As need not be mentioned, however, habitual criminals of the type above quoted are by far the exception, and not the rule. Experience teaches us that to become a ticket-of-leave man is not invariably to be converted from a human creature to a callous brute,—blind and deaf in vice, and doggedly determined so to continue to the last; give him a fair chance to amend, and in very many cases he will embrace it, thankfully even. The statistics of the Prisoners’ Aid Society encourage us to hope better of even the worst of the criminal class. As has already been shown, the convicts themselves recognise and gratefully appreciate the advantages held out to them by the humanitarians whose head-quarters are by Charing Cross. Of 368 male convicts discharged in one year, only 78 neglected to make application for the bounty. It appears from the Society’s most recent return that the total number of discharged prisoners assisted by the association since May 1857 was 5,798, but the average number had recently decreased, because fewer prisoners had of late been released on license. The number of those who had applied to the Society during the first six months of last year (1868) was 145, of whom 26 had emigrated; 44 had found good and constant employment in the metropolis; 15 had gone to sea; 25 had been sent to places beyond the Metropolitan Police-district, and placed under the supervision of the local police, and 35 had been classed as unsatisfactory and bad: but these included all those who were known to be in honest employment, but were so classed because they failed to report themselves to the police, as required by the Act.