“So many.” “Are you sure? Count them.” “No; I am one short!” “Ah!” said the governor, and added something more in rather stronger language. Again, in the case of two barefaced escapes the governor expressed himself as follows: “Prisoner Howard escaped under the very nose of No. 2 sentry. The night was clear and fine, and the governor cannot acquit the sentry of No. 2 beat of great negligence. It is quite impossible, on such a night as the night of last Friday, for any individual to have performed such work in the garden as raising planks, etc., against the boundary wall without detection had common care been taken.” “In regard to the escape of Timothy Tobin, the operations he had recourse to, to break through the cell, made great noise, and attracted the attention of several of the night guard; and the governor is concerned to find that the principal warder in charge of the prison as orderly officer made no effort to detect the cause of the constant knocking in Pentagon five, but contented himself with the reports of inferior officers without rising from his bed or anticipating his intended time of going his rounds. The qualifications which entitle an officer to promotion in this and every other establishment, are intelligence, activity, and a sense of individual responsibility; and no person is fit for the situation of supervisor or principal warder who is not prepared to exercise them on all occasions.” This was a reference to Mr. Gray; and it was he who, with others equally negligent, were so sensitive, that they felt aggrieved at Captain Groves’ seemingly merited reprimands. But in actual investigation all charges of this kind melted into thin air as soon as the commissioners looked into them. The charges of tyranny were not substantiated, because they were far-fetched and exaggerated. Such stories must have been difficult to find when one of the charges trumped up against the governor was that he had kept the chaplain’s clerk one day without his dinner. We should even assert that the whole inquiry was another monument of misdirected zeal, were it not that the original petition opened up serious topics which demanded attention. The mere details of administrative bickering might have been better settled by officials within the department than by parliamentary interference; but when it is alleged in an indictment that unfortunate prisoners, without a friend in the world, are done to death by ill-treatment, it is clearly necessary that the said charges should be sifted without delay. In this way the inquiry was distinctly useful, and I shall now give the decision at which the commissioners arrived. “These petitions seriously impugned the character and conduct of the governor of Millbank Prison; and consequently imputed to the inspectors, under whose superintendence the government of this prison is placed, a culpable neglect of their duty in having permitted such maladministration to continue.