(3) With regard to economy, Sir E. Du Cane was formerly a distinguished officer of the Royal Engineers, and had been engaged for many years in advising the Secretary of State as Surveyor-General of Prisons. It was owing to his experience and capacity that, at a relatively small cost, the prison buildings soon after the Act were brought up to a high standard, both in construction and in sanitation. His financial ability was also of a high order, and economy, consistently with efficiency, became the order of the day. It may be that in some respects his desire for economy led him too far in the direction of retrenchment, both in buildings and in service, but, for the time being, he was justly credited with great administrative and financial success; and it appears from a table prepared in 1885, comparing expenditure on Local Prisons for seven years before and after the Act of 1877, that economy had been achieved amounting to nearly half-a-million of money. Further, in that same year, 1885, the prison population touched and continued at a lower level than had been previously known. For the year 1878, in which the Prisons were handed over to the Government, the Local Prison population was the highest known, _viz_:--21,030. From that date it fell almost continuously till February 1885, when it touched the lowest figure then known, _viz_:--15,484. There had been, moreover, a decrease in the yearly death rate, in the number of suicides, and in corporal punishments, and in the yearly average of dietary punishments. A greater variety of employment had been introduced, and a new uniform system of accounts had been established. The Chairman had some justification, therefore, for inferring from these facts and figures that not only had the new penal system been made effective for the repression of crime, but that the legislation of 1877 had completely succeeded in its object in promoting uniformity, economy, and a generally improved administration. CHAPTER VII. THE INQUIRY OF 1894: THE PRISON ACT, 1898: AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION ACT, 1914.