2665. I ask the question in order that your answer may be recorded here, for this simple reason, that a great many people have an idea that the separate system is simply a secluding of the prisoners entirely; whereas, the separate system is only, as you have stated in your answer, the separation of prisoner from prisoner? Yes; from all evil communications. In reply to a remark by the _Earl of Dudley_, that the prisoners daily saw several officers of the prison, and occasionally others, it is said, “Just so. The _solitary_ system does not exist in England.” We are struck with the statement of general health in some of the prisons in England; for example the Bristol Gaol. T. A. Garden, Esq., Governor of that prison, in his testimony before the Committee of the House of Lords, says: “During the time that I have been Governor—twenty-six years—we have never lost a female prisoner; and we do not lose more than one male prisoner in twelve months. Those that we have lost came to us, perhaps, in the last stage of consumption. I do not know one single case that has been taken ill on the premises and died. The average number of prisoners is one hundred and sixty.” The whole of the Parliamentary Reports, as has already been stated, came to hand after the preparation of this Annual Report, and its submission to, and acceptance by, the Acting Committee of the Society; so that it was inconvenient to swell the publication by extracts from the British Report, even where matters of interest were explained at length; and to supply as far as possible the want of those extracts, digests of some of the Report and statements have been made, which, with all deference to the economy of space, must have swelled the division of the report in which they should appear much beyond what may be regarded as a fair proportion. It will be well to recollect when we read the strong testimony which the Governors and Inspectors of gaols in Great Britain bear to the superior efficacy of the system of separate confinement; that as yet in many of these gaols they are working with old edifices only partially adapted to the new system, and they are in a state of transition from the old system of physical to that of moral discipline. They see and feel the means of good which are almost within their reach, but they have to approach them slowly, respecting the established opinions of a portion of the community, while they follow as far as possible, the suggestions of the better informed. They will soon make the public sentiment by which they will be sustained in their work of tempering justice with mercy, and rendering punishment for offences the means of reforming the offender. ------------------ NOTICE OF DECEASED ACTIVE MEMBERS.