The eloquent earnestness of Maud Ballington Booth met with sympathetic attention. “Every man who works in prison should, after his own board and clothing have been paid for, work for the support of his family or for those depending upon him. Some officials seem not to know that a convict may have a family, yet there is always this heart-saddened, home-broken circle of gloom, the mothers, wives and children of convicts, about every penal institution. Wherewith are they to be fed and clothed? What recognition does the state give to them from whom it has taken their only source of support? I know of one case where the state gets $500,000 a year from its convict labor. The larger the number of convicts, the greater the revenue. But what of the army of helpless and hopeless wives and children who are being deprived of the support of these laborers who are their husbands and fathers? The helping hand extended to the family has a reflex action on the man in prison. He realizes that his efforts are helping those who have been, and are still, dependent on his services.” A SELF-SUPPORTING PRISON. Parole Officer Venn of Michigan presented some facts of very great interest as determined from their experience in the Detroit House of Correction. The plant, costing originally $190,000, had paid for itself and $1,000,000 had been turned over to the city, to the prisoners themselves and to their families in the past thirty-two years. “In Michigan the contract system is doomed, its expiring gasp having been determined by legislative enactment. This system is held in disrepute, especially among the ranks of free-toilers whether organized or not. When the prisoner or his family, or the state, receives the profit from prison labor, and not some contracting firm, which pays to the state the paltry sum of from thirty-five cents to seventy-five cents per diem for the toil of its wards, the mouth of the objector is silenced.” Mr. Venn said that very often the paroled man needed some financial assistance, sometimes to purchase tools, or for some very proper object, and that he had loaned to such men within the last two years the sum of $860, of which sum $630 had been refunded. He regarded most of the balance as an absolutely safe investment. The money which comes back can be used for others in need, and the prisoner is not treated as a pauper. FEDERAL PAROLE. The Attorney-General, Geo. W. Wickersham, delivered an able address on the “Federal Parole,” now in operation at the various federal prisons of the country.