Thirdly, the statement that the general superintendence of the police would be impossible in England, without obstructing the employment of the men or without converting the men into spies and tyrants, is thus far a pure assumption. Not a shadow of evidence to establish it has been shown to me. I know that policemen have interfered injuriously, but they have not yet been instructed in a different line of conduct; and I also know that there are, amongst the chief officers of the police in the counties, those who are perfectly competent to study such a subject, and who are prepared to begin the inquiry in a favourable spirit. But we must also remember that the police do not represent the only class of public servants who might be employed to act in this behalf, and report the conduct of men out on licence. The fourth objection applies, in some degree, to the English arrangement, in which the teaching of trades is by no means systematic; for it is principally confined to the earlier stages of imprisonment, while the employment of the vast majority on public works sends them into the world only as common labourers. In Ireland, the adaptation of the instruction is much more individualized, and the Intermediate stages turn out a much greater variety of callings. A fifth objection on which the English authorities lay very great stress is, that if the English convict be suffered to go at large, as he is at Lusk, he will, perhaps in the very first hour of his freedom, run away to rejoin his friends; particularly if he be a married man: nothing will restrain him from decamping to rejoin his wife and family! “The introduction of the Irish system into this country, the first element being imperfect liberty granted to a man whose own act could make it absolute in a moment, and would debar the married man from the society of his wife and children, would do so much violence to every feeling of his mind, that we could not be surprised if the slight barrier were instantly broken which held him from the world. One of our most deserving prisoners, lately discharged, of whose sincerity I have the highest opinion, told me some months since that if 10,000_l._ were offered to him to stay for twelve months, with nothing if he insisted on going to his wife and children, then he would prefer the liberty to the money.” So writes the chaplain of Portland Prison, in an unpublished report forwarded to me, with his usual kindness and frankness, by Sir Joshua Jebb; who also insists strongly on the same point.