of a
free citizen, living on a rancho or in the pueblo ; others were restricted to certain districts, or confined within boundaries ; while yet others were doomed to shackles and hard labor under supervision of the garrison. In those days it was small pain to be a great villain, though woeful to sin lightly.
Among the gold hunters, the ships that brought them out were sometimes turned into jails and peni- tentiaries under the name of prison brigs. San Fran- cisco boasted one of these, as likewifse did Sacramento. The EtcpJiemia, as the prison brig of San Francisco was called, was purchased about the first of August, 1849, with the first money appropriated by the town council, elected by order of General Riley. This was the first regularly appointed place of confinement where rogues and convicts were kept in custody.
When the old Euphemia proved inadequate to the rapidly increasing demand for prison facilities, other hulks were added to the prison service; and thus matters stood when in April, 1851, an act was passed by the legislature appointing a board of inspectors and giving James M. Estill, with whom was associated ]\1. G. Vallejo, a contract for the control of the state prison, prisoners, and hulks for a term of ten j'ears.
The time was one of dear labor and eccentric en- terprise ; and it was thought to be a grand thing if the institution could be made self-supporting, and the prisoners be obliged to work for their bread. In this way the state would be relieved from the expense of guarding and maintaining its felons. But the government soon saw that it had connnitted a most eorregrious error. The abuses were manifold and fla- grant. Public weal was soon dropped out of the management, and immediate pecuniary profit became the dominant purpose. Such of the prisoners as it was found profitable to keep at work, were kept at hard labor from daylight till dark, Sundays and other days, chopping wood, niaking brick, or performing contracts in which such kind of servitude was found
