Another respect in which the Report foreshadowed the future development of the System was the great stress laid on the importance of taking steps to secure the inspection of Convict Prisons from time to time by persons appointed by the Government unpaid and unconnected with the Department. This idea was resisted in the minority Report by one of the members of the Commission, and also by the Prison Authorities of that day. It denotes the want of public confidence which, at a time of awakening interest and curiosity in the administration, was sure to arise from a system of control which was vested in a close bureaucracy, such as almost from necessity, having regard to the history of the case, existed at that time for the management of Convict Prisons. It was nearly twenty years later that the principle, not only of unofficial visitation and inspection, but of actual co-operation in the government of Convict Prisons, was recognized by the Prison Act of 1898. The succeeding ten years were marked by a remarkable fall in the number of sentences to Penal Servitude. The average yearly numbers, which for the five years ended 1864 had been 2,800, fell to 729 in 1890, or about two per 100,000 of the population,--a point at which it remained for many years; but during the last five years it has fallen to the lowest on record, _viz_:--·9 representing only 340 committals during the year. In 1891 an Act was passed reducing the minimum period of Penal Servitude from five years to three, and various minor alterations in the law affecting the practice of licensing convicts were also made; thus, convicts were allowed to earn marks during the nine months of separate confinement (with which each sentence commenced) in the same way as during the remainder of their sentence, so that the maximum remission to be earned is exactly one-fourth part of the whole sentence: also convicts serving remanets of former sentences became able to earn marks under remanets in the same manner as under original sentences. The same Act also gave power to the Secretary of State to remit the requirements as to reporting to Police on discharge. CHAPTER IV. PENAL SERVITUDE TO-DAY.