Section 2. Appropriations for Improvements; Railroad Connection; Commitments
Whenever the managers of the House of Correction, Employment and Reformation, shall desire to make any additional permanent improvement, or purchase additional ground, and shall recommend that the same be done, and after the Committee of Councils of Philadelphia on House of Correction shall indorse the said recommendation, then the councils of the City of Philadelphia shall make all necessary appropriations asked for by the said managers, for the purposes so recommended; and the managers of the House of Correction, Employment and Reformation, shall have power to superintend and direct the erection, completion and furnishing of said buildings during the progress of the said work. The said managers may extend from their property a single track railroad along and over such lands as may intervene between their ground and the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad Company, and connect therewith: Provided, The said railroad company assent thereto (the distance of the said road not to exceed two thousand yards), and to purchase right of way over the land to Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad, and to erect wharves upon their property; the managers may provide for such inmates as may be necessary to aid in the construction of the permanent building, and after the two first wings have been furnished, the said board of managers shall have full and entire control to regulate the inmates therein, and shall, at such times as they think proper, certify to the court of quarter sessions and to the board of managers at the Blockley Almshouse, which court and managers, and the inspectors of the Philadelphia County Prison, respectively, thereafter may commit to the said House of Correction, Employment and Reformation, such able- bodied paupers and vagrants as may have been committed or sentenced to be confined in the county prison or Blockley Almshouse for a period of not less than three months; and it shall be the duty of the said judges of the court of quarter sessions, and the Inspectors of the Philadelphia County Prison, to commit to said House of Correction, Employment and Reformation, all vagrants, habitual drunkards, street walkers and disorderly persons, adults or minors, whom they may deem best to so confine; and it shall be the duty of the managers of the Blockley Almshouse, managers of the poor for Township of Germantown, managers of Lower Dublin and Oxford Poorhouse, to transfer, within twenty-four hours after entrance in said almshouse, all able-bodied paupers, adults or minors, except such as may be necessary to employ in the service of said almshouses. 1871, June 2, P.L. 1301, Sec. 2.