Behavior of SEC. 27. In order that good behavior may be properly convicts; rewarded, it shall be the duty of the Board to provide, in its punishments rules and regulations, for a correct daily record of the con rewards and for. United States prisoners. Officers and employés not to receive duct of each prisoner, and of his fidelity and diligence in the performance of his work. Each one who is sentenced for a definite time shall be entitled to diminish the period of his sentence and receive a portion of his earnings, not to exceed in any case ten per cent. of his gross earnings, in the discre tion of the Board, and to citizenship, under the following rules and regulations: First-For each calendar month, commencing on the first day of the month next after his arrival at the prison, during which he shall not be guilty of any breach of discipline or of violating any of the rules or regulations of the prison, and shall labor with diligence and fidelity, he shall be allowed a deduction of five days from the period of his sentence, and a portion of his earnings, as provided for in this section. Second-For every violation of the rules, or breach of discipline, or want of fidelity and care in the performance of work, the convict shall not only forfeit all gained time and earnings for the month in which the delinquency occurs, but, according to the aggravated nature or frequency of the offense, the Board may deduct a portion or all of his previously gained time and money, or either of them. Third-If a convict shall pass the entire period of his sentence without any infraction of the rules or breach of discipline, he shall be entitled to a certificate thereof from the Warden, and on presenting it to the Governor, he shall be restored to citizenship. Fourth-If he is prevented from labor by sickness or other infirmity, not intentionally produced by himself, he shall be entitled, by good conduct, to a deduction of two and one-half days per month from the period of his sentence, and if indigent at the time of his discharge, he shall be supplied with the sum of ten dollars, to be paid out of the State Prison Fund. Fifth-Each convict who performed labor, but not on a contract, and whose conduct and fidelity entitle him to it, shall be allowed a sum, in lieu of earnings, which shall not exceed one-tenth of the average contract price in the prison, SEC. 28. All criminals sentenced to the State Prison by the authority of the United States, shall be received and kept according to the sentence of the Court by which they were tried, and the prisoners so confined shall be subject, in all respects, to the same discipline and treatment as though committed under the laws of this State. The Warden is hereby authorized to charge and receive from the United States, for the use of the State, for each prisoner, an amount sufficient for the support of such convicts, the cost of all clothing that may be furnished, and one dollar per month for the use of the prisoner, and if additional guards are required, the compensation of such guards; no other or further charge shall be made by any officer for or on account of such prisoners. SEC. 29. No officer or employé shall receive, directly or extra pay. indirectly, any other compensation for his services than that herein prescribed, nor shall he receive any compensation whatever, directly or indirectly, for any act or service which he may do or perform for or on behalf of any contractor, or agent or employé of a contractor; for every violation of this section, the officer, agent, or employé of the State engaged therein, shall be dismissed from his office or service, and every contractor, or employé or agent of a contractor, engaged therein, shall be expelled from the prison, and not again permitted within as a contractor, agent, or employé. to receive SEC. 30. No officer or employé of the State, or contractor Convicts not or employé of a contractor, shall make any gift or present to gifts. a convict, or receive any, or have any barter or dealings with a convict. For every violation of this section the party engaged therein shall incur the same penalty as is prescribed in section twenty-nine. disinterested SEC. 31. No officer or employé of the prison shall be inter- Officers to be ested, directly or indirectly, in any contract or purchase made, or authorized to be made, by the Steward; nor shall the Steward make any purchase or sales for or in behalf of the prison, in connection with any other party or interest what ever. SEC. 32. Every cost bill shall be presented to the Warden Cost bills. when a prisoner is delivered at the prison. The Warden shall certify on it that the prisoner has been received, and the bill shall then be audited and allowed by the Board of Examiners, and paid out of any moneys in the State treasury appropriated for that purpose. And it is hereby made the duty of the Board of Examiners, before auditing the claim, to correct any errors therein, as to form, items, or amount. SEC. 33. All the bonds of officers and employés, under Bonds. this Act, shall be deposited with the State Treasurer. fire. SEC. 34. If any of the shops or buildings, in which the Losses