The object of the regulations is not to impose a strict 'law of silence,' which is reasonably deemed 'unnatural,' but to prevent harmful and profitless gossip, and inter-communication between prisoners, which is not only dangerous from the point of view of order and discipline, but as furnishing a fertile source of corruption. Those who declaim against the 'law of silence,' in the same breath denounce the prison régime as a 'manufactory of criminals,' or as a 'nursery of crime.' In what way could criminals be better manufactured than by allowing a free intercourse, where evil designs and plottings, both for mischief inside and concerted crime outside the prison, would be fostered and encouraged? Apart from the organized privilege of talking, allowed to well-conducted prisoners, there are many other ways in which their humanity is respected--the brightening of the daily Chapel service, with arrangements for choirs, singers, and instrumentalists taking part in the services: weekly missions in prisons: the delivery of moral and religious addresses by lay persons or members of religious bodies of any denomination: weekly classes, for which prisoners can be taken from labour, and where they may discuss among themselves selected subjects. These classes, referred to in a later Chapter, may be composed of 'Star' and Second Division prisoners, and even ordinary Third Division prisoners may be chosen to participate. Lectures, with or without magic lantern, may be arranged on lay or sacred subjects, calculated to elevate and instruct prisoners, and containing an undoubted moral purpose and value. Another innovation of recent years has been the issue to well-behaved prisoners who have completed six months of their sentences, of note-books and pencils, by which they are enabled in their leisure moments, to make a special study of some particular subject, which is likely either to be of benefit to them on discharge, or where their prospects on discharge might be impaired by the absence of any special means for maintaining the knowledge of any special subject which they previously possessed. Notes also may be taken from books regularly furnished from a well-stocked library, where such literary extracts are deemed to be of value to a prisoner for the improvement of his mental equipment. By such methods and strivings to find the 'treasure that is in the heart of every man,' I venture to assert that there is, and has been now for many years, what Mr. Churchill described as the "tireless effort towards curative and regenerative processes," and this is the test of the virtue of a prison system, as it is also the test of the degree of humanity in the nation.