In another part of our Report for this year, it has been stated that much good, it is believed, has been done to individuals, by meeting the prisoners on their arrival in the van, and releasing those committed for the first time, provided that it is apparent that they have not been frequent offenders, and have not chosen the path of vice; and it is stated that by this course the self-respect of many young persons has been saved, and they have been snatched from a vicious course, which would scarcely have been avoided had they been confined with old offenders. And when the power to release did not rest with the Inspectors, the Agent was at once despatched to procure the release of the committed person; and that failing, care has been used to place the novices in separate cells, and provide them with advice, books, and some little work. On this subject we have the opinions of the Inspectors of Prisons for the North and Middle districts of England. 2156. By the _Duke of Marlborough_. You stated that you did not think short sentences of much avail in effecting reformation upon a prisoner; but do you not think that short punishments may be a deterrent? No; I think that a man who is sent to prison for seven days or twenty days or a month, becomes marked, and he is not in prison long enough to enable him to exercise an influence for good over him. 2157. Take the case of a man who has not been accustomed to vice or crime, and who finds himself in prison for a month for an offence into which he has been hurried, and finds the prison to be a very unpleasant thing, and the discipline to be very severe, and that he is subjected to a great many things which he did not expect before he entered the prison, do you not think that the recollection of that month’s confinement may have a deterring effect upon that man in future? I think that to a man of the character which your Grace has described, a month’s imprisonment would do more harm than good. If that man escaped the taint of a prison, and was bound over under certain securities, he would be more likely to turn out well than if he had been subject to the discipline of the prison for months; it is too short a period in itself to have any deterring effect on him. In another part of the Report of this Committee of the House of Lords we have a statement of what is understood by separate confinement. 2662. Separate from what? Man from man; they never see each other to know each other or to speak to each other. 2663. By the separate system you only mean separation of prisoner from prisoner? Just so. 2664. Not the secluded system in which a man is shut up entirely? No; quite the contrary.