males. Of the seven sentenced for life, six are females and one is a male.

We do not think that there is a single prison in this country where the number of female convicts exceeds that of the males.

The number of prisoners in custody in this general prison or penitentiary, at the close of the year 1868, was 752, viz.: 376 males and 376 females. Of these 298 had been in the general prison before, 87 males and 211 females.

We notice also that many are returned having forfeited their order, or license-their "TICKETS OF LEAVE."

LENGTH OF SENTENCES.

We have frequently stated that some difference in discipline between the prisons of this country and those of Scotland must be consequent upon the difference of terms. Something of the difference and of the greater severity of Scotland may be inferred from the following statement of offences and sentences: Sheep stealing, six years; theft, by housebreaking, five years; theft and previous conviction, five years. We do not know what amount of time the sentence for sheep stealing would include in this country, but it has always appeared that such an act is rather one to ensure lasting contempt than extended imprisonment.

INSANE.

The arrangements throughout Scotland for the proper

care of insane criminals is admirable, and denotes a considerable advance in this branch of prison science. We do not know but quite as much was hoped for by citi zens generally by the erection of the State Asylum for the Insane, near Harrisburg. But it is not consistent with the true principles of humanity that the felon should be associated with the respectable.

It is said that the number of criminal lunatics greatly increases in Scotland. In this country we should say that the increase is less in the convicted than in the untried.

MARK SYSTEM.

In Scotland as in other prisons of Great Britain, the Mark System includes also the Ticket-of-leave, whereas the term Mark System really ought to be applied only to that part which allows the prisoner to earn a reduction of the time by good conduct of all kinds. The Governor of the Female Prison of Ayr, says:

"The Mark System continues to work well. It is beneficial to both the prisoner and the prison. It promotes good behavior among prisoners, and encourages them in habits of industry; and every year since its introduction there has been a steady decrease in the number of punishments, and the profits from work have year by year been increasing. Notwithstanding the greatly increased amount of work done by prisoners, complaints by them of overtasking are becoming more and more rare."

The satisfaction of prisoners results, of course, from

the fact that they obtain pay for their work by the time which is taken from the term of their sentence by good conduct. It may then be supposed that in Pennsylvania no less contentment would be found, where not only reduction of time is made from the sentence, by good conduct, if the new law should go into general effect, but where the system of "overwork," as it is called, enables a shoe or bootmaker to earn a hundred dollars a year, or more, after paying two dollars and fifty cents a week for his board.

The Mark System, it will be seen, is lauded, and, as it appears, not without cause. The error, it seems to us, is to impute to the license, or Ticket-of-leave System, the good fruits of the Mark System-fruits that are alone produced by the Mark System.

We have no means of telling what is the exact result of the second branch of the Mark System, viz., the return to association of convicts and the ticket-of-leave, as time sufficient has not transpired to show what is the effect of the guarded liberty upon the half-discharged convicts, who have been kept in close association with other convicts before their discharge. We see occasionally a report of one or two who have been re-committed for a violation of their ticket-of-leave, that is, recommitted to the same prison; but we do not know how many of these ticket-of-leave people who have been licensed out of Perth and Ayr prisons have been arrested and sent to the other prisons of Scotland, or to those of Yorkshire, Lancashire, or London. They are not likely to renew their depredations in the immediate vicinity of their old places of punishment, where they are well

known, and where a new sentence takes with it also the fulfillment of the conditionally pardoned part of the former sentence.

We notice that some of these ticket-of-leave women are discharged to be taken by some friend to America. It would seem that the Scotch prisons depend upon the Separate System to produce good promises, and punish a want of fulfillment of these promises. And also that all the short comings of convicts are due to association.

REMOVAL FROM PRISONS.

Convicts sentenced to more than nine months imprisonment, have to be removed from the local prison to the General Prison, or Penitentiary; or a convict sentenced to transportation is to be sent.from the place of trial to London, to be put on board the transport ship and conveyed to the penal colony. These removals are made subject to special and close legislation. And as removals are practised in this State (as taking convicts from the interior counties to the two Penitentiaries) we shall notice some of the provisions of the British laws as operative in Scotland. No step is taken without such provision as will secure to the country the safety of the convict, and to the convict the safety of his remaining rights.

Here is a provision eminently worthy of notice. In the removal of every female prisoner, at least one female officer shall accompany her during the whole course of the journey.

Every prisoner, before removal, shall be provided with

suitable clothing against the weather, and a bed-rug, flannel shirt