At Guelph, Ontario, the great prison has been practically depopulated. The prisoners have gone to war, and the institution has been taken over as a hospital for convalescents returned from the scenes of war. The Superintendent, Dr. J. T. Gilmour, declared that it is only a step from prisoner to patriot. “We have learned a great deal about prisoners during the three years we have been in war. We have learned that the prisoner’s sense of patriotism is not dead because he is behind the bars; that he is just as anxious to serve his country as the man who is not being punished, and if given an opportunity the chances are that he will make a good soldier. It has come to my notice that men have exchanged prison uniforms for army uniforms in three hours after their discharge from prison.” He made the further statement that thousands of men had been released from Canadian prisons to permit them to serve in the army, and thousands of others were “doing their bit” by making hospital supplies during their imprisonment. PRISONERS CONDEMNED TO SLAVERY. In at least two Southern States, the infamous lease system, whereby prisoners are leased for an annual stipend to work in the mines or in the turpentine forests or in other work, prevails. Isadore Shapiro, a member of the Legislature from Alabama, and President of the Committee on Prisons, vigorously lambasted the government of Alabama for tolerating and continuing such venal disgrace. The Alabama legislature had made an effort to abolish the lease system but the governor had interposed so as to prolong the infamy. The prisoners could profitably and healthfully be put to work on the State farms but instead they are offered for sale to the highest bidder, and employed in mills, coal mines, lumber and turpentine camps. All of the women prisoners in one county were leased recently for the term of two years at the rate of fifteen cents a day. Mr. Shapiro produced a leather strap six feet long and an inch and a half wide with which prisoners are flogged. Recently in the State of Florida 598 prisoners were leased at an average of $360 per head by the year. It is a fact that most prisoners who work in the turpentine industry are so broken down in health after a few years that for the remainder of their days they are unfit for any manual employment. Of course it is granted that this work must be done, but we insist that it must be done under humane regulations. We have yet to learn of any leasing corporation or individual that has treated his serfs with merciful consideration. Georgia, after a long fight, has entirely repudiated the system. The Association, while insisting that employment should be given to prisoners, unanimously adopted a resolution condemning in the strongest terms a system whereby men and women are sold into bondage in order to enhance the revenue of the State. THE INDETERMINATE SYSTEM.