figures at a glance: the production of gold in the past five years has
amounted to more than $1,100,000,000; and if production should
increase during the next five years in anything like the ratio of the
past five years, it may be that a new economic problem, the very
antithesis of that alluded to in the commencement of this paper, may
present itself for solution. At all events, the cry of the Populists
and others that increasing scarcity of gold is the cause of much of
the poverty and of other ills of mankind, must surely be drowned in
the golden stream now flowing from all quarters of the globe, almost
threatening to become a rushing torrent, dangerous to the stable
foundations of the world's commerce. That this, however, fortunately
is an imaginary danger will appear from the following arguments:
Modern gold-getting by scientific methods compels the permanent
investment of an enormous amount of capital, and a moderate return
only in dividend is looked for as a rule; thus the balance between
acquisition and disbursement is likely to be maintained in the future.
One of the chief causes of the extraordinary increase of production in
very recent years is to be found in the application of the "cyanide
process" to the recovery of gold from "tailings." This process is also
largely applied to obtaining gold from very low-grade ores, that, in
some cases, contain an average of less than one quarter of an ounce of
gold distributed throughout a ton of ore! At the present time there
are about twenty-five cyanide plants in this country, and over forty
in the Transvaal, where the process has received its greatest
development.
Although the fact that cyanide of potassium would dissolve gold quite
readily was known long ago, having been employed by Faraday in his
experiments with thin films of transparent gold, and used very
extensively in the making of solutions of gold for electroplating
baths during fifty years past, the practical application of the
solvent to obtaining gold from low-grade ores is less than ten years
old.
In Utah there is a dry bed of an ancient lake, the floor of which may
be said to be carpeted with gold; according to a recent report this
bed of limestone, eight miles by ten, varying from twenty to forty
feet in thickness, and containing gold in proportion running from six
to twenty dollars per ton, is an "ideal ore" for treatment by the
cyanide process. A number of cyanide mills are now working the
deposit, all paying dividends, and it is said that the only limit to
output is the capacity of the mills. It is estimated that there are
"5,000,000,000 tons of ore in the district, containing $50,000,000,000
worth of gold!" Although this statement is startling, the estimate is
not a wild guess, for the blanket of ore has been cut in many places;
hundreds of samples have been taken from different depths, and in all
cases the finely distributed gold has been found, apparently having
been deposited from solution in a mineral water which formed the lake
in prehistoric times.
A similar deposit of silver was found in New Mexico about twenty years
ago and was christened the "Silver Lake" Mine. This was worked
profitably until the great fall in price of silver made the operation
a losing one. The "blanket" still contains millions of ounces of
silver, and it is probable that cheaper methods of recovering the
metal from the ore will be devised whenever the price of silver shall
have fallen low enough to enable it to take its place among the
so-called "economic" metals, having far wider application in the arts
than have the precious metals. At present silver holds an unfortunate
place "betwixt and between" the precious and the economic metals.
Twenty years ago aluminum was more valuable than silver is to-day, and
its production was correspondingly limited. Last year the price was
reduced to a point which so widely extended its use that the
production increased from 1,900 pounds in 1888 to more than 5,000,000
in 1898.
Although the gold deposit in the Camp Floyd district in Utah already
alluded to may actually contain several billions of dollars' worth of
gold, it will cost some billions of dollars' worth of labor and
capital to recover the precious metal and will consume much time in
the process; so that there is little reason to fear that gold will
become so plentiful on account of this discovery that it will cease to
be regarded as a precious metal. About forty years ago the assayers of
the United States Mint announced that the clay underlying the city of
Philadelphia contained more gold than had been brought from California
and Australia, and this remarkable statement has never been disproved
or even questioned. The gold, however, still remains locked fast in
the clay, and the value of the precious metal has not yet fallen in
consequence of the announcement of this old discovery. At that time
the idea of profitably recovering gold from low-grade ores had not
been born, and it is an interesting fact to note that in California
gold is now being obtained from clay (by hydraulic washing methods) in
which there is but little more than the average proportion of gold to
the ton that the assayers found in the clay under the streets of
Philadelphia. This does not prove, however, that it will now pay to
excavate under the streets of the Quaker City, and undermine the
buildings in order to wash out this gold, and until Philadelphia shall
be provided with a far more copious water supply the most sanguine or
suave promoter of great undertakings would find it impossible to
obtain subscriptions to any scheme to recover this fugitive gold, or
even, perhaps, difficult to give away shares of stock to influential
individuals either in or out of councils.
An impression has prevailed that the production of gold in South
Africa attained its maximum point in 1897, and that thenceforth the
animal output would be smaller. On account of this fear the "Kaffirs"
(South African gold-mining stocks) suffered a decline in the London
stock market some months ago, but the statistics showed that the
output during the first half of 1898 was larger than in the previous
half year, and in the latter months of the year the increase was even
more pronounced.
