Dr. George W. Kirchwey of New York delivered the Annual Address. He is the Counsel for the Commission under appointment to investigate prisons and to recommend such revision of our present penal system as may seem advisable. While the report of the Commission was not yet entirely prepared, he intimated that some scheme of Central Administration would be proposed, not so much to take the management away from the present Boards of Inspectors as to exercise advisory and supervisory powers and to correlate our various correctional institutions. The conditions now obtaining in regard to the employment of prisoners were deplorable in this Keystone State, and it was the aim of the Commission to provide some form of productive labor for all able-bodied prisoners. They were prepared to recommend an extension of agricultural operations and favored the early removal of the Eastern Penitentiary to a farm in the eastern portion of the State. He deprecated every form of brutality in the treatment of delinquents and evidently thought the old repressive spirit and measures could still be found to have lodgment in some of our prisons. He was sure that a large number of our prisoners, possibly a majority, were mentally deficient and ought to have special treatment adapted to their needs, which, under present circumstances of incarceration, was impossible. If we wish to restore the men whom we confine in our prisons, we must do more than simply restrain them within certain limits; we must treat them as erring brothers and sisters, not as dumb driven cattle. To nominate to our next Annual Meeting the officers of the Society and members of the Acting Committee whose terms expire next year, the President appointed William Biddle, Robert Dunning Dripps, John A. Duncan, William C. Warren and Miss Emily Whelen. ALBERT H. VOTAW, _Secretary_. REPORT OF ACTING COMMITTEE FOR THE YEAR 1918. At a meeting which was held May 8, 1787, in Philadelphia, at which the “Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Prisons” was organized, provision was made for the appointment of an Acting Committee which should discharge the executive functions of the Society. It was composed of nine persons, the President, the two Vice-Presidents, and six additional members. The first Acting Committee was composed of Bishop William White, President, Dr. Henry Helmuth, Vice-President, Richard Wells, Vice-President. Additional members: Tench Coxe, John Kaighn, Dr. George Duffield, Benjamin Wynkoop, William Rogers, George Krebs. From time to time, on account of additional duties, responsibilities and opportunities for service, this Committee has been enlarged until at the present time it is limited to sixty persons, and at the present time is composed of fifty-six members. In 1886 the name of the Society was changed to “The Pennsylvania Prison Society”--a name indicating no change of purpose, but rather a wider scope of operations.