But it now becomes plainly evident that the waters are beginning to close over the Penitentiary. There are people outside its walls who are clearly not its friends, if not openly inimical. Thus dissatisfaction finds voice in the House of Commons, where, on the 15th March, 1841, Mr. Alderman Copeland asks for certain information which the prison authorities must have found it awkward to supply. This return called for was to show the numbers sent to the Penitentiary during the past five years; the number removed during that period for insanity, the number for bad health, and who had died; and it was to be stated how often the several members of the committee attended during the year. From different causes, one difficulty added to another, the Penitentiary was drawing nearer and nearer to its doom. At length its death-blow fell, accelerated doubtless by the sweeping alterations contemplated in the whole system of secondary punishments. These changes, by which also the whole constitution of the Penitentiary was altered, will be detailed at length in another volume, and the closing chapter shall be devoted to the last days of old Millbank. It was on the 5th May, 1843, that Sir James Graham, then Home Secretary, introduced a Bill for the better regulation of the Penitentiary. The House must be fully aware, he said, of the Report[10] in which it was stated that as a _penitentiary_ “Millbank Prison had been an entire failure.” Its functions, therefore, in that respect were now to cease. The next thing to be considered was what use might be made of it, for it was a large building and had many conveniences for a prison. Just at this moment, however, the Government had determined to carry out a certain new classification of all convicts sentenced to transportation. In other words, felons were to suffer this punishment in different degrees, according to their condition and character. But to ascertain in which category offenders should be placed a time of probation and proof was needed, and this period should be passed at some general depot, where for nine or ten months the character of each convict might be tested. Millbank was admirably suited for the purpose. From here, after the necessary interval, the juveniles were to be sent on to the new prison at Parkhurst, the best and most promising convicts to Pentonville, the rest to the hulks, but one and all only _in transitu_ to the antipodes.