In an address given before the Mining and Metallurgical Section of the
Franklin Institute on Mining and Minting of Gold and Silver in
November last, the writer said that the production of gold in South
Africa in 1898 would not fall far short of $70,000,000, and would
probably be nearer $80,000,000. The estimate of the Director of the
Mint fixes the amount almost at the latter figure. The United States,
in spite of the considerable increase over 1897, takes second place as
a world's producer of gold, Africa having contributed in 1898 an
amount equal to that of the United States and Canada (including the
Klondike) combined.
The startling announcements of discoveries of virgin gold in the
Klondike and of rich placer gold deposits in other localities have had
little to do with the enormous increase in production of gold in the
world in recent years, though formerly such discoveries constituted
the main source of supply of the precious metal. Digging for nuggets
is a lottery pure and simple, in which a few prizes are obtained and
many losses are suffered. It is said that for every dollar in gold
taken out of the Klondike to date, two dollars have been carried in,
and this is perhaps a conservative estimate. In fact, it is easy to
prove by figures, if the value of labor be counted even at the lowest
wage rate, say one dollar per diem, that far more money has been lost
by the many gold-seekers than has been gained by the few fortunate
ones in this twentieth-century search for the golden fleece.
The business of extracting gold from low-grade ores by scientific
methods on a large scale, where the precious metal is evenly
distributed throughout the matrix or gangue, is a legitimate field for
the investment of capital, because the element of chance is reduced to
a minimum, and even may be eliminated altogether. The margin of profit
per ton of ore is not large as a rule in these operations, and thus
the stability of value of the product is assured, whatever the output
may be.
"TREASURY DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF THE MINT,
"WASHINGTON, D. C., _February 1, 1899_.
"_Alexander E. Outerbridge, Jr., Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania._
"SIR: In answer to the inquiries in your letter of January
31st, I take pleasure in sending you such information on the
production of gold in the principal gold-producing countries
in 1898 as is at this early day available, comparing it
with the gold output of the same countries in 1897. And
first of the United States:
"Inclosed you will find an estimate made by the agents of
the bureau of the gold yield of the several States and
Territories in 1898. The aggregate outturn was $65,782,667.
It must be clearly borne in mind that this is only an
_estimate_, not the ascertained actual production. In 1897
the gold product of the United States was $57,363,000.
Assuming the estimate of the gold product of the United
States in 1898 to be correct, there was an increase in the
latter year over the gold yield of 1897, in round numbers,
of $8,420,000.
"The gold product of the Witwatersrand in 1898 was 4,295,602
ounces crude, and of the whole of the South African Republic
4,555,009 ounces crude, representing a value of $79,801,025.
"As the gold product of the Transvaal in 1897 was
$57,633,861, the increase in 1898 was $22,167,164. The
figures here given are those published in all the leading
papers interested in such matters in England and on the
European continent. They are not, any more than the figures
given below, official to the Bureau of the Mint.
"I have not yet seen any figures of the total gold product
of Australia in 1898, but the output of five out of the
seven colonies has been published. The figures are as
follows:
-------------------------+----------------+----------------
| 1897. | 1898.
| Ounces crude. | Ounces crude.
-------------------------+----------------+----------------
New South Wales | 292,217 | 341,722
New Zealand | 251,645 | 280,176
Queensland | 805,928 | 918,100
Victoria | 812,765 | 837,258
West Australia | 674,994 | 1,050,183
+----------------+----------------
Total | 2,837,549 | 3,527,439
| | 2,837,549
| +----------------
| | 689,890
-------------------------+----------------+----------------
"There was an increase in the gold product of these five
colonies of $13,107,910, the ounce crude averaging about $19
in value. The total gold product of Australia in 1898 was,
as I estimate it, about $67,792,000. In 1897 it was
$55,684,182. As yet no figures of the gold output of the two
Australian colonies--Tasmania and South Australia--have come
under my observation.
"Persons not connected with the bureau, but whose opinions
are entitled to respect, have estimated the increase in
India's gold output in 1898 at about $500,000, and in that
of Canada (including the Klondike) at $8,000,000. I have
thus far no data on which to predicate an increase or
decrease in the gold yield of Russia. The product of these
last-mentioned countries in 1897 was:
India $7,247,500
Canada 6,027,100
Russia 23,245,700
"The increase in the principal countries mentioned above, of
their gold product in 1898 over 1897, reduced to a table,
gives a total of $52,195,000, as follows:
United States $8,420,000
South African Republic 22,167,000
Australia 13,108,000
Canada 8,000,000
India 500,000
-----------
Total $52,195,000
"The world's product in 1897 was $237,504,800. In 1898 it
will probably not be less than $289,699,800. My opinion is
that it will be somewhere between $290,000,000 and
$300,000,000.
