It may be stated broadly that to France and America must be given the credit for the impulse and energy which lit and kept alive the torch of prison reform during those years of the last century, say 1830-70, when, by reason of dynastic changes on the Continent, and political struggles at home, the flame might have been obscured, or even extinguished. Although, in many countries, as in our own, eminent men and women, whose names will always live, had even from the middle of the eighteenth century, inspired by a lofty humanity, raised their voices in protest against the callous indifference which tolerated much cruelty and barbarity in the system of punishments, yet, the main impulse came, on the one hand, from the religious zeal of the Pennsylvanian Quakers who tried to utilize deprivation of liberty, by means of imprisonment, as an instrument for effecting the spiritual regeneration of the offender; on the other, from the political zeal for the rights of man--even the reversionary rights of the prisoner,--which dominated French thought, under the influence of the encyclopædists. These currents, reacting on each other, determined the course of public opinion in the direction of regarding a good, just, and humane prison system as the index of a progressive civilization. It was the combination of these two influences in concrete, which, just fifty years ago, inaugurated what may be called the 'modern system.' The famous Commission of enquiry into the state of Prisons, appointed by the National Assembly in France in 1871, and with which the names of d'Haussonville, Bérenger, and Félix Voisin will always be honourably connected, was followed immediately by the mission to Europe of Dr. Wines, the Secretary of the Prison Association of New York. To his energies we owe the London Congress of 1872, the parent of the International Prison Commission, established on a secure and lasting basis a few years later. In 1877, was founded in Paris the _Société Générale des Prisons_--the French Academy of penal science--a body of men distinguished in law, medicine, science, and philanthropy, who have consistently since that day, through their Journal, '_La Révue Pénitentiaire_'--a monthly publication,--informed and educated public opinion throughout the civilized world on all questions relating to the treatment, and, notably, the prevention of crime.