Art. 264. The regular supplies of provisions, and of all other articles consumed or used in the said institutions in considerable quantities, shall be furnished by contract, and adjudged after advertisement to the lowest bidder; but the wardens shall examine the articles furnished, and have the right to reject such as are not of the quality contracted. for. The physician shall, in like manner, inspect the medicines and hospital furniture.

Art. 265. All the articles manufactured in either of the said places which are not made for manufacturers by contract, in the manner hereinafter provided, shall be sold by the agent to the best advantage, under the direction of the inspectors.

Art. 266. Regular and minute accounts of the receipts and expenditures of each place of confinement, including the House of Refuge, shall be furnished each quarter by the inspectors to the governor, and yearly accounts to the legislature on the first day of their annual meeting.

Art. 267. All moneys appropriated by the legislature for the use of either of the said places, shall be drawn for by the board of inspectors as the same may be wanted, in favour of the cashier of the Louisiana State Bank, and shall by him be carried to the credit of the board of inspectors, in an account to be opened with them in their official capacity, for the use of the particular institution for which the appropriation is made (naming it in the account) between the bank and the inspectors.

Art. 268. Whenever the amount of money in the hands of the agent, received on account of either or all of the institutions, shall exceed three hundred dollars, he shall, within two days, deposit the same in the said bank to the credit of the account opened with the inspectors for the use of the prison to which it belongs.

Art. 269. No money shall be drawn from the bank, on either of the said accounts, but by a draft signed by a majority of the inspectors, specifying on account of which prison it is drawn, for what purpose, and to whom the amount is due.

Art. 270. All accounts or demands against the prisons shall be examined, allowed, and paid by the inspectors; and when they meet to settle such accounts, the agent shall act as their clerk and shall make regular entries in the books of all receipts and expenditures, to the account of the institution to which they belong; but a sum, not exceeding one hundred dollars, may be placed in the hands of each warden, and as much in the hands of the agent, to pay current expenses, to be accounted for monthly to the inspectors.

Art. 271. If either the inspectors or the agent shall fail in making any deposit in the manner and at the time directed by either of the three last preceding articles; or if the inspectors, or either of them, shall draw out of the bank any moneys belonging to or appropriated for either of the said places of confinement, including the House of Refuge, in any other manner than is above directed, the person so offending shall pay a fine of five hundred dollars; and if any of the said moneys which are either not deposited when by the said articles or either of them they ought to be, or are drawn out of the bank contrary to the directions of this chapter, shall be applied to any other use than to that of the said institutions, or one of them, the person guilty of such misapplication shall be dismissed from his office, be imprisoned, in close custody, for sixty days, and pay a fine of one thousand dollars.

Art. 272. The wardens of the several prisons shall deliver to the agent all the articles manufactured in their prisons respectively, which are not necessary for the use of such prison, except those articles manufac

tured in the House of Detention by the prisoners there who have provided their own materials, or who have made a different arrangement with the inspectors for the disposal of the proceeds of their labour; and excepting also the articles made for manufacturers by contract, in the Penitentiary, School of Reform, and House of Refuge and Industry.

Art. 273. The wardens of the Penitentiary and of the School of Reform shall each be allowed, in addition to their salaries,

per cent. on the gross amount of sales by the agent of the articles manufactured in their prisons respectively, after deducting only the cost of the materials employed in the articles so sold; and also

per cent. on the amount of sums paid for the labour of the convicts by manufacturers; but this allowance shall be forfeited for every year in which the wardens shall use any other means than those authorized by this Code to induce the convicts to labour, either by way of punishment or reward.

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Art. 274. The average number of deaths in the principal penitentiaries of the United States having been found to be about every hundred annually, (taking the average of the number of prisoners confined at all times during the year as the basis of the calculation for the whole number,) as an encouragement to use greater care and attention in lessening this rate of mortality, if the said proportion shall be in any one year reduced in the Penitentiary of this state more than one half of that average, the governor shall present to the physician books, surgical instruments, or plate, of the value of dollars, which testimonial shall be doubled in value if the proportion be reduced more than three-fourths.

Art. 275. The average number of re-convictions in the principal cities of the Union having been found to be about in every hundred annually of those committed to the Penitentiary in those cities; to lessen this proportion is the object of the reformatory part of prison discipline. To incite, therefore, the officers to a zealous discharge of this part of their duty, if in any one year, succeeding the third year after this Code shall have gone into operation, the number of re-commitments to the Penitentiary shall be less, in any one year, by one-half than that proportion, an honorary testimonial of that fact, consisting of a piece of plate of the value of dollars, shall be presented by

the governor to the inspectors, the wardens, the chaplains, and teachers, of the said prison; the value of which plate shall be doubled in any year in which the said proportion is reduced to less than three-fourths of the average above stated.

Art. 276. A similar testimonial shall be given to the matrons, if the like reduction takes place in the re-commitments of the female convicts. Art. 277. The amount requisite for the purchase of the testimonials aforesaid, shall be taken from the recompense fund, created by the Code of Criminal Procedure.

TITLE V.

OF THE DISCHARGE OF THE CONVICTS.

