threw him roughly upon the ground with the brief explanation, "You've got to show them you're master sometimes." The boy had not been guilty of any misconduct whatever. In this gaol, all kinds of work was performed for the private benefit of the officers, a practice very generally prevalent in the gaols until a much later date. It was of the governor's perquisites to employ prisoners for his own behoof. There was jubilation in his family when a clever tailor or seamstress "came in;" new suits were at once cut out and made for the governor, his wife or his children. His house was fitted and half furnished by prisoners; they made arm-chairs, picture-frames, boot-racks. In one prison I heard of an excellent carriage constructed by a clever coach-builder who had gotten into trouble, and whose forfeited hours were thus utilised for the governor and not for the taxpayers. In another gaol an unexpected inspection revealed the mouth of a mysterious pipe leading from the kitchen, which when followed to its outlet was found to convey the grease and scourings straight to a flower bed in the governor's garden. This deplorable state of affairs continued without change long after 1865. Twelve years later the uniformity sought by the act of that year had not been secured. Justices had not in every case realised their duties and responsibilities. Many prisons remained defective. All differed in their treatment of prisoners, and the criminal classes were themselves aware of the differences. It was a common practice for intending offenders to avoid a locality where the gaol discipline was severe. To secure the same measure of punishment in each institution was all the more important since criminals had learned to avail themselves of the many modern facilities for travelling from place to place, and crime was no longer localised. The same reason added another argument in favour of making the support of prisons an imperial rather than a local charge. It was a little unfair, too, that a district which had already suffered by the depredations of an evil-doer should bear the heaviest part of the expense of his correction. With these, there was a still stronger reason for concentration. Some relief of local taxation was earnestly desired, and the assumption by the public exchequer of prison expenditure seemed to promise this in an easy and substantial way, more particularly as the transfer of control would be accompanied by a revision of the means, and followed by a diminution in the number of prisons required. Such arguments fully justified Mr. (afterward Viscount) Cross in introducing the measure known as the Prison Act of 1877, which was passed that year, and contemplated great changes in the system as it then was; the first and chief being the transfer and control of all local prisons to a board of commissioners acting for the state.