suited, and gave him employment of that nature. A convict who was a good accountant would be put to keeping the books. A shoemaker would be set to mending and working in the shoe-shop. A bricklayer would be put to building and repairing, and so on. The new law stops this system entirely. Hard labor means lifting stones, digging, building walls, and work of that kind. If there are no prison buildings to be made, and no heavy work to be undertaken for the State, the prisoners must remain idle. To the convicts, idleness is the most cruel punishment that they can be given. They have nothing to interest or amuse them, nothing to think of but their own sad lives; they cannot speak to each other, as talking is absolutely forbidden, so taking their work from them is a very great cruelty. Since the law first went into effect, some of the convicts have become so unhappy that they have lost their reason. The wardens, seeing how their prisoners were suffering, have been much troubled, and have all been trying to think of some means of exercising or drilling, which will interest the convicts, and make up to them for the work they have lost. There have been so many complaints about convicts being allowed to do work that honest men can earn money by, that little by little all employment has been taken from them. A very good change has been made in the management of the prisons in New York State, by General Austin Lathrop, the Superintendent of Prisons. It has long been felt by people who have given serious thought to the matter, that it was wrong to mix all the criminals together. It was thought that men who had been dishonest should not be put with men who had tried to kill, or were guilty of other awful crimes. Many people have thought that some difference in the class of the prisoners should be made. The law does make a difference: some criminals are only given short sentences, while others have very long ones. But the jail makes no difference whatever. Once within the prison walls, all convicts are treated in the same way. [Illustration: STATE PRISON, SING SING.] General Lathrop's plan alters all this. He takes into account that some people commit crimes through ignorance, some through weakness, and some through wickedness. He thinks that the first two classes of convicts should be carefully separated from the really bad criminals. His plan is to divide all the convicts in the prisons into separate groups.