In this way only, can an answer be made to any criticism by the many persons who have attempted, by their experience in individual cases, to suggest that Probation may be merely a mask for impunity. Unless Probation is so organized as to clear itself from this reproach, I am afraid that it will never take its place firmly and progressively as a necessary and indispensable weapon in the armoury of the criminal law. The Home Secretary has recently appointed a Committee to inquire into the question of the organization of Probation; and it is likely that we are on the eve of an extensive development of the system. CHAPTER X. FEMALE OFFENDERS. At the date of the London Congress of 1872 there were more than 1,200 females in convict prisons undergoing penal servitude: to-day there are less than 100. In the same year, there were 44,554 committals to local prisons, representing 382·3 per 100,000 of the female population of the country. For each of the ten years ended 1913, the committals steadily decreased from, roughly, 50,000 to 30,000, and since that date, to about 12,000, or 76 per cent., representing in 1920 only 32 per 100,000 of the population of the country, as compared with 198 in 1913. The Local Prison daily average population has fallen from 3,198 to 2,375 during the ten years ended 1913-14, and to 1,137 in 1919-20, or 61 per cent., and that of the convict population from 149 to 82, a decrease of 45 per cent. The great diminution of the female population has resulted in the closing of a large number of establishments. At the time the Prisons were taken over by the Government there were about 100 female prisons; to-day there are only 26, and of these only six had a daily average exceeding 50 in 1919-20. Women sentenced to penal servitude are, as already stated, kept in a section of the local prison at Liverpool. Except in the Metropolis, those sentenced to ordinary imprisonment are kept in wings of local prisons, entirely detached from the male side, and are under the supervision of a matron, assisted by a female staff, the Governor of the whole establishment being responsible for general order and discipline. In the Metropolis, a large prison--Holloway--is given up entirely to the custody of female convicted prisoners, and is also the House of Detention for the unconvicted. The Governor is a medical man. At the largest Prisons the female population is under the supervision of a Lady Superintendent.