As a matter of fact, the local authority used this power very sparingly. A Return is given in Appendix 19 of the Second Annual Report of the Commissioners, and shows that the total discharges for the three years preceding 1878 were, roundly, 370,000, and the total gratuities paid to prisoners, roundly, £11,000, or a proportion of about 7d., per head, the sums given varying greatly in the different districts, _e.g._, Cold Bath Fields Prison gave £3,000 and Manchester £60 for a nearly similar number of discharges (circ. 30,000). In some Prisons, there was a system of giving a percentage on the value of work done, but this did not prevail to a large extent, and the above statement may, I think, be taken as roughly representing the extent to which monetary help was forthcoming to discharged prisoners before the prisons passed into the hands of the Government. At this point, as was to be expected, when every other Department of Prison administration was undergoing revision and reconstruction, the question of devising a system of aid-on-discharge received a large share of notice. As before stated, the law of 1877 gave the power to grant £2 to any prisoner. There was, therefore, no legal difficulty in the way of continuing the same method that had previously prevailed, _viz_:--in deserving cases of granting a sum of money on the recommendation of the Visiting Committee, or otherwise. This comparatively simple method was not resorted to, and apparently because it seemed to the authorities to be too capricious in its operation, to work unevenly, and to lack that precision and uniformity which it was the object to establish. Moreover, as stated, it had no relation to the conduct and industry of a prisoner, and it was only natural that the Commissioners should be predisposed in favour of the system of gratuities under the Progressive Stage System, at that time working with success in Convict Prisons, and where the money that a prisoner could earn by industry with good conduct was also a gratuity or benefaction which, under proper direction, might be used for his benefit on discharge. In their Second Annual Report, the Commissioners stated "There is no reason why such a system of awarding gratuity for industry should not be worked in conjunction with that of aiding prisoners with reference solely to their needs on discharge. As respects the grants of aid, it is, in our opinion, essentially necessary to success that the co-operation of persons unconnected with the prisons should be secured in order that _by their aid_ and interest, prisoners may be provided with employment." Here we have, therefore, a distinct departure, the so-called 'gratuity' of the convict system taking the place of the former grant in aid in Local Prisons; or, in other words, one of the methods for securing Prison industry and conduct being utilised for the additional purpose of supplying the needs of a prisoner on discharge. It is, I think,