It is pleasing to observe decided improvements in institutions of importance to the community. In the time of Major Sirr, the coarsest language was addressed from the bench of the police courts, not only to prisoners on serious charges, but to persons prosecuting or defending summonses. If a magistrate of police were now to apply terms of abuse, even to the most disreputable characters, he would most certainly be severely censured, or perhaps dismissed. The personal characters of the present magistrates of Dublin ensure the observance of the strictest propriety in their courts. I may remark, also, that imprisonment cannot now be inflicted in the reckless manner formerly adopted. On the day when my magisterial functions commenced, I called for a list of the existing committals to the Dublin prisons from the Head Office. I was astonished to find that one man had been detained for the previous fifteen years, another for thirteen, and a third for ten, in default of sureties to keep the peace, and be of good behaviour. I ordered the immediate discharge of those persons, and two of them expressed great dissatisfaction at being thrown upon the world from which they had been so long estranged. These committals were signed by Major Sirr. There is no danger of persons being now sent to prison, and forgotten there; for if such a committal were sent, through ignorance or inadvertence, the Board of Superintendence would soon draw attention to the fact of a prisoner's subsistence being charged on the public for an illegal or unreasonable period. At the time when the committals to which I have alluded came under my notice, I happened to meet with some reports from a Governor of the Richmond Bridewell addressed to the magistrates of the Head Police Office during the time when that prison was under their exclusive control and supervision. In one of these documents, the writer states the building to be in good repair, and perfectly adapted for the safe custody of its inmates, and that every ward was in a clean and wholesome condition. He proceeds to describe the good effects produced by the use he made of a barber, who, for riotous and disorderly conduct, had been committed for two months with hard labour. He had not put the delinquent to stone-breaking or oakum picking, but employed him in shaving and hair-cutting the other prisoners, the effect of which was to improve their appearance, and to impart cleanly tendencies. He then expresses his regret that the barber's term of imprisonment had elapsed, and that the prisoners had become less cleanly-looking from remaining unshaven and uncropt. He terminates the report by earnestly and most respectfully suggesting to "their worships" to avail themselves of the first opportunity that may offer for committing _another barber for the longest term in their power_.