Art. 278. Whenever a convict shall be discharged by the expiration

of the term to which he was condemned, or by pardon, he shall take off the prison uniform and have the clothes which he brought to the prison restored to him, together with the other property, if any, that was taken from him on his commitment, that has not been otherwise legally disposed of.

Art. 279. A copy of his account with the prison, made out in the manner herein before directed, shall be given to him; and if the proceeds of his labour produce any balance in his favour, one half of such balance shall be paid him.

Art. 280. Before the convict is dismissed, the chapter of the Penal Code, "Of the Repetition of Offences," shall be read to him.

Art. 281. If the warden, the chaplain, and the teacher, have been. satisfied with the morality, industry, and order of his conduct, they shall give him a certificate to that effect.

Art. 282. One or more of the inspectors shall be present whenever a convict is discharged, who, as well as the officers of the prison, shall inquire into his future prospects and designs; shall aid him in an endeavour to procure an honest support, or to return to his friends; shall exhort him to perseverance in habits of industry; and if he can find no other employment, and is desirous of maintaining himself by labour, the warden shall admit him into the House of Refuge, hereinafter provided for.

Art. 283. If the warden shall discover that any discharged convict, instead of seeking to maintain himself by labour, shall associate with the idle and profligate, he shall immediately proceed against him as a vagrant, under the provisions for that purpose contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure.

TITLE VI.

HOW THE PROPERTY OF PERSONS CONDEMNED FOR CRIME SHALL BE DISPOSED OF.

CHAPTER I.

Of the property of convicts condemned to imprisonment and labour for a term.

Art. 284. The property of convicts condemned to imprisonment and labour, may be administered by curators during the term for which they are condemned. The letters of curatorship are revoked by their pardon or discharge; but such revocation does not invalidate legal acts done by the curator.

Art. 285. Any person who would be entitled to the curatorship of the convict, had he died on the day judgment was pronounced against him, shall be entitled to the curatorship.

Art. 286. The mode of proceeding to obtain the letters of curatorship shall be the same as that prescribed in case of death, except that, instead of alleging and proving the death of the party, the record of his condemnation shall be produced to the judge.

Art. 287. The curatorship, in case of condemnation, carries with it

all the consequences, responsibilities, rights, and duties, that result from a curatorship to a person deceased.

Art. 288. Curators and tutors may also be appointed to the persons and estates of the children of the convict, in the like manner and to the same persons who would have been entitled to the said offices if the convict had been dead.

Art. 289. The curatorships and tutorships, mentioned in the last article, are the same as to all rights, duties, and responsibilities, as they would have been had the appointment been made after the death of the convict; but they are revoked by his pardon or discharge, except in cases where his sentence incapacitates him from exercising those trusts. Art. 290. Those who would have been the heirs of a convict, sentenced to imprisonment for a term, cannot take the estate out of the hands of the curator; but if he have relations in the ascending or descending line, whom he was bound by law to support, the curator shall, out of the estate, provide for their sustenance.

Art. 291. All property given, or in any manner whatever accruing to a convict in the Penitentiary, shall vest in his curator, if he be sentenced for a term of years, to be disposed of in like manner with his other property; or if he be sentenced for life, shall vest in his heirs.

CHAPTER II.

Of the disposition of the property of convicts sentenced to imprisonment for life.

Art. 292. The same disposition shall be made of the estate of a person sentenced to imprisonment for life, as if he had died on the day sentence was pronounced; and any last will and testament or codicil he may have made prior to that time, shall take effect in the same manner as if he had died on that day.

Art. 293. But no disposition of any estate, either by will or otherwise, after the arrest for crime, of which the prisoner was convicted, in the case of any crime whether the sentence is for life or otherwise, shall be valid against the claim of the person entitled to a suit for the private injury committed by the crime, unless such disposition was made for a valuable and equivalent consideration to a person ignorant of the arrest.

A

BOOK III.

OF THE HOUSE OF REFUGE AND INDUSTRY.

TITLE I.

OF THE DESIGN OF THIS ESTABLISHMENT.

Art. 294. The object of this establishment is twofold: the first, to afford the means of voluntary employment to those who are able and willing to labour, and gratuitous support to those who are not; the second object is, to coerce those who, although capable of supporting themselves, prefer a life of idleness, vice, and mendicity, to one of honest labour.

Art. 295. As a House of Refuge, it is intended to afford to the discharged convict the means of support by voluntary labour, until, by degrees, he may regain the confidence of society; to prevent those offences of which poverty and want of employment are the real or pretended cause; and to relieve private charity from the unequal burthen of supporting the mendicant poor.

Art. 296. As a House of Industry, the establishment is intended to be a place of coercion and restraint for vagrants and able-bodied beggars; for the first, because their mode of life raises a just presumption that it is sustained by illegal depredations on a society to which they do not properly belong; for the second, because, by false pretences of inability, they impose on the charity of the public; and for both as a measure of preventive justice, because their voluntary idleness, unless corrected, will inevitably conduct them to vice, and crimes, and punishment.

TITLE II.

OF THE DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS OF THE HOUSE OF REFUGE AND INDUSTRY, AND OF THE DESCRIPTION OF PERSONS ADMITTED TO, AND CONFINED IN EACH.

Art. 297. The House of Refuge and Industry shall consist of two departments the one for voluntary, the other for forced labour;