by convicts are employed, are destroyed or injured by fire, they may be rebuilt or repaired immediately, under the direction of the Board, and the expenses thereof paid out of any funds in the State treasury not otherwise appropriated by law. ified, etc. SEC. 35. The Directors and present contractors, or any of Contracts them, may, by agreement, modify existing contracts so as to be modmake them conform to the provisions of this Act; and the Directors may permit any bids now pending before them to be amended or altered so as to conform in every respect to the provisions of this Act, or may accept or reject them, according to the provisions hereof. SEC. 36. The Board must report to the Legislature, at each Pardons. regular session, the names of any persons confined in the State Prison who, in their judgment, ought to be pardoned and set at liberty, on account of good conduct or unusual terms of sentence, or any other cause which, in their opinion, should entitle such prisoner to pardon; and whenever the Legislature, by a majority vote of both houses, recommend to the Governor any or all the persons reported worthy of pardon, he may thereupon pardon such prisoners. SEC. 37. This Act shall take effect and be in force from and after the first Monday in January, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and eighty, except section twenty-one, which go into effect as soon as the present contracts for labor expire. SEC. 38. All Acts and parts of Acts in conflict with the provisions of this Act are hereby repealed. Minors may be apprenticed. By whom. Consent of minor necessary. Indentures. Same. CHAP. DLIII.-An Act relative to apprentices and masters. The People of the State of California, represented in Senate and SECTION 1. All minors, at the age of fourteen years, may be bound by covenant or indenture, in conformity with the stipulations herein specified, to any mechanical trade or art, or the occupation of farming, as apprentices; males, to the age of twenty-one years, and females to the age of eighteen. SEC. 2. Minors, at or above the age of fourteen years, may be bound by the father, or, in case of his death, incompetency, or where he shall have willfully abandoned his family for one year without making suitable provision for their support, or has become an habitual drunkard, vagrant, etc., then by their mother, or by their legal guardian; and if illegitimate, they may be bound by their mother; and if they have no parent competent to act, and no guardian, they may bind themselves, with the approbation of the County Court of the county where they reside; but the power of a mother to bind her children, whether legitimate or illegitimate, shall cease upon her subsequent marriage, and shall not be exercised by herself or her husband, at any time during her marriage, without the approval of the County Court of the county wherein she or he resides. SEC. 3. In all cases, the consent of the minor, personally, is required as a party to the covenant, and should be so expressed in the indenture, and testified by his or her signing the same. SEC. 4. Indentures shall be signed, sealed, and delivered in duplicate copies, in the presence of all the parties concerned, and when made with the approbation of the County Court, or the Judge thereof, in vacation, such approbation shall be certified in writing indorsed upon each copy of the indenture. One copy of the indenture shall be kept for the use of the minor by his parent or guardian (when executed by them, respectively), but when made with the approbation of the County Court, it shall be deposited in the safe-keeping of the Clerk of said Court for the use of the minor. The other copy shall be held by the master, and delivered up by him to the apprentice at the expiration of his term of service. SEC. 5. No indenture of apprentice, made in pursuance of this Act, shall bind the minor after the death of his master, but the apprenticeship shall be thenceforth discharged, and the minor may be bound out anew. SEC. 6. Facts of incapacity, desertion, drunkenness, va- Indentures. grancy, etc., shall be decided in the County Court by a jury, before the indenture shall take effect, and an indorsement on the indenture, under seal of the Court, that the charge or charges are proved, shall be sufficient evidence of the mother's power to give such consent; but if the jury do not find the charge or charges to be true, the person at whose instance such proceedings may have been had shall pay all costs attending the same. SEC. 7. The executor who, by the will of the father, is Executor directed to bring up his child to a trade or calling, shall have may bind. power to bind such by indenture in like manner as the father, if living, might have done. Court may bind. SEC. 8. When any minor who is poor, homeless, charge- County able to the county, or an outcast, has no visible means of obtaining an honest livelihood, it shall be lawful for the County Court to bind such apprentice until, if a male, he arrives at the age of twenty-one, and if a female, to the age of eighteen. SEC. 9. It shall be unlawful for any master to remove an Obligations apprentice out of