The history of Pentonville Prison is an essential guide to a clear understanding of the actual basis of our Penal Servitude, as well as of our ordinary Prison System. I have already stated that the Penitentiary idea, of which the basis is separate or cellular confinement, had found expression in an Act of Parliament of 1778, and that the idea had, owing to many circumstances, remained obscure till it was revived in the United States of America. In the second quarter of the last century Mr. Crawford, an Inspector of Prisons appointed under the Prison Act, 1824, (which had again endorsed the principle, although little or no effect was given to it) was sent to America to report on the question. Papers drawn up by himself and Mr. Russell, also an Inspector of Prisons for the Home District, were submitted to Parliament, and were widely discussed. In 1837, Lord John Russell, the then Home Secretary, issued a Circular to the Magistracy expressing his own conviction on the efficacy of separate cellular confinement, as a means both for the punishment of crime, and for the reformation of the offender. It was then decided to erect Pentonville Prison as a model Prison on the cellular plan for the purpose of practically working out a new system of Prison discipline. The Prison was occupied in December 1842. Commissioners were appointed to superintend the experiment, drawn from leading members of the social and public life of the community. Two Medical Commissioners were also appointed to watch narrowly the effect on the health of the prisoners. The period of separate confinement was limited to eighteen months. The Second Report of the Commissioners expressed the opinion that the adoption of separate confinement, as established at Pentonville Prison, promised to effect a most salutary change in the treatment of criminals, and was well calculated to deter, correct, and reclaim the offender; and in their Fourth Report they stated that the Separate System was safe and efficient, and that generally the moral results of the discipline had been most encouraging, and were attended with a success which was without parallel in the history of prison discipline, and that it was the only sound basis on which a reformatory discipline could be established with any reasonable hope of success.