ed
summary, with brief comments of our own in parenthesis, of a report on
the prison system which was kindly furnished to us by the Roumanian
Inspector of Prisons, a zealous, well-meaning, and most courteous
official, as are all Roumanian officials.

[Footnote 71: Reports on Laws of Foreign Countries, presented to the
House of Commons, 1881.]

II.

The penitentiaries are divided into two classes, 'preventive' and
'central.' In the central prisons three kinds of punishment exist,
forced labour, confinement called 'reclusion,' and correction. The men
condemned to forced labour work in the mines (in what manner we shall
see presently) during the daytime, and at night they sleep above ground
in the prison. On Sundays and fete-days they do no work. The product of
the labour of the convicts belongs of right to the State, but in order
to encourage the prisoners three-tenths is given to them. (We may at
once say that this is not faithfully carried into practice, as we know
from personal enquiry that many of them are compelled to expend their
earning to secure the common necessaries of life.) Aged and feeble
persons are transferred to the prison of Cozia, where they weave, &c.
The prisoners condemned to 'reclusion' work in tanneries and ropewalks,
as for example in the prison of Margineni, and they are entitled to
four-tenths of the products of their labour. In the correctional prisons
the convicts cultivate the soil, make bricks, &c., and are entitled to
half their wages. In all the prisons the convicts are permitted to
employ their leisure time in making articles of use or ornament from
materials furnished to them by the authorities, which are sold to
visitors, and the State gives them a proportion of the fruits of their
industry. (These articles we found to be beautifully made. They consist
of egg-cups, paper-knives, forks, spoons, &c., carved in wood and
resembling similar objects made in Switzerland and the Black Forest.
One prisoner had made a tobacco-box of dough, painted and decorated it
with artificial flowers of the same material, so that it was not
distinguishable from porcelain; another had forged an axe-blade of
steel, etched the surface and fixed it upon a polished ebony rod with a
terminal spike, forming a miniature ice-axe, and so forth.)

Religious service is provided for the convicts, but so far as we could
learn no educational means whatever, although, according to various
reports which were handed to u