It seems to me quite time that the rivalry, displayed in the reports on both sides of the Channel, should be absolutely and finally discontinued. I must confess that the documents before me go to show that the initiative of aggression was taken on the English side,—that representations with regard to the working of the Irish system were put forward with a high official authority on this side of the Channel, and that they called for rectification from the other side; but it is idle to enter into any retrospective award upon the merits of that obsolete controversy. Our business is to take things as we find them _now_, and to do the best we can both for England and for Ireland. I have already said, that the Irish system appears to me to be the best; and I ascribe its excellence to these three reasons—that, being the most recent invention, it comprises the chief advantages of previous systems, with new applications and extensions of tried principles admirably designed by Captain Crofton; that it is planned upon a consideration of the objects to be attained, irrespectively of difficulties or predilections; and that it is carried out by men who are personally familiar with its details in every part. I am not prepared to say that all details of the arrangement in Ireland are essential to the completeness of an equally good system in England; but the principles upon which the Irish system relies are applicable over the whole globe, and they are consequently drawing the attention of the most intelligent and active criminal reformers in distant countries. I know that their progress is watched from Heidelberg, which has itself been a great centre of prison improvement, under that able and enthusiastic lawyer, Professor Mitternaier. Among the reforms which have been pushed forward by the immortal Cavour, is a system of convict discipline established at Pianosa, a small island lying south of Elba. Tuscany has always been celebrated for reforms of the kind; and it is not losing its reputation in our own day. One of the distinguishing traits in the Pianosa system is the introduction of the Intermediate stage, which Cavour had thoroughly studied; and the Superintendent of the Prisons, M. de Peri, reports with great satisfaction on the working of the new plan. A little farther east, at Corfu, we see M. Cozziris, the Inspector-general of the Prisons in the Ionian Islands, diligently following out the same work. His report for the year, which is now before me, shows a thorough acquaintance with the Intermediate system, and a proportionate admiration of it.[8] While I was in the United States, I had the opportunity of visiting some of those prisons which have often been mentioned as examples of modern improvement, and such unquestionably they were a few years back. It is no reproach to the intelligence of the American reformers that, in great part by their help, we have since surpassed them; and it must be allowed that they might have made more