"If any further information reaches me within a week or two,
I shall be glad to communicate it to you.
"Respectfully yours,
"GEORGE E. ROBERTS, _Director of the Mint_."
_Agents' Estimate, January 1st, of the Production of Gold in the
United States for 1898._
States and Territories. Gold.
Alaska $2,039,930
Arizona 3,185,490
California 14,883,721
Colorado 24,500,000
Idaho 2,273,902
Michigan 65,000
Montana 5,209,302
Nevada 2,959,731
New Mexico 360,000
Oregon 1,343,669
South Dakota 5,841,406
Texas 7,500
Utah 2,170,543
Washington 599,483
Wyoming 5,168
South Appalachian States 337,832
-----------
Total $65,782,677
THE CALIFORNIA PENAL SYSTEM.
BY CHARLES HOWARD SHINN.
Theoretically every new commonwealth in organizing its institutions
can measurably avoid the errors of older communities, and can venture
upon promising experiments elsewhere untried. In practice, however,
new States are usually compelled to face unforeseen difficulties, and
although their various departments gain something in flexibility, they
lose in systematic organization. They have the faults as well as the
virtues of the pioneer.
Penology, like every other department of human thought, is a
battlefield of opposing principles. But I know of nothing in print
more inspiring to the officers of the State engaged in prison and
reform work than Herbert Spencer's Essay on Prison Ethics. It is
likely that many of the people who should read it are not aware of its
value and interest to themselves. Beginning at the foundations, Mr.
Spencer makes a lucid exposition of the necessity of "a perpetual
readjustment of the compromise between the ideal and the practicable
in social arrangements." As he points out, gigantic errors are always
made when abstract ethics are ignored.
If society has the right of self-protection, it has, as Mr. Spencer
asserts, the right to coerce a criminal. It has authority to demand
restitution as far as possible, and to restrict the action of the
offender as much as is needful to prevent further aggressions. Beyond
this point absolute morality countenances no restraint and no
punishment. The criminal does not lose all his social rights, but only
such portion of those rights as can not be left him without danger to
the welfare of the community.
But absolute morality also requires that while living in durance the
offender must continue to maintain himself. It is as much his business
to earn his own living as it was before. All that he can rightfully
ask of society is that he be given an opportunity to work, and to
exchange the products of his labor for the necessaries of life. He has
no right to eat the bread of idleness, and to still further tax the
community against which he has committed an aggression. "On this
self-maintenance equity sternly insists." If he is supported by the
taxpayers the breach between himself and the true social order is
indefinitely widened.
Such principles as these could easily have been made a fundamental
part of the California prison system when the State was organized, for
the famous Code of Reform and Prison Discipline, prepared about 1826
by a New Orleans lawyer, Edward Livingston, was well known to some of
the ablest men of pioneer California, and a strong effort was made to
obtain its adoption in complete form. That remarkable code known as
the Livingston system agrees with the Spencerian principles of ethics,
and has been a source of inspiration for the most advanced penal
legislation of recent years. Louisiana adopted it only in part, but
Belgium has the Livingston code in its entirety. California, suffering
under difficult local conditions, took a course in the liberal pioneer
days that has for a time rendered progress along the lines of modern
development extremely difficult.
[Illustration: WARDEN W. E. HALE, of San Quentin.]
California is a large and populous State, many portions of which are
thinly settled and hard to reach. In early days it had many Spanish
and Mexican outlaws, and became a refuge for criminals from all parts
of the world. When the State was organized, money was extremely
abundant, and every one had golden dreams. The idea of self-supporting
prisons seemed absurd, not only because the rich young State seemed
capable of supporting any expense, but also because no manufactures
were yet established, and the most active penologist would have found
it hard to find suitable employment for prisoners.
As time went on, the very strong labor unions of California, aided by
many newspapers and politicians, accepted the principle that every
dollar a convict earned was taken from some citizen, and that the
State was bound to support its criminals in idleness. Numbers of good
and earnest men in the service of the State as prison commissioners,
wardens, and other officials studying methods elsewhere and mindful of
local conditions, have made untiring efforts to stir the public
conscience, and to gain recognition of a criminal's right to earn his
own living by productive labor. As long ago as 1872 Hon. E. T. Crane,
of Alameda County, chairman of a joint Assembly and Senate committee,
made an excellent and progressive report on prison reforms. Something
has been gained since then, and, though working under adverse
conditions, the prisons have been excellently managed. But these
results are due to individuals, not to the system, nor to the
well-meant but often injurious enactments of legislatures meeting
biennially for only sixty days.
Under the system of biennial State appropriations, nearly all
institutions suffer at times from mistaken kindness, and at other
times from undue parsimony. Since there is no general supervising
board for the two State prisons and the two State reform schools, and
no settled ratio of appropriation based upon the number of inmates,
the friends of each institution naturally do their best to obtain as
large appropriations as possible from each new legislature. Hence
arise special visiting committees and combinations between legislators
from different parts of the State to "take care of" institutions whose
regular annual income should not be dependent in the least upon
politics.
