Owing to an increase of serious crime in the early 'sixties, public attention was again called to the system of punishment in force, and a Royal Commission was appointed to enquire into the operation of the Penal Servitude Acts. It was found that the late increase in crime coincided in point of time with the discharge of convicts sentenced for short terms, _i.e._, for three years under the Act of 1857; and it was proposed that the minimum term of penal servitude should be increased, and that longer sentences should be passed on persons guilty of habitual crime. The Commissioners pointed also to defects in the methods of identification: they objected to reconvicted convicts not receiving remission, and believed that it would be more effectual to pass long sentences on reconvicted prisoners than to remove the chief inducement to industry and good conduct. They found fault with the Regulations made under the Act of 1857, on the ground that they did not indicate to convicts with sufficient clearness that remission could only be earned as a reward for industry and conduct. They objected to giving credit for general good conduct as well as for industry, on the ground that the mere abstaining from misconduct gives no just claim for reward. They advocated the adoption of the Mark System as introduced into Australia by Captain Maconochie, and, subject to a considerable remission of punishment earned under this system, they were in favour of longer sentences. They came further to the opinion that the Irish System of Police Supervision should be adopted in England. They thought that the sentence of Penal Servitude should be for not less than seven years, subject to the concession that the third of a period would be remitted under the operation of the Mark System, when the highest industry had been maintained. They were in favour of continuing Transportation to Western Australia: they pronounced against the high rates of gratuities which convicts in England were entitled to receive, and regarded favourably the system by which convicts in the Irish Intermediate Prisons, and the "road parties" in Western Australia were allowed to spend a weekly portion of their earnings in procuring for themselves certain indulgences. Appended to the Report of the Commission was a Memorandum by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, which has become historical as laying down the principles which, in his opinion, ought to be observed in the punishment of offenders, _viz_:--