The State Prisons Overflowing.
We learn by a letter from Sing Sing, that there are now in the male department of the Prison at that place, 1051 convicts with only 991 cells to accommodate them, and not shop room enough for all to work in. In the Female department there are stated to be 119 convicts, with but 85 cells for them. This makes for all, the unprecedented number of 1170 prisoners. In the month of January, alone, 56 were received, 46 of whom were from the city of New York. Nor is Sing Sing alone in its inadequacy to hold the convicts whom the law orders to be confined in it. From Auburn it is reported that the Prison is fuller than ever before; and last week it was said that but four vacant cells remained, since which time two or three more at least have gone there. Clinton Prison is also full. It looks as if crime was increasing so rapidly that an enlargement of all these institutions will soon be necessary. Measures looking to the enlargement of one or more of them have already been introduced in the legislature. It is not a cheering reflection to observe that the amount of crime and the number of criminals is daily and yearly increasing in our midst, in spite of all the educational development and philanthropic and religious enterprise of the age. With all our churches, schools, colleges, asylums and societies, we cannot prevent the tide of crime from swelling annually higher and higher.—Albany Jour.