The bill submitted to carry this recommendation into effect omits the counties of Philadelphia and Allegheny from its operation. Allegheny County already has a prison farm which in many ways may be considered a model of its kind. Philadelphia has a farm in connection with the House of Correction which furnishes employment to many prisoners and supplies much produce for the institution. We recommend that at some early date the City of Philadelphia may, by the purchase of more land, extend the advantages of a penal farm to its convict prison and in some way combine under one management the entire penal system of the municipality. The fee system, whereby the sheriff or warden receives a stipulated sum each day for the board of prisoners, is so liable to abuse that we submit a proposition to abolish the practice in all our prisons. Whenever the profits from boarding the prisoners is a part of the remuneration of the officer in charge, the tendency is doubtless to exploit the prisoners, or to reduce to a minimum the supply of food, in order to derive the greater profit. In 1915 a comprehensive study of the cost of boarding the prisoners in the largest 25 counties of the Commonwealth indicated that the average daily cost of food per prisoner in the 15 prisons where the food was purchased on the contract system was 12 cents, and in the 10 counties where the fee system was in vogue 33.7 cents, the difference in favor of the contract system being 21.7 cents per day for each prisoner. We estimate that in these 10 counties alone the saving to the taxpayers by the adoption of the contract system will be at least $50,000 annually. The economy of the proposition is evident, making due allowance for providing in some counties additional compensation for the official in charge of the prison. In all cases where a change has been made from the fee system to the contract system, the food has improved in character, thus tending to the betterment of the health and morale of the inmates. Moved by these considerations, the General Assembly in 1909 provided that in all counties having a population of 150,000 or more, the food for the prisoners must be purchased by contract. We are now proposing to extend this principle to all the counties of the Commonwealth, with the understanding that no such change is to take place during the incumbency of the officials who are at the present time in charge of the prisons. VI. PROBATION AND PAROLE.