Many years had not passed before it was perceived that the uniformity of punishment at which the Act aimed was not being secured. It began to be perceived, and most quickly by the criminal classes themselves, that in the different localities the same effect was not being given to the same sentence. Distribution of power among so many Justices--some 2,000 in all--gave occasion to the exercise by them of different views and methods of punishment, with the result that no standard of treatment was maintained, applying equally to all prisons, and severity or leniency of treatment seemed to depend on the accident of the locality in which the offender was arrested. Inquiry showed, also, that the System, besides being inefficient, was extremely costly, and many unnecessary prisons were being maintained, and that local sentiment operated against any effective supervision or control on the part of the Central Authority. These causes, taken in conjunction with an active demand, which found expression in Parliament at the time for the relief of some of the burden of local taxation, led the Government of the day to adopt a policy of complete centralization of the Prison System of the country. This new policy, as embodied in the Prison Act, 1877, resulted then from two causes,--a desire to establish a system of equal and uniform punishment under the direct authority of the State, and, incidentally, to relieve the taxpayer of the burden of maintaining Prisons. It was not to be expected that the local Authorities, naturally jealous of their rights and privileges, would abandon the control of the Prison System without a severe struggle. But the great relief offered to local rates, amounting to about half-a-million pounds per year, was sufficient to overcome opposition. Eventually, the Act transferred the whole of the Prison establishments, and their contents, to the control of the Government. It created a body of Commissioners, appointed by Royal Warrant, to manage the new Department, and placed under them a staff of Inspectors, and of other officers, by whom the control of all those establishments was to be exercised. The Act compelled the local authority to hand over to the Government suitable and sufficient accommodation in each district, the test of sufficiency being the average daily number of prisoners maintained by the local authority during the five previous years. Where such accommodation was in default, the local prison authority was required to pay £120 for every prisoner for whom such accommodation was not handed over. At the same time, compensation was paid by the Government to the local authority which had provided a reasonable amount of accommodation in excess of the maximum of the average numbers received for the five preceding years.