vict superintendence, are not in a highly reformed state, and the associated rooms at Portland have not succeeded. He might as well have drawn his conclusions from any chain-gang in Australia employed in the back settlements, or from any number of convicts that he pleased to turn experimentally into a bar-parlour. It is quite true, as Captain Crofton allows, that great advantages are attained by dealing with men in masses, according to general rules which promote order and discipline; but such rules are not all sufficient. The convict suddenly thrust out of that semi-military organization into society is transferred from a highly artificial state to the chaos and temptations which are the ordinary condition of "the dangerous classes." The object of the intermediate prison is not to hold out luxury and better living as a "reward" for the good conduct of the prisoners,-not to offer such a dietary as that used at the Fulham prison for females, with its meat pies, puddings, baked meat, soup, vegetables, and general variety of "carte", not to promise the prize of high earnings-in England the gratuity of a discharged conmay be £14, in Ireland it is £7. The object of the intermediate system is to secure a graduation of the prisoner's change. In that stage he is allowed some degree of association,-under supervision; some degree of freedom,-while he continues to employ it properly; some opportunity for earning money. To a very modest extent, he receives a certain degree of instruction, particularly calculated to open his mind, and to fix his attention upon his future responsibility in the world. He is under a treatment which does not allow hope itself to surprise him, but which makes it dawn gradually in his mind, while he is still under the chastening influence of hard fare and hard work. He is not coaxed and pampered into better behaviour, but trained into better habits. Hence the hundred men who are associated in one of the working huts of the Irish system continue to observe discipline and to fulfil their duties without any demoralizing effect from the association; but such treatment bears no resem blance to the labour gang at Vern-Hill, or to the associated rooms for eating, reading, and conversing of evenings at Portland. And of course what Colonel Jebb infers as probable if the Vern-Hill and Portland experiments were carried out further, has no force whatever against the actual experience of the hut system or of the intermediate prisons in Ireland. Amongst the extraordinary assumptions of Colonel Jebb is the one that it is impossible to maintain a police supervision without such an interference as would deprive discharged convicts of their employment. Now it is remarkable that there has been a certain observation over discharged convicts, kept up without interference except in the cases of those individuals who have gone back to bad courses. Who is it that tells us this fact? Sergeant Loome as a witness before the Transportation Committee of the Commons. what place does he speak? Of London. Undoubtedly there are inconveniencies attending the observation of the police, who, when a man of previously bad character enters a neighbourhood, become suspicious of his movements, and for want of any definite plan resort to a species of watching which amounts to espionage, with much irritation to the individual and perhaps some danger to his employ. And of ment; but this objection ceases when the police have definite instruc tions, and what is more when the police themselves are under supervision of higher officers anxious to secure the success of the process. This has been found in Dublin. The success of the Irish prisons we have already stated. Of 1327 prisoners discharged from the intermediate prisons since 1856, 511 were discharged unconditionally, 816 on licence. Of the 511 unconditionally discharged, five have been reconsigned to convict prisons, Colonel Jebb rather boasts that not more than twenty or thirty fall back in England-but of the remaining seventy per cent we have only negative information. Of 816 discharged on licence in Ireland we learn that 467 have been reported on-many having come to Eng land or Scotland, where there is no such supervision. Only 30 [4 per cent] having been reconvicted; while 45 have had their licences revoked, 15 of the number for keeping bad company, drunkenness, or neglect to report themselves. Fifty or sixty of the discharged convicts are under constant notice in Dublin city; amongst them are men once notorious for evil and daring deeds, yet many of these have been for upwards of two years in regular daily work. This last paragraph seems to settle Colonel Jebb's melancholy fear that work would not be found for discharged convicts; but in Captain Crofton's Notes we have the reason at once. "The good conduct of the men for whom I have been fortunate enough to procure employment, through the right feelings of worthy employers, emboldens me to make repeated applications to the same employers for others of our men. To find continuous employment for the men is sometimes rather difficult; nor do I wish to have it inferred that even to find employment at all for them at all periods of the year, is easy. Much exertion is required, and a wide circle of friends necessary; but all these, without the good conduct of the men themselves, would soon prove valueless. This I impress upon them inside and outside the Institution, that all depends upon their own conduct; and I always keep before them how much harm even one man can do, and how far easier it is to make enemies for themselves and the system by the slightest act of misconduct, than to make friends by a long series of good, honest, and unexceptionable conduct." Yes, this is the reason for the success in Ireland,—the earnest personal activity of the superiors. One reason why Colonel Jebb has conceived so imperfect an idea of the facts in Ireland is, that he has looked to the reports of Captain Crofton and Mr. Organ eighteen months back, not to the annual report published four months since, with a year's additional experience. Another reason is, that some time since, Colonel Jebb committed himself to a positive opinion that no intermediate system could be effectually carried out, and that therefore transportation must be continued. And the reason why, in reporting on the English system, Colonel Jebb has gone aside to notice the Irish system is, that the great success across St. George's Channel stands as a shining rebuke of those officials who still neglect its practical example, and are trying to compromise between the truth which it has established and the assumptions which it has refuted. FAMILY INTERESTS. To the Editor of the Irish Quarterly Review. Dear Sir, I believe the simple history of my experience will best effect the object I have in view in writing you this letter. I gave you in my former letters proof of the necessity of having some certain employment secured for the girls who should be ready to leave reformatories. I cannot cease to impress this all-important point, as otherwise the hope of perseverance must be faint indeed. It is true all agree as to this being essential; but yet it is discouraging to find that many seem to think the industrial part an after thought that can wait its time: this I believe a fatal error, as it will be no longer time to begin to establish what can only succeed after a long trial and unwearied labour. Above all, the secret of the reformed girl must be kept, and yet how do so, if the period of commencing Industrial Establishments be deferred until the children now about to be adopted for reform be ready to leave their blessed homes of shelter. We have been so long aware of this want, and so sure that it would be recognised, that in spite of difficulty and debt, we have kept on our industrial school; and now it has taken a new phase. While our laundry was in operation I had occasion to ask a benevolent Guardian of the South Dublin Union for an introduction to the Matron in order to take out some girls to work. His answer is still ringing in my ear: "I will give you one certainly, but I would not advise you to take any of the inmates, as they are all bad." He did not say it unkindly-but he thought it only fair to warn me, as he knew I had innocent girls at work in St. Joseph's, and feared to spoil them, and expose me to lose property which should be confided to their charge, if I received them into the |