The desirability of employing women for the superintendence and control of female prisoners is recognized. At the time when the Departmental Committee on Prisons, 1895, made their report, nearly 50,000 women were being committed annually to Prison, but that Committee did not consider that "the time of a Lady Inspector of Prisons would be sufficiently employed, but thought that a Lady Superintendent might be appointed who could not only do the ordinary work of inspection, but who could also be responsible for the general supervision of female prison industry, and for such other duty as the Secretary of State might consider it desirable to assign her." Since that date the annual committals have fallen by 78 per cent., the total commitments for last year being only 12,000; but the Commissioners have, for a considerable time, been assisted by a Lady Inspector of Prisons, and at each female prison there is a voluntary body of Lady Visitors, whose duties are referred to above; the welfare of young girls at the Aylesbury Institution, both during detention and on release, is the subject of anxious care and supervision by Lady Members of the Visiting Committee. Lately a new rank of Lady Superintendent has been created among the discipline staff of the largest female prisons. The presence of Ladies on the Visiting Committees of Prisons is in every way desirable, and it is hoped that, in the near future, the qualification of Justice of the Peace having been extended to the female sex, all Prisons for females may be subject to the visitation and jurisdiction of Lady Justices. It is recognized also that the medical care of females in penal institutions should be entrusted to Lady Doctors. We have been fortunate in securing very able and highly skilled women both at Holloway and Aylesbury, and their appointment has been an undoubted success. CHAPTER XI EDUCATIVE, MORAL, AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES IN PRISON. In a former Chapter I have referred generally to the efforts made in English Prisons to apply such methods as are practicable, having regard to the average shortness of sentences, and to the fugitive character of the population, for the uplifting of prisoners educationally, morally, and spiritually. It is a commonplace, dating from the middle of the eighteenth century, that we must educate our prisoners, as it was also the common injunction that we must inspire them with the teachings of religion, and the habit of industry. At a time when education was the privilege of the few, and no national system was in existence, and when the average length of sentence gave opportunity for methodical and continuous teaching, it was reasonable that advantage should be taken of a long period of enforced custody to establish a system, where, at least, the many illiterates coming to prison could be taught the simple lessons of reading, writing, and arithmetic.