The appropriations made by the last two legislatures for all purposes
connected with prisons and reform schools, including salaries of
officials, are shown in the following table:
_State Appropriations from July 1, 1895, to July 1, 1899
(Forty-seventh to Fiftieth Fiscal Years, inclusive)._
----------------------------+----------------+---------------
NAME OF INSTITUTION. | Sum granted. |Average yearly
| | grants.
----------------------------+----------------+---------------
San Quentin Prison | $615,153.40 | $153,788.35
Folsom Prison | 488,000.00 | 109,500.00
Preston School of Industry | 237,000.00 | 59,250.00
Whittier State School | 403,000.00 | 100,750.00
Transportation of prisoners | 150,000.00 | 37,500.00
+----------------+--------------
Totals | $1,848,153.40 | $460,988.35
----------------------------+----------------+--------------
Some small appropriations for improvements are necessarily included in
these totals, but nothing more than may be expected every year or two.
It is proper to rate the average annual expense of these institutions
at nearly half a million dollars, nor can this sum be materially
reduced until the State accepts the fundamental principle that prisons
should be made nearly or quite self-supporting.
San Quentin was once managed to some extent on the contract system.
Furniture-makers and other manufacturers paid half a dollar a day for
each convict employed, and at one time as many as eight hundred men
were thus utilized, giving the prison an income of twenty-four hundred
dollars a week. The system was so violently attacked by labor unions
that it was finally abandoned, and now I am told that convict-made
furniture, stoves, and other articles such as were formerly made at
San Quentin are brought to California from Joliet, Illinois, and other
places by the carload.
Having abandoned the contract system, the State decided to make jute
bags, chiefly for grain, and to sell them as nearly as possible at
cost direct to the consumers, so as to help the agricultural classes.
Machinery costing $400,000 was obtained in England, and after many
difficulties a factory was established at San Quentin. The price of
raw material fluctuates greatly, and the mill has sometimes lost
money, sometimes made a somewhat nominal profit. During the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1891, for instance, 2,574,254 pounds of goods
were manufactured at a total operating expense of $160,684.07, and
were sold at a price which nominally gave $40,275.07 profit. But no
sinking fund was allowed for, to cover wear and tear of machinery, nor
did the operating expenses include even the maintenance of the
convicts while at work. The following fiscal year the profit estimated
in the same way was $39,293.18. During the fiscal year 1893-'94 the
loss on the jute mill was $14,660.22; in 1894-'95 there was a profit
of $6,670.56; and in 1895-'96 a loss of $12,288.45.
In five years, therefore, there was nominally a profit of about
$60,000 in this department, but since neither interest, sinking fund,
nor maintenance of the laborers is included among the expenses, the
system can be looked upon only as a means of giving needed exercise to
the prisoners and cheap grain sacks to the farmers. Financially it is
a burden to the taxpayers. The old contract system had its drawbacks,
but it at least afforded a profit, and gave convicts a chance of
learning something about certain trades at which they could perhaps
work when released; the jute mill not only offers no such opportunity,
but is in other ways peculiarly unfit for modern prison requirements,
since all operations in such mills can be stopped or delayed by the
misbehavior of a few operatives. Far better are industries wherein
small groups or individuals are engaged in various separate minor
operations. Besides this, the sacks made by prison labor will probably
have only local uses hereafter, because of a recent act of Parliament
which is held to prevent wheat shipments in such sacks.
The Folsom Prison owns a magnificent water power and enormous quarries
of granite. Between 1888 and 1894 convict labor amounting to 683,555
days were expended upon a dam, canal, and powerhouse, and over 2,000
horse power can already be used. About 250 horse power is now utilized
by the prison for electric lights, ice manufacture, and other
purposes. The quarries are being worked to some extent, and crushed
rock for roads is sold at cost or nearly so. There is a farm that
supplies many articles at less cost than if purchased in the market.
At Folsom, as at San Quentin, the authorities do all in their power to
economize, and to utilize convict labor, but the policy of the State
prevents definite progress.
Meanwhile the reports of the prison directors and wardens and the
messages of Governors have urged in the strongest terms a change. The
biennial report of 1892-'93 and 1893-'94 says respecting the great
Folsom water power: "If we can use this power solely with regard to
profitable results to the State, we can return each year a surplus
into the State treasury. We do not think that the State should refrain
from working its convicts or utilizing its advantages because it may
have some effect upon other businesses. All over the United States
prisoners are engaged in manufacturing, and our investigations lead us
to believe that the effect of prison competition, so called, is
greatly overestimated."
[Illustration: FOLSOM STATE PRISON.]