The following account, given to me by a young man who had served a sentence of six months' hard labour in one of our large prisons, may prove interesting, for it will serve to show the exact life of a prisoner treated under the Borstal system. I give it as written by the ex-prisoner himself. He was twenty-one years of age, was 5 feet 11 inches in height. As a boy he had been a telegraph messenger, and afterwards a postman; but having stolen postal orders, he received the above sentence. It will be observed that he was placed in the bookbinding department, and that the greatest amount of hard labour he performed was three and three-quarter hours per day, and this at a trade of which he had not the slightest previous knowledge--a trade, too, that requires not only skill, but celerity of movement, and, moreover, a trade at which there was not the slightest chance of his obtaining employment when at liberty. He did not average three hours' real work per day, and this works out at forty-three days' work of ten hours per day for the whole six months. It is obvious that no one can get a useful knowledge of bookbinding in forty-three days of real hard work. In his case, the "trade" taught proved of no use whatever on his discharge. He was very quickly in another prison, again for dishonesty; but his previous sentence not being discovered, his sentence was a very light one. If I am to believe a letter that I received from him, he is now in the army, and, of course, had to make a false attestation when he enlisted. It will be noticed that he speaks well of the treatment received in prison, and testifies to the kindness of all the officials. On this point I can corroborate him, for I know something of those who had charge of him, and feel sure that it would have been a great disappointment to them had he on a second occasion been committed to their charge. His failure cannot be charged to the prison officials. They honestly did their best, for they were genuinely interested in him. Neither do I say that any prison system would have saved him, but I do say--and in this I think most reasonable people will agree with me--that very light work done at a very deliberate pace is not sufficient, even in prison, for a young man of his health, build, and capacity. I think, too, most people will agree that if young men are to be taught trades in prison, they should be taught under conditions that approximate to outside conditions so far as style, pace, and hours of work are concerned. Prison industries present a very difficult problem. I believe the officials would be glad to give prisoners twice the amount of work they are at present given; but they have not the work to give them, so a life of semi-idleness results. Finally, it is to be hoped that the new probation system will be so thoroughly worked that large numbers of young men will be kept out of prison, for at present prisons do not punish, neither do they reform in the majority of cases.