Show the tho increase of crime A few days ago the chronicle commented upon the last biennial report of the tho board of directors of the state prison reproducing some soine of the more significant fact facts sand and figures contain contained edin in that document the showing made by the report is one disgrace disgraceful fill to td our civilization it appeared app arp eared that the sleeping rooms of the convicts are fearfully overcrowded large numbers of them being packed into ill ventilated quarters poisonous dols dois onous with foul poul air and loathsome effluvia revelations published a short time since in the new york papers shota that the three state prisons of that state sing sing auburn and clinton are sum bum suffering fiering suf from over t though lna ina in a different way from that which leh ich prevails at san quentin in the latter institution faige laigo numbers are herded like cattle in the same apartment ther there 0 are four rooms with forty fl nive five ve islen rilen men huddled into each such an abomination as this is in new york prevented by b a law which resti restricts lets the occupancy of a cell to a single prisoner absing at sing bing sing however this restriction has been disregarded as a matter of or absolute necessity and some four hundred cells now have two convicts in each the alarming feature disclosed by the condition of nearly all the penitentiaries aries in the country whether vast or west is that the increase of the criminal classes outstrips mit strips in its ratio the increase of population everywhere the tb necessity for an increase of prison accommodation mo dation is urged from every quarter comes the same bame complaint of overcrowding over crowding accompanied by declarations of the demoralising demoralizing demora lising effects that result from the evil wt it appears also that in most of the prisons at least one half of the inmates are entirely idle doing no useful work and subsisting wholly at the public expense af sf chronicle |