But we need not go beyond the limits of our own State to prove the benefit and success of farming for misdemeanants. The administration of the Allegheny County Workhouse illustrates the economy of providing employment for prisoners on an industrial farm. Here the average daily number of inmates in 1918 was 722. The daily average cost of each inmate was 81 cents, but after deducting the earnings of the inmates, the net cost was only 32 cents. This means that the inmates earned 49 cents a day toward their own maintenance. Their bookkeeping indicates merely the cost of raising the crops. If the institution had charged itself with the produce used by it at the prevailing market price, the net cost would have been much less. The farm has 670 acres, of which 560 acres are farmed and used as pasture. The inmates are continually coming and going. Many of them are committed for ten days or less, and a large part are sentenced for 30 days, while comparatively few of them remain longer than one year. This shows that a great deal of efficient work can be secured, even from those who serve for short terms. A similarly striking result has been attained in Delaware County under the law of 1911, empowering the judges of the Courts of Common Pleas to release on parole convicts confined in county jails or workhouses under the supervision of designated probation officers. Acting under this law, the President Judge of that county has during the year 1918 paroled a number of inmates of the county jail to work on farm lands rented for the purpose with the remarkable result that only two of the men so paroled made their escape (both being afterwards retaken) and that nearly $14,000 worth of crops were sold for cash in addition to the vegetables used and stored in the prison. The net profit is estimated at $7,000. Logically, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the State ought to assume the care of all offenders. The laws are made by the State, and the indictments charge the accused with offences against the “peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” not against the peace and dignity of the county, municipality or borough. The conclusion is inevitable that the Commonwealth should assume the responsibility for the protection of the community from both felons and misdemeanants. And since such an arrangement as has been proposed will result in reduced taxation, uniformity of management and in greater facilities for the education and reformation of the delinquent, we feel that the establishment of State industrial farms to receive the delinquents now committed to the county prisons should receive your favorable consideration.