Steady progress toward improved methods--Legislation to secure uniformity and proper principles of management--First effort to bring all local jurisdiction into line--Decision that all prisons must be under state control--Unification of system--Burden borne by the public exchequer--Remarkable results--Marked diminution in number of jail inmates--How convict labour has enriched the nations--Results at Portland, Chatham, Dartmoor--Extension of output--Chattenden and Borstal. Forty years have elapsed since England was forced to revise her methods of penal treatment, and to replace the system of transportation beyond the seas with home establishments, rather hastily improvised to meet a sudden demand. Reference has already been made to the institution of "penal servitude," so-called, the process of expiation to which condemned felons were subjected in the newly devised state prisons. The flaws and failures that became prominent in the earlier phases of the system have also been touched upon, as well as the salutary changes introduced from time to time by the legislature. Year after year steadfast and consistent efforts have been made to improve and develop, to remove blots in administration, to remedy shortcomings; to reform offenders, while obliging them to labour to recoup expenditure and to secure thereby some restitution from them. A brief survey will show the existing conditions of the British penal system of to-day. The chief reason of the merit of the British system is, that it is the growth of time, the product of experience. In the many changes introduced in this century, the great aim and object has been progressive improvement. The movement has all been forward. There has been no slackness in correcting errors and remedying abuses since John Howard struck the key-note of indignant protest. Reform may not always have gone hand in hand with suggestion, but that has been because of the quasi-independence of the prison jurisdictions. British prisons in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were largely controlled by local authorities upon no very uniform or effective principles, although act after act of Parliament was passed for the purpose of betterment. In 1823 and 1824 two acts first laid down the rule that health, moral improvement and regular labour were as important objects in prison maintenance as safe custody. At the same time, some attempt at classification was made, and it was ordered, for the first time, that female prisoners should be controlled only by female officers. In 1835 a fresh act insisted that all prison rules should be subjected to the approval of the Secretary of State; a proper dietary was made essential, without the "stimulating luxury" of tobacco. Classification, too, was again tried, but without good results, and the rule of separation at all times except during divine service, labour or instruction, was gradually adopted in theory and practice. Inspectors of