fully noted, will, if continued for a certain time, say ten months, entitle him to the credit of one full year of his term. And the second year, beginning really at the termination of the well spent ten months, is still further shortened by a continuance of good conduct of all kinds. So that the two year sentence will be fulfilled in nineteen months-and as in Ireland the sentences are usually much severer than in this country, the deduction or commutation earned by the prisoner whose sentence is for ten or fifteen years, is very considerable. Of course misconduct is charged, and the convict is entitled only to the balance that may be in his favor.

There can be no doubt that the commutation system is one of immense value in the science of prison discipline; and where it has been tried it has been found of great benefit.

But I have elsewhere hinted, and I here emphatically note, that the benefit of any system results from its administration, and this system is more dependent upon its administration than any other. The convict is to be closely watched, and his conduct is to be righteously judged. How few of the prisons of this country are officered by men competent to do more than to detain the convict, supply him with work, teach him how it should be done, supply him with food, and punish gross violation of prison rule!! The Commutation System asks that the keeper be of a kind to inspire respect for his person, and especially for his judgment; and as months, and perhaps years of the convict's incarceration may depend upon the report of a common keeper, how likely is that convict to impeach the motives of his keeper should

his reports be adverse? How liable that keeper to color reports by his feelings towards the convict? Every man concerned in the administration of the prison must feel anxious for the success of the system. And I do not doubt that all the keepers and assistants can be brought to a full co-operation with the principal, and that the labors of philanthropic individuals concerned in the "alleviation of the miseries of public prisons," would be voluntarily given to the good work. Of the importance of volunteer assistance I shall speak in a future paragraph of this letter. From several causes this "Commutation System" is known in Ireland as the "Mark System." With some other characteristics it is called. in England and even in parts of the United States, "the Irish System."

But in any plans for the improvement of the prisons of the State care should be taken to distinguish between the part known as "the Mark System," and the whole called "the Irish System."

The Irish System commences with separate confinement (with some rigors that do nothing toward improvement) and to that separate treatment it owes all its success that is not due to careful administration. But in the progress of dealing with the convict, the Irish System permits of the association of felons, so that what separate confinement has so well begun, is quite undone by the evil association; though, perhaps, the conduct of the convict while in prison is a continuance of the seeming propriety that was commenced in the first stage of separation from all other convicts.

The term "Mark System" comes from the marks,

good or bad, which his conduct earns, and by which his claims to a shortened period are established, or his liability to full service may be made known.

While this Society has earnestly approved of the system of commutation, and thus has been an advocate of the "Mark System," it has borne testimony to the evil effects upon the after life of the convict who has by good conduct in separate confinement earned a right, under the Irish System, to greater or less association with other convicts. On this subject your attention is drawn to the Report of the Society for 1866-7 and 8, and especially to the proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Society, as given in the Journal of the Society for the past year.

I can scarcely express with too much earnestness the importance of what you denominate "the power to mitigate the rigor of prison discipline, and to propose rewards, &c." The Commutation System will, if carefully and judiciously prepared, and rigorously and conscientiously administered, meet the wants of prisons in that direction. Yet so much must depend upon administration, that it is not safe to declare that the community will at once derive from any legislation on that point, all the benefits desired, or that it will, in every prison, derive any benefit from the first experiment-for the experiment must be tried.

Your views of the importance of larger provisions for discharged convicts are eminently correct. They need pecuniary aid, they need advice, and they need protection and patronage. Our Society has given much attention to this subject. But its plans and efforts have been

limited to its own sphere of action, and the results of its labors have been gratifying though necessarily limited.

Your inquiries, of course, have in view provisions by the State or county, and the law permits some pecuniary aid to discharged convicts. Much more might be granted with great benefit to the cause of true philanthropy, provided that the sums appropriated were judiciously expended. There is one danger in the plan of public or State appropriations for deserving convicts, viz., that in a little time the distribution will become general, and every convict will claim to be a recipient of the public bounty, and by degrees the claim will come to be allowed. Those who have had much experience in prison manage. ment, know how prone are the administrators to pass from a special discriminating exercise of favors or rewards to a general bestowal of the means with which they are intrusted. Yet with the Mark System (the Commutation System) this form of help would be more easily introduced and more discriminately practiced.

The great charity of providing for discharged prisoners ought to be considered in any law that is enacted for the government and improvement of those persons while they are prisoners.

In France there exist several societies whose object is to receive the prisoner as he leaves the jail and provide, as far as possible, some employment; some means at least for his immediate support, so that there shall not be pleaded as excuse for renewed crime, inability to procure the necessaries of life by honest effort. We must, moreover, distinguish between the circumstances and

habits of the people of the old world and those of our own country.

Private or associate efforts in behalf of the discharged convict have been found the most effective in this country; perhaps that is partly owing to the lamentable fact that there has been little provision for assistance of that kind.

The Committee of this Society find great demand for their means and their watchful care at the Eastern Penitentiary, and a considerable sum is appropriated by the Society, and from bequests for that purpose, to the very ends which you suggest. At the County Prison, while a similar Committee discharge the same duties, the work is generally more effectually done by William J. Mullen, the Agent of the Society, acting with the advice of some members of the Committee.

More money, more advice when leaving, more watchfulness for the discharged convict when at a distance, would enable the Committee and the Agent to extend the benefits of their mission. As it is, they do much good, as is evident in the letters received from the recipients of their kindness, and much remains to be done. And whenever the State shall undertake with earnestness to reform as well as punish prisoners, more liberal legislation will be had in favor of the discharged convict.

It may be said that all the instruction, moral and religious, which the convict receives in prison, is often rendered unavailable for good by his inability, when he leaves the prison, to find employment in the vicinity, or to obtain means to go to some distant place where labor, such as he can perform, is in demand. To remedy