old and hardened offenders. In July, 1831, lads under sixteen years of age were collected in a wing of St. Pélagie and afterwards in the Magdelonettes. At the same time the Government authorised a society for the protection of young criminals, to place them out with employers where they might complete their sentence. A distinguished publicist, Gabriel Delessert, now came in office as prefect of police in Paris, and was so deeply impressed with the existing evils of the children’s prison of La Roquette that he entirely reconstructed it and revised its discipline. This prison of La Roquette had been built in 1825 for females, and had served as such until 1836, when it was adopted as a receptacle for ill conducted and weakly boys, broken by poverty and precocious vice. Here they consorted with others of their class, steadily deteriorating, so that those who entered bad were discharged much worse, and soon fell into fresh and more serious crime. M. Delessert made a strenuous attempt to save them, and decided to seek their amendment at some reformatory establishment in which they could be kept aloof from evil surroundings, isolated and carefully educated by a system of useful labor and good advice from teachers of unquestioned moral character. The interior of La Petite Roquette was completely transformed. Separate cells took the place of the large associated rooms, a marked improvement was seen in the young prisoners, both in demeanor and conduct, with an immediate diminution in the percentage of reconvictions. He was greatly assisted in these most creditable reforms by a worthy priest, the same Abbé Crozes, chaplain of the Grand Roquette, whose name and deeds already have been frequently mentioned. Strict separation was the leading principle of treatment. These children were for the most part kept alone, living in single cells, working in seclusion and seldom meeting their fellows, even for exercise or play, until the Abbé Crozes introduced the method of exercising singly, and fenced off portions of a yard and the separation at chapel into individual boxes, shutting off the sight of neighbors and concentrating attention in front.