Standing of the Cadets as determined by the Board of Visitors, July 4, 1846.

$13,661 21 68,336 99 166,940 91 215,575 40 | 139,828 10 198,263 32 802,605 93

By the directions of the board of directors of the penitentiary, I beg leave now to submit to you their annual report of the operations of that institution, for the fiscal year ending the 30th of September last. In performing this duty it is highly gratifying to the board, to bear willing testimony, to the vigilance, skill and fidelity of all the officers connected with the penitentiary, in the discharge of their respective functions in the past year. Two of the prisoners effected their escape from the prison since our last annual communication, but both have been retaken and are now in confinement. It is not known or believed that any officer or guard of the penitentiary, is liable to censure for these escapes. Many of the prisoners are engaged at labour without the prison walls, and this affords obvious and dangerous facilities for escape; of which the two prisoners referred to availed themselves.

The recent enlargement and improvement of the shops, although effected at considerable cost, constitute the most decidedly advantageous changes in the penitentiary, whether they are considered as tending to improve its discipline, or advance its profitable management. With these great and costly additions, there can hereafter be no doubt that the mechanical employments of the prisoners can be diversified so as to secure an increased profit from the labour, while the shops are so arranged as to ensure a more perfect discipline. Much of the labour of the prisoners and transports has been applied in the past year to the erection of these new, valuable and permanent structures. In the coming year, much of the labour can be withdrawn from those manufactures which have proved if not unprofitable, yet making so small a return, as to discourage their continuance on so extensive a scale as they are now pursued.

While the report of the superintendent and physician exhibits a greater degree of sickness in the penitentiary within the last year than usual, it cannot escape remark, that as few deaths have occurred as in any preceding year, for a long time except the last year.

The number of prisoners at the end of the last fiscal year in the penitentiary was 226, against 208 on the 30th of September 1845, being an increase of 18. The number of prisoners received into the institution from the 1st of October 1845, to the 30th of September 1846, (inclusive,) was 53, who were sentenced to serve therein, in the aggregate, two hundred and eighty-six and a half years. In the year commencing on the 1st of October 1844, and ending on the 30th of September 1845, inclusive, 54 convicts were received into the prison, whose aggregate terms of imprisonment was three hundred and thirty-seven years, manifesting a slight diminution in the number of those convicted of crime, and a very striking one in the duration of their imprisonment.

The reports of the agent and superintendent accompany this communication, and are marked "A" and "B." They exhibit a very satisfactory result of the manufacturing and commercial operations of the penitentiary for the past year.

The board of directors have striven to reduce the old stock of manufactures and which was becoming daily less valuable. By having many of the shoes, boots and other manufactures dressed up and put in good order, followed by a reduction of prices to suit the markets, and by affording every encouragement and facility to the agent for making sales, it is believed a happy and beneficial effect has been produced, and that the aggregate stock now reported as on hand, is really and intrinsically worth the amount at which it has been inventoried.

The cash fund appearing to remain in the hands of the agent, having accumulated to an amount greater than appeared necessary, for meeting the current demands on him, a payment of $3000 was ordered to be made by him into the public treasury, which this officer promptly met, as he has every other direction of the board. In the present year a further payment equal to double this amount may be expected by the commonwealth. The tables number from I to XI which accompany this report, are those required by law to be exhibited to the general assembly.

In closing this communication, the board feel constrained by a sense of justice, to bear testimony to the valuable services of the superintendent, who has on all occasions, so borne himself as to command the especial approbation of the board. It is equally just also to say that the agent has uniformly manifested every disposition to promote the public interest, in the discharge of all the duties of his office.

I am, most respectfully,

And with high consideration,

Your obedient servant,

ROBERT G. SCOTT,
President of the Board of Directors.