The navy will not accept prison youths; the mercantile marine will have none of them, and short coasting voyages are worse than useless; for honesty and industry are estimable qualities even at sea. It would be well indeed if all Prisoners' Aid Societies and all those engaged in similar work would plainly and unmistakably state the difficulties they experience when called on to find situations or employment for discharged prisoners, be they young, middle-aged, or old; well for the discharged prisoners themselves to know the truth at once, rather than that they should go on calling day after day at any office, and waiting hour after hour among many others to see if anything has "come in," for nothing with the least resemblance to regular work can "come in" well, too, for the public if they could understand the difficulties under which societies labour, and the difficulties which ex-prisoners have to face. Better still would it be for our authorities to clearly understand these matters, for then surely more effectual methods would be found for dealing with those who, either from incapacity, desire, or social circumstances, appear quite willing to spend their days in prison. With the older prisoners I am not now concerned, for the Home Secretary and his advisers fully recognize that for them new methods must be tried, and their Bill now before Parliament makes it sufficiently evident; but why not begin with them earlier in life? Surely, if the fact of an elderly man having been committed four times on indictment is sufficient to stamp him as "habitual," for whom a more drastic treatment must be provided, then the fact of a youth or young man under twenty-five having been in prison an equal number of times, coupled with the fact that he is homeless and workless, ought to be quite sufficient to ensure him a long period of useful discipline in some place other than prison. By some such means the supply of young criminals, that at present seems inexhaustible, would be stopped, and the difficulty with regard to older criminals would almost vanish. And pity demands it, for the bulk of these young men have had but little chance in life. Birth and environment have been against them; of home life in its full sense they have known nothing; to discipline they have been strangers, and they are a product of our present civilization. Can we expect them to exhibit the rarer qualities of human nature? Temptation is, I know, no respecter of persons, for not seldom do young men of good parentage and splendid environment fail; but to the young of whom I write temptation is as nothing, for they do not understand the beauty of moral worth, the dignity of man, and the virtue of honest labour. For the future they care nothing; they live in the present, content to be idle. To eat, to sleep, to enjoy themselves in an animal way, is their idea of life. Their wits are only sharpened to deceive. To get the better--or, as they