_House of Correction._—The Visiting Committee of the County Prison became early sensible of the imperative necessity for some plan being adopted by which to remedy the great evil to the prison and its proper inmates, and burthen to the community, resulting from sending there a vast multitude for vagrancy, intoxication, and disorderly conduct, of which classes alone, the number committed in 1850 was 4,557. (The number of these for 1860 was 16,793.) Many of these had sufficient bodily strength and ability to earn their own living, but their idle and dissolute habits would be continued so long as food and lodging were furnished them, either in the almshouse or jail. “To mitigate, if possible, this evil, and to relieve the community to some extent of the burthen it imposes, the Society adopted a resolution in 1851, to inquire as to the expediency of establishing a House of Correction, or probation, intermediate to the Almshouse and Prison, for the reception and employment of this large class of persons; and such measures were adopted by the parties interested, as led to the passage of an act in 1854, establishing such an house. The appropriation for the object was sufficient for an ample experiment, though the details of the bill might be open to some grave objections.” It is much to be regretted that from various considerations operating upon the different parties on whom devolved the duty of executing this law, its provisions were not carried out, and it consequently became inoperative. Neither the Prison Society nor the public were satisfied with this failure, and the subject being renewedly pressed on the attention of the Legislature, a new act was passed in 1860, under which a Board of Managers have been appointed, and from the character of their preliminary action, there appeared to be ground to hope that this highly important advance in the reformatory movements of our Commonwealth would soon be carried into effect. There is great reason, however, to apprehend that the present disturbance in the country may retard it. _Revision of the Criminal Laws._—In 1857 the Society memorialized the Legislature to appoint a commission to revise and modify the criminal laws of the State; and in 1858, a committee was appointed to proceed to Harrisburg to promote the passage of the requisite law for the purpose. The efforts of the Society in this behalf proved successful, and resulted in such a revision and modification as must be productive of much good, although the commissioners did not feel authorized by the character of their appointment, to go into all the questions suggested by our Society. We have now accomplished what we designed in the projected plan of this report, in tracing the history of our Society from its origin down to quite a recent period; yet our sketch, extended as it has been, fails to make anything approaching to a full exhibit of its doings during that time.