Enlightened Japan has striven to establish a perfect prison system--New prisons--Deportation to the island of Yezo--Agricultural labour and work in coal mines--Two fine prisons in Tokio--Description by Mr. Norman--The gallows--Training school for prison officials--Disciplinary punishments and rewards. Japan as an enlightened and progressive country has made strenuous efforts to establish “as perfect a prison system as possible; one which is in harmony with the advancement of science and the results of experience.” These reforms were commenced in 1871 and were continued in various new prisons at Tokio, Kobold, Kiogo and upon the island of Yezo, all admirably organised and maintained. This movement was hurried on by the great overcrowding of the small provincial prisons on account of the accumulation of long-term prisoners. No proper discipline could be applied and there was absolutely no room for short-term offenders. Most of those sentenced to hard labour and deportation are now sent to the penal settlement on the island of Yezo, where they are employed both within the prisons and at agriculture in the open air. Every advantage is taken of the natural aptitudes of the Japanese, and the inmates of gaols prove the most expert and artistic workmen. The very worst criminals are sent to the prison of Sorachi in the remote island of Yezo, beyond Poronaibuto--a bleak, desolate spot surrounded by the usual bamboo fence--which holds about sixteen hundred convicts. They are to be seen squatted on mats at work, each in front of his own sleeping place, and on a shelf above are his wadded bed-quilt, with a mosquito curtain on top of each. The place is so isolated and surrounded by such an impenetrable jungle that escapes are out of the question. A little further on is the prison of Poronai, in a delightful spot, where the most extensive coal fields of Japan are located. A small building houses some six hundred convicts who work in the coal seams on the side of the hill. “Hard labour indeed,” says Mr. Wingfield. “Heavily chained, by light of a safety lamp the wretched convicts were crouching in holes where there was no room to raise the head or stretch the limbs, and here they had to remain for eighteen hours at a time.” Their sentences were for twelve years, although remission might by good conduct be secured after seven. Yet these luckless Japanese bore their irksome lot with a light heart. “As we were leaving Poronai at 5 A. M.,” says the same observer, “we met a batch of miners marching to face their ordeal and many after the eighteen hours are completed have to be removed to hospital. They were clanking their chains right merrily, talking and laughing loudly, bandying quips and jokes.”