I failed to find any return of the number of floggings under a judicial sentence during the year 1911-12, but the floggings for breaches of prison-discipline have gone up from 23 to 30 as compared with the previous year-and the greater part of these were inflicted in the local prisons where discipline is maintained without flogging in both Ireland and Scotland. These floggings are inflicted as the result of private trial before the Visiting Justices in which the prisoner has no legal assistance. The sentences must be affirmed by the Home Secretary, and he interfered with several of them, but merely by way of reduction. What information had he before him when dealing with these sentences? Is the evidence given before the Visiting Justices taken down by a shorthand writer and transmitted to the Home Secretary? I doubt it. At all events, if the Home Office has full information on the subject, it does not communicate that information to the public. The offence for which the flogging was inflicted is described in such general terms as apparently bring it within the rules relating to breaches of prison discipline, and the further explanation given is brief and unsatisfactory. We are frequently informed that the infliction of corporal punishment "was necessary for the due preservation of discipline." This statement is made nine times with reference to floggings at local prisons, which is not permitted in Scotland or Ireland. Are we to infer that discipline is not duly preserved at the local prisons in these countries? Another reason assigned on more than one occasion is the offence "was entirely unprovoked and deserved exceptional punishment." Are we to infer that in the other cases the offence was not entirely unprovoked? Sometimes these two grounds of punishment-because it was for the public interest and because he deserved it-were combined, but the sentences do not appear to have been doubled on that account. deed, the whole series of notes read more like excuses for

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inflicting the punishments than statements of the grounds for inflicting them. Of one it is said, "the behaviour of the prisoner during his trial was most outrageous." Was this man flogged for contempt of Court? "The assault might have caused a mutiny in the Roman Catholic Chapel." "The offence was specially directed against the Governor "; it was necessary for the due preservation of discipline "especially having regard to the unrest among the inmates of the Institution at the time," which in the context is described as "considerable." Wormwood Scrubbs takes the first place in the list of floggings with six to its credit, and Pentonville shares the second place with Parkhurst, to which prison weak-minded convicts are usually sent. Many large local prisons have not used either cat or birch during the year; but it is surprising to find the Borstal Institution at Feltham figuring in the list for three floggings. It is here that the prevalent "unrest" is relied on by way of excuse. Turning to the detailed report of that institution, I learn that "the behaviour of the inmates has, with a few exceptions, been very good, exhibitions of temper and shouting in the cubicles being practically the only source of trouble." This hardly indicates "considerable unrest," calling for "exceptional punishments." And in looking at the reports from Wormwood Scrubbs and Pentonville there is nothing that would lead us to anticipate an unusual number of floggings. There is nothing to show how far these floggings have proved successful; but I notice that in two instances the initials (only initials are given) of two persons flogged at the same prison are the same, so that at least two out of the thirty (or rather twenty-eight), probably incurred a second flogging within the same year. The subject is no doubt one rather for the Home Office than for the Prisons Commissioners, but there is no reason why the Commissioners should not ascertain all the facts relative to floggings, whether judicial or disciplinary, and place all the important details clearly before

the public in their reports. With regard to these disciplinary floggings, the recurrence of the same phraseology in the explanations given for the various persons is not a little remarkable. In reading two speeches for or against the Home Rule Bill we might naturally expect to meet the same arguments in both, but if we found both speakers expressing these arguments in the same words, we should probably think that it needed explanation.

The Commissioners lay great stress on the classification of prisoners, and urge that all Courts, in passing sentence, should specify in what class the prisoner was to be placed. But the person who passes sentence often knows little about prison-classes and not much about the antecedents of the prisoner. Might it not be better to give a free hand to the Prisons Commissioners and the prison authorities in this matter? The Act of 1898 has not proved a success, as this report suffices to show. Their remarks on the subject of "hard labour" are worth attending to, but they do not seem to have noticed that hard labour is sometimes required by the Act of Parliament, and neither the Court nor the prison authorities can vary it. This appears to be the case with the numerous offences differing very much from each other in respect of turpitude which are embraced in the Vagrant Act of 1824. When is this relic of barbarism to undergo revision? For some of the offences under this Statute it is necessary that the accused should be a "suspected person." By whom must he be suspected? And of what?

It is very pleasant to find the Commissioners writing so confidently as regards the arrangements now made for prisoners on their discharge-for which the present prisoner is prepared by the admission of reformatory influences from without to an extent that a few years ago would not have been tolerated. They "feel assured that this work of aiding the discharged convict has at last been placed on a sound

and business-like footing: that if the man himself really wishes to abandon a life of crime a helping hand will be extended to him, his immediate needs supplied, and a path opened up to him which, if he be prepared to follow, the opportunity of an honest life, is within his reach." These remarks are intended to apply to persons discharged from penal servitude, but they are also, we are told, largely applicable to those released from imprisonment, and steps are being taken to provide more fully for persons discharged from local prisons. I fear it is not equally clear that first offenders are free from the risk of contamination while in prison. "Evil communications corrupt good manners" is no doubt true, but man is a sociable animal, and to cut him off from all communication, good or bad, is not the way to make him better; and when all communications that are made are contrary to the rules of the gaol they are much more likely to be bad than good. No doubt complete solitary confinement is rare, but are not communications restricted within narrower limits than is either necessary or desirable?

The Commissioners do not in their Report deal with the subject of untried prisoners. Is there nothing in their case that needs amendment? They are presumed to be innocent and are detained, not as a punishment, but merely for safe custody. In most cases they could have obtained their liberty if they had been able to procure bail. Why then should such a prisoner be in a less favourable position than if he had procured bail, save what follows as a necessary result from detention? If liberated on bail he could speak to anyone he pleased without the presence of an eavesdropper, write letters without having them read and perhaps intercepted, and receive letters without having them opened and read before reaching his hands. I do not believe that these precautions are necessary for safe custody-in other words, to avoid prison-escapes-and if

not, how are they defensible? If a man is merely detained for safe custody he ought to receive every indulgence that is consistent with his safe custody. There is a pretty close. connexion beween this and another topic touched on in the report-Preventive Detention. If the meaning of the Act be as I take it to be-that the preceding term of penal servitude shall be long enough to expiate the offence completely, and the subsequent period of preventive detention is merely for the purpose of protecting the public and not intended as a second punishment for an offence that has already been sufficiently punished-why should the prisoner be exposed to any suffering or inconvenience that is not essential to his safe custody? A certain amount of discipline will of course always be required, and it is not unreasonable to require the prisoner, if able-bodied, to do something towards his own maintenance. But the rules which can hardly be said to have as yet come into exercise seem to go considerably beyond this. The Act may well puzzle the administrators of it. It in fact tries to combine two inconsistent theories of punishment-the vindictive and the utilitarian. If the object of punishing a man is to give him what he deserves, the sentence will have a definite object in view, though no two sentencers might agree as to what any particular offender deserved. If the object of punishing him is to protect the public the sentence will also have a definite object, and one in attaining which experience and statistics may afford valuable assistance. But is not "Give him all that he deserves, and then as much more as the safety of the public requires" a little hard on the prisoner?

Insanity and weakness of mind have naturally occupied the attention of the Commissioners, and on this subject they also expect beneficial legislation at an early date. But there seems to be much truth in the defence that the insanity has not been caused by the prison system, but that Courts in