3. The period of Separate Confinement which, from the earliest days, had preceded a sentence of Transportation or Penal Servitude, has, during recent years, been the subject of much consideration. The Separate System for convicts, as already explained, owes its origin to a letter addressed in 1842 by the then Home Secretary, Sir James Graham, to the Commissioners of Pentonville Prison. It was the success realized at Pentonville in the early 'forties which has made Separate Confinement part of the sentence of Penal Servitude in this country from that day to this. When Transportation ceased, and with it the system of selecting particular convicts, young and not versed in crime, to undergo the Pentonville experiment with the hope and prospect of freedom after eighteen months in a foreign but congenial clime, the "System" still remained, but without the conditions which had contributed to its success in the first instance. It seems that in fact the _penal_ and _deterrent_, rather than the _reformatory_ value, came gradually to be regarded as its basis and justification. It was applied to _all_ convicts, irrespective of age and antecedents. In 1853 the period was reduced from eighteen months to nine months. It appears that the former period of eighteen months was the subject of severe criticism and of great prejudice by those who formed their opinion on rumours very prevalent at the beginning of the last century with regard to the effect of the so-called "solitary" system as carried out in the United States, with the accompaniments of darkness, absolute solitude, absence of any employment, and unwholesome sanitary conditions. On the other hand, an extensive experience had been gained in Local Prisons, where cellular separation was already in force previously to the Act of 1865, and had become in many Prisons the regular method of executing a sentence of imprisonment up to two years. This strengthened the position of those who argued that strict separation for eighteen months could be carried out without disadvantageous results, on the condition that prisoners were supplied with occupation and employment, kept in physically healthy circumstances, and separated, not from all other human beings, but only from each other. The nine months' period seems to have been adopted as a sort of compromise with the prejudices above referred to; and it had this further advantage--that by its adoption, the expense of having to provide accommodation for _all_ convicts during separate confinement was greatly reduced, as twice the number could be passed through this Stage under the limitation of nine months. The penal or deterrent purpose of Separate Confinement for convicts was, no doubt, greatly intensified by the Report of the Royal Commission of 1868. That Commission reported as follows:--