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ALBANY 247 departments, park commissioners, assessors, &c. Among the local institutions most worthy of note are the merchants' exchange, the Dud- ley observatory, the Albany medical college, the law school of the university of Albany, the city hospital, the St. Peter's hospital, the Al- bany and the St. Vincent orphan asylums, the city dispensary, the home of the friendless, the Albany institute, the young men's association, the young men's Christian association, the Al- bany academy, the Albany female academy, the academy of the Sacred Heart, and the academy of the Christian Brothers. The Dud- ley observatory, named after Charles E. Dud- ley, once mayor of Albany and United States senator, and founded by the gifts of his widow (Mrs. Blandina Dudley) and others, was incor- porated in 1852 and dedicated in 1856. It has a valuable special library, a 13-inch equatorial instrument, a meridian circle, a transit instru- ment, a calculating and printing engine (the only one in the country), and self-recording meteorological instruments of many kinds. It gives exact time by telegraph to the city and to various railroads. The young men's associa- tion, formed in 1833, supports a lecture course during the winter, and has a library of above 12,000 volumes, and a reading room supplied with 75 papers and 30 other periodicals. It ia the oldest institution of the kind in the United The New Capitol at Albany, N. T. States, and has about 1,100 members. There are 54 churches: Baptist, 5; Congregational, 2; Protestant Episcopal, 6; Evangelical, 2; Friends', 1 ; Jewish, 3 ; Evangelican Lutheran, 4 ; Methodist Episcopal, 8 ; Presbyterian, 6 ; Reformed Protestant Dutch, 6 ; Koman Cath- olic, 10; and United Presbyterian, 1. A Re- formed Protestant Dutch church was formed in 1640, and a quaint edifice of this order stood in State street at Broadway till 1806. A Lu- theran church was formed in 1680, a Protes- tant Episcopal in 1715, and a Roman Catholic society in 1796. The communion plate of St. Peter's church was presented by Queen Anne for the Onondaga Indians. The number of public schools is 16, of which one is for colored children ; there is also a free academy with 8 teachers and 214 pupils. The penitentiary, situated on the west of the city, about a mile from the capitol, was built in 1845-'6, and has 600 cells. At the close of 1871 there were about 500 convicts, a large number of whom were prisoners of the United States. The con- tract system of labor is adopted, the men being employed in shoemaking and the women in chair-seating. The income exceeds the expen- diture by a sum varying from $10,000 to $20,- 000 a year, while in all the other penitentiaries of the state there is an annual deficiency of from $50,000 to $125,000. There are no pun-