SECTION 15. All the property real and personal authorized to be held by virtue of this act shall be exempt from taxation by the Commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof. SECTION 16. The rules and regulations governing State industrial farms shall be uniform and shall be made by the Committee on Delinquency. They shall be general in character and the respective boards of managers of each institution may add local rules not inconsistent with the spirit and substance of the regulations adopted by the Committee on Delinquency. SECTION 17. To carry out the purposes of this act the sum of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000), or so much thereof as shall be necessary, is hereby appropriated but not more than fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) shall be expended for the purchase and equipment of the State industrial farm of any district. SECTION 18. (Repeals the Act of 1917, authorizing the establishment of nine Industrial Farms.) AGRICULTURAL PRISON LABOR. HARRY R. CAMPBELL. An article prepared for the County Commissioners’ Convention, Pittsburgh, August 7, 1918. Agricultural prison labor is strongly advocated by prison authorities and has been in general use in the penal institutions of Pennsylvania for many years. The movement for outdoor work for prisoners has grown rapidly, and as a result, the Pennsylvania legislature, at its 1917 session, extended the scope of agricultural work for prisoners, and authorized by an Act approved July 17, 1917, the employment of prisoners, undergoing sentence in county jails, on county or poor farms. There is no greater curse than idleness. An unemployed prisoner is a future menace to society, and no effort should be spared to keep him busy--to impress upon him the dignity and necessity of work, and to make him know that he is stronger physically and better morally if he is regularly employed. Prison labor should be approached with a desire to help the prisoner and restore him to society cured of his criminal ailment. If the only purpose in the minds of the authorities is to make a profit for their district, they are in grave danger of reverting to the old convict labor system, which at best was only a modified form of slavery. Agricultural prison labor offers the opportunity of a direct profit to the district, and places the prisoner in an environment peculiarly adapted to his own physical and mental betterment. I am informed that it is used with great success in several counties, including Delaware, Montgomery, Chester, Berks, Lehigh, Beaver, Bucks, Cambria, Fayette and Westmoreland. Another important measure enacted by the Pennsylvania legislature and approved July 20, 1917, requires the erection of an Industrial Farm, Workhouse and Reformatory in each of nine districts created by the Act. Each institution is to be built and managed by a Board of Trustees, consisting of one County Commissioner from each county in the district, appointed by the President Judge of the proper Court.