Penal servitude was the arrangement substituted, and the chief feature of it was the ticket-of-leave. The system promised well, but no sooner was it fairly at work than the public took alarm at the number of convicts scattered over the country holding these tickets, and then another change was resolved on. A commission, presided over by Lord Carnarvon, was appointed to examine the whole question of penal servitude, and the result was a report containing several important recommendations. Foremost of these was that sentences of penal servitude which had been as short as three years, should not, in future, be passed for shorter terms than seven years. Another, almost equally important, was to the effect that convicts sentenced to penal servitude should be subjected in the first place to nine months separate imprisonment, and then to labour on public works for the remainder of the term for which they were sentenced, but with a power of earning by industry and good conduct an abridgment of this part of punishment. The provision under which police supervision has since been carried out, and the conditions under which licences should be earned by good conduct, were also laid down. As further stated by his lordship, when the Act of 1864 was under consideration, great doubts were expressed whether it was possible to carry out a satisfactory system by which the good conduct of convicts and their industry when employed on public works could be so measured that they should earn an abridgment of their sentences. Experience, however, showed that the system in its working was to a great extent successful, especially when the management of the business in question fell into the hands of Colonel Henderson, who succeeded the late Sir Joshua Jebb. Under Colonel Henderson’s supervision it has been found possible to exact from convicts the really hard and patient industry which is necessary before they can obtain a remission of their sentences. The value of the work performed by convicts at the three convict prisons—Portsmouth, Portland, and Chatham—was during the year 1868, £106,421; while the cost of maintaining those establishments was £110,532, so that the earnings nearly equalled the whole expense to which the country was put; indeed, as regards Chatham, where there are great facilities for remunerative work in making bricks for public works, there was an actual profit. In 1867 the average daily number of convicts at Chatham was 990, and the value of their labour was £40,898 7s., while the cost of their maintenance and supervision was £35,315 18s., there being thus a surplus of £5,582 9s. Under this new and improved system, in which the feature last quoted shows so satisfactorily, crime decreased. In 1865–6 the indictable offences committed numbered 50,549, and in 1866–7 they were 55,538, showing an increase of 4,989, or something under 10 per cent. From 1856 to 1862, the convictions excluding summary ones, the annual average was