In such an emergency, we might further suppose that measures would be adopted at once to enlarge the accommodations and to obviate the alleged necessity for thus openly violating the law, as early as possible. With this impression, we are surprised that the Executive of the State, whose particular function it is to see that the laws are duly executed, does not urge prompt action in the premises. So far from any intimation of this sort, he speaks of the administration and management of the prison throughout, as eminently successful and commendable; of the keeper and officers as having sustained their reputation for ability and efficiency--of _five thousand dollars_ of surplus earnings as having been paid into the State treasury during the year--and of about _two thousand dollars_ paid to discharged convicts for overwork, all which he thinks exhibits unexampled prosperity in the affairs of the prison. He even goes so far as to say, "_that the discipline has been well maintained_," adding (rather paradoxically we think,) that the "large number of prisoners renders it impracticable to observe the law in relation to solitary" (separate) "confinement, and the necessity of association impairs to some extent the corrective regulations of the institution." We humbly submit that it is not the "necessity of association," but the association itself that does the mischief, and farther that Jerseymen would better understand the case if it were said in plain English, that until cells enough are built to give each convict a cell by himself, the occupants will be more likely to become worse than better, at the expense of the State, and in deliberate violation of its positive laws. This view of the case becomes quite imposing, when it is considered that of the one hundred and ninety-seven convicts, one hundred and sixty-eight are, or about four-fifths, are in on a first conviction. Of course, every precaution is essential to give the discipline of the prison its most benign and efficient influence. It is passing strange that an enlightened State should pocket five thousand dollars of the surplus earnings of her convict-population, while the accommodations for accomplishing the only legitimate objects of the prison are so narrow as to require a constant violation of the law, and a constant defeat of its wholesome ends. It may be, however, that to violate laws has become the rule, and to obey them the exception. As an illustration, it may suffice to say, in respect to this same New Jersey State Prison, that the use of tobacco in any form is peremptorily forbidden by law; yet we are informed, on indisputable authority, that the prisoners both chew and smoke, and that some of them have taken their first lessons in these arts after their admission to the prison!