ed them, to grant a very large number of tickets-of-leave. Now, however, these licences are more sparingly issued; the numbers for the last four years being, in 1856, 2892; in 1857, 922; in 1858, 312, and in 1859, 252 only. Mr. Redgrave thinks that the limited number now granted, will prove to be an additional safeguard to the public, and a wholesome restraint to the discharged convict. Probably Mr. Redgrave is right. The ticket-of-leave man-supposing always that the discharge has been discriminately granted-knowing that he is watched by, and under the direct control of the police, may, perhaps, be restrained from re-entering the path of crime, and thus attain to habits of industry, while, if discharged only at the termination of his sentence, no such restraint would exist. A limited system of this nature may prove beneficial, and is undoubtedly one which deserves a fair trial.

There is room for improvement in the sanitary condition of the convicts. The numbers of the sick were:

These numbers show that on an average only about three-tenths of the total number of convicts escaped last year from serious illness, and that each convict must have been slightly indisposed more than ten times in the course of the same year.

The state of the discipline of the prisons may, on the whole, be considered as tolerably satisfactory. The number of severe punishments inflicted is not, considering the nature of the prison population, inordinately high. But it would have been well if Mr. Redgrave had devoted a few lines in his Report to the enumeration of some of the principal offences against prison discipline, the punishments for which are recorded in the returns. The reports, however, so far as regards sickness and punishments, are extremely meagre, and might with advantage be somewhat extended. The number of punishments in the two years were :—

The prison establishments contained in 1859, 1188, and in 1858, 1194 male and female officers of all ranks; being, in 1859, in proportion to 1 in 5.6, and in 1858, to 1 in 6.6, of the daily average number of prisoners.

Excluding gratuities paid to the convicts on their discharge, and allowances for their clothing and travelling (which, on the whole, amount to a sum averaging about £20,000 annually), the expenses of the convict prisons were :

£262,473 11 3
33 7 6

...

Total, £247,716 14 4
31 19 3

Average per convict From these sums, however, must be deducted actual receipts for rent of officers' quarters, charges for officers' uniforms, and sales of old stores, &c., which amounted, in 1859, to £5421, and in 1858, to £5254; and also the value of productive labour paid over to the exchequer, and which amounted in 1859 to £6339, and in 1858 to £7762. These deductions bring the actual cost of each convict down to £30: 8: 11 in 1859, and £31: 14: 10 in 1858. But yet the average cost is high compared to that of each prisoner in the county and borough prisons. Mr. Redgrave accounts for this, although in obscure language, as follows :-"The population of the convict prisons cannot be assimilated to that of the county and borough prisons. To the former are removed all those whose periods of detention are the most lengthened, whose characters are the most depraved and dangerous, and also those who, from sickness and other causes, are impediments to the more restricted discipline which it is possible to maintain in a local prison, where all classes must be detained till trial or the expiration of a short sentence. Again, the convicts of such varied

capabilities have to be set to work, or employed in some manner not only to render their labour as far as practicable productive to the state, but as an essential means of discipline over large bodies undergoing sentences of long duration. The above averages are therefore affected in amount by all those considerations. The charges for supervision, diet, and other items of prison charge, are enhanced. Such a class of prisoners require more supervision, and cannot be maintained for lengthened periods, especially at hard labour, without better and more nutritive diet." After referring to the deductions in respect of receipts which we have already noticed, Mr. Redgrave proceeds-" It is also an important consideration, that so large a number of able-bodied convicts are profitably employed in public works for the Admiralty and War Departments, as well as in the construction of the convict prisons; and the value of such work must deduct very largely from the costs of the convicts, though there may be some difficulty in estimating exactly the sums to which the net average would be reduced."-(Rep. 1859, p. xxxiii.)

The director-general of convict prisons, by whom the returns relating to those prisons are made, appended to his return for 1858, a calculation as to the value in that year of convict labour. He calculates that the "value of the labour of convicts employed on Admiralty and Ordnance works at Portland, Portsmouth, and Chatham; in manufactories of various kinds at Millbank, Pentonville, Brixton, Fulham, Dartmoor, and Parkhurst, with work performed on the farms at the two last-mentioned places, and for prison purposes generally, as distinguished from the amount paid in respect of productive labour into the Exchequer," amounts to no less a sum than £115,673 4s. Mr. Redgrave, however, points out, that although convict labour, when for public purposes, as at the dockyards and the Portland breakwater, may be fairly valued in diminution of the charge on the public, yet any portion of convict labour which is for prison purposes is, so far as it has a value, directly in diminution of the prison expenses, and that therefore it would be erroneous to make any estimated reduction on account of such labour as a separate credit.-(Rep. 1858, p. xxx.)

But all these calculations must be of a very uncertain character, and, moreover, some of the work done by convict labour is probably not of such a nature as may be actually necessary, and as would be undertaken if there were no convicts to employ. We may instance the Portland breakwater itself, which seems to have been constructed with the object of affording a convenient harbour to an invading enemy, and which has rendered considerable fortifications necessary where none would otherwise have been required.

The last, and the most incomplete and incorrect, returns in the criminal portion of these volumes, relate to criminal lunatics. They comprise two tables; the first gives the number of criminal lunatics and insane persons "undergoing detention in lunatic asylums, hospitals, and licensed houses, with the conditions and periods of their detention in the year ended September 29, 1859;" the second gives the number of lunatics "undergoing detention, committed, and discharged or removed" in the same year, "with the costs." The crimes committed by these lunatics, and in respect of which they are held in custody, are not in any way noticed in the returns, but are tabulated by Mr. Redgrave in his Reports; who, however, does not state from what sources the information necessary for the purpose has been obtained. The system, adopted by Mr. Redgrave on more than one occasion, of scattering the information at his command, partly in one place and partly in another, is slovenly and unsatisfactory, and the turning backwards and forwards from the return to the report, and from the report to the return, to which one is now subjected before the required information can be collected, is wearisome and harassing in the extreme. We must endeavour now, however, to make the best of the materials before us.

There were in 1859, in England and Wales, thirty-five county asylums, three borough asylums, three hospitals, eight metropolitan and ten provincial licensed houses, in which criminal lunatics were detained. The numbers of these unfortunate persons under detention in each of the last two years, with the number of deaths, discharges, removals, &c., are given bel

There is a yearly increase in the numbers remaining under detention at the close of the year. Mr. Redgrave says, the number in 1857 was 618, and in 1856, 597; and accounts for the increase on the supposition of greater police vigilance, in providing for the safe detention of insane persons, combined with the fact, that the period of detention is not limited to a fixed number of years. We must observe, however, that the numbers are not correct, for the number of lunatics remaining under detention at the end of 1857, is not the same as the number under detention at the commencement of the next year, and the same remark applies to the years 1858 and 1859. Wherein the error lies, we are unable to say.

We now proceed to the table we have before referred to as contained in the reports. In this table are set forth the offences with which the persons were charged, the "conditions" under which they are detained,1 and the periods for which they have been under detention. We cannot here give this table in full; and accordingly we shall condense the various offences into the six classes which have been previously mentioned in this article, adding only one or two offences (if they may be so called) peculiar to insane persons, and noting the numbers detained in

Two Acts were passed in the late session relative to the detention of lunatics; the one applies to criminal lunatics, and the other to debtor lunatics. [Notice of these Acts will be found in the article, in this Number, on "The Acts and Bills of the Session, 1860."-ED.]