this State; and in all indentures by the of masters. County Court for binding out any orphan or homeless minor as an apprentice, there shall be inserted, among other covenants, a clause to the following effect: that the master to whom such minor shall be bound shall cause the same to be taught to read and write, and the ground rules of arithmetic, the compound rules, and the ratio and proportion, and shall give him requisite instruction in the different branches of his trade or calling; and at the expiration of his term of service, shall give him two full new suits of clothes and the sum of fifty dollars, gold; and if a female, she shall receive two fine new suits of clothes and the sum of fifty dollars, gold; the two new suits in either case to be worth at least sixty dollars, gold. SEC. 10. All considerations of money or clothes paid or allowed by the master, in conformity with the foregoing section, are the sole property of the apprentice, and to whom the master is accountable for the same, and he shall pay or donate into the hand of the apprentice alone. SEC. 11. Parents and guardians and the County Court Treatment of shall, from time to time, inquire into the treatment of the apprentices. children bound by them respectively, or with their approbation; and the Judges of the County Courts shall be responsible for the charge of indentured apprentices bound by the approbation of their predecessors in office, and defend them. from all cruelty, neglect, breach of contract, or misconduct on the part of their masters. SEC. 12. The age of every apprentice shall be inserted in Age to be the indenture, and all indentures entered into, otherwise stated. than as is herein provided, shall be, as to all apprentices under age, utterly void. SEC. 13. The County Court shall hear the complaints of Court to hear apprentices who reside within the county, against their mas- complaints. ters, alleging undeserved or immoderate correction, insufficient allowance of food, raiment, or lodging, want of instruc Court may discharge tion in the different branches of their trade or calling, or that they are in danger of being removed out of the State, or any violation of the indenture of apprenticeship; and the Court may hear and determine such cases, and make such order therein as will relieve the party injured in future. SEC. 14. The County Court shall have power, where cirapprentice, cumstances require it, to discharge an apprentice from his apprenticeship, and in case any money or other thing has been paid, or contracted to be paid by either party, in relation to such apprenticeship, the Court shall make such order concerning the same as shall seem just and reasonable. If the apprentice so discharged shall have been originally bound by the County Court, it shall be the duty of the Court, if found necessary, again to bind such apprentice, if under age. Liability of master. Action against apprentice misdemeanor, etc. SEC. 15. Every master shall be liable to an action on the indenture for the breach of any covenant on his part therein contained; and all damages recovered in such action, after deducting the necessary charges in prosecuting the same, shall be the property of the minor, and shall be applied and appropriated to his use by the person who shall recover the same, and shall be paid to the minor, if a male, at the age of twenty-one years, and if a female, at the age of eighteen years. If such action is not brought during the minority of such apprentice, it may be commenced in his own name at any time within six months after coming of age, but not later than two years. SEC. 16. An apprentice who shall be guilty of any gross misbehavior, or refusal to do his duty, or willful neglect for neglect, thereof, shall render himself liable to the complaint of the master to the County Court of the county wherein he resides, which complaint shall set forth the circumstances of the case; and to said complaint shall be attached a citation, signed by the Clerk in said Court, requiring the apprentice and all persons who have covenanted in his behalf, to appear and answer to such complaint, which complaint and citation shall be served on them in the usual manner of serving civil process. Court may dissolve ap SEC. 17. The Court shall proceed to hear and determine prenticeship. the cause, and after a full hearing of the parties, or if the adverse party shall neglect to appear after due notice, the Court may render judgment or decree that the master be discharged from the contract of apprenticeship, and for the costs of suit; such costs to be recovered of the parent or guardian of the minor, if there be any who signed the indenture, and execution therefor issued accordingly; and if there be no parent or guardian liable for such costs, execuCosts. tion may be issued therefor against the minor, or the amount thereof may be recovered in an action against him after he shall arrive at full age. SEC. 18. The parties to an indenture shall also be liable to the master in an action on the indenture, for the breach of any covenant on their part therein contained, committed before the master was so discharged from such indenture. |