It will require an expert in institutional management and in bookkeeping to determine just what items should be charged to care and maintenance, and to general expenses. What difference will it make? Simply this. Some counties naturally will send a smaller proportionate number of inmates than others. A few counties may have but one or two inmates during the year. Each county will receive two bills for payment. One will be for its share of overhead expenses. The other will cover the cost of maintaining the prisoners sent from said county. If certain charges which might be debited to care and maintenance are charged against overhead or general expenses, then the auditor of the county sending few or no prisoners will justly protest a system of bookkeeping which charges to general expenses what ought to be charged to care and maintenance. Questions will arise quite difficult to decide, hence, there should be some regulations adopted of universal application to the nine institutions. Discretionary Power of the Court. According to this Act, the Court “_may_, in its discretion, sentence” a convicted offender to the county jail, to the Industrial Farm, or to any penal institution legally entitled to receive convicts. We repose much confidence in the judiciary of this State. But we trust that they will agree to send all convicts, sentenced from forty days to two years, or to whatever time they think it advisable to send them to the State Prisons, to these Industrial Farms. They may exercise an option below twenty days, depending on the proximity of said farm. Allegheny County sends hundreds of prisoners, sentenced for ten days and less, about ten miles away to the Industrial Farm. Philadelphia transports likewise a large number of short termers about fifteen miles to the House of Correction on its farm of several hundred acres. The State of Indiana makes its obligatory to send all convicted of misdemeanors, who are sentenced to sixty days or more, to the State Industrial Farm. The option of the Court may be exercised when the sentence is less than sixty days. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania there is no team work with reference to the place where convicts may be incarcerated. Some counties, especially the smaller ones, have an understanding that all prisoners sentenced to one year or more should be dispatched to the penitentiary. In other counties a person may serve a sentence of twenty years in the county prison. How would this schedule work? Ten days or less County Jail Ten to twenty days, Either County Jail or the Industrial Farm Twenty days to two years The Industrial Farm Two to three years, Either the Industrial Farm or the Penitentiary Three years and over The State Penitentiary