Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 25.pdf/346

 The Legal World court and his maternal grandfather, Andrew S. Woods, was the Chief Justice of the court at one time. Judge Bing ham is the first United States Circuit Judge New Hampshire has ever had.

Jldministration of Prisons in New York The administration of Sing Sing Prison is severely arraigned in a report made to Governor Sulzer of New York by George W. Blake, the Governor's special investigator of prisons and reformatories. Mr. Blake revives the story of the prison ring that controls a traffic in pardons and commutations of sentence. The report opens with a bitter attack on Warden Kennedy and on Col. Joseph F. Scott, who was removed as Superin tendent of State Prisons by Governor Sulzer. Colonel Scott was appointed after a successful administration, cover ing more than ten years, of the affairs of the Elmira Reformatory. He was considered one of the foremost penol ogists in the country. The report says in part : — "Warden Kennedy has violated the law, he has permitted the creation and continuance of unbusinesslike methods and has caused the state to lose thoussands of dollars in a way that points directly to graft. He has made no attempt to protect the inmates from disease and vice, nor any effort to pro duce better conditions in this prison. During his administration scandals of the prison management have become rife in every section of the state. "I do not wish to bear too heavily upon Warden Kennedy, because I am strongly of the opinion that the facts set forth in this statement are due directly to Joseph F. Scott, who was for nearly two years Superintendent of Prisons. I have dug into the sterile soil of prison management to discover,

325

if possible, one redeeming trait in the management of prisons of this state dur ing the period in which Colonel Scott was in control, but I have not found one sign to show that he was either competent, conscientious, or industri ous."

Philadelphia Law Association The Law Association of Philadelphia, at a meeting held June 3, unanimously adopted the following resolution oppos ing the recall : — "Resolved, That we are unalterably opposed to any change in the Constitu tion of this state, or of the United States, by which, by a vote of the people, the terms of office of duly elected or ap pointed judges may be shortened, or their judicial decisions be vacated or set aside." A resolution in favor of the passage of a similar resolution by the state bar association was also unanimously adopted. George Wentworth Carr explained why the committee charged with the introduction of a Municipal Court bill in the legislature had been unable to get a Senator to propose the form of constitutional amendment agreed upon, looking to the establishment of a Muni cipal Court. This was due to the prefer ence of members of the Senate for a different sort of Municipal Court, which would not abolish the magistrates and make a constitutional amendment neces sary. Therefore the plan of the Law Association would have to wait until the pending bill had been disposed of. The Committee on Legislation pre sented a report in which objections to House Bill 1789, regulating civil plead ing and practice, were stated. The committee, however, admitted that the bill contained a number of admirable