As prisoners in this country are classified broadly into two categories (1) those sentenced to penal servitude--"Convicts:" (2) those sentenced to ordinary imprisonment--"Local," or short-sentenced prisoners,--so has the system of aid-on-discharge varied according to the category to which a prisoner belongs. For Convict Prisons there has been, until lately, no system of aid-on-discharge strictly so-called. What is known as the Gratuity system in Convict Prisons operated for many years as the principal means for providing a convict on his discharge with means of obtaining the necessities of life. There was no Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society immediately connected with the establishment from which the convict was discharged, as in the case of Local Prisons, but certain Metropolitan Societies, notably the Royal Society for the assistance of Discharged Prisoners, and later the St. Giles's Christian Mission and the Church Army and Salvation Army, came to be recognized as the agents for helping a convict on discharge. There was no Government Grant. It was voluntary on the part of the convict whether he should place himself in the hands of such a Society. If he so desired, the Gratuity that he had earned would be paid to him through the Police or otherwise at the place whither he went on discharge. A Gratuity, as already described, was a sum of money which could be earned under the Progressive Stage System for general industry with good conduct: it had no relation to the value of work done, being based simply on the degree of industry, and apportioned to what is known as the Mark System _i.e._, so many marks representing so much cash. The English Gratuity System was, therefore, quite different from what is known on the Continent as the "_Cantine_" or "_Pécule_" System, under which a prisoner receives a percentage of the actual profit of his work, and which he is allowed to spend on diet or otherwise during detention. An English convict (unless in the Long Sentence Division or under Preventive Detention) was not allowed to spend any part of his Gratuity while in Prison, but it was accumulated as a small cash fund to provide against the day of discharge. £6 was the maximum that could be earned, but the average amount earned would be considerably less than this. In old days it was possible for convicts to earn large sums of money, but the practice was condemned by a Royal Commission in the middle of last century, and, since that date, the amount earnable has been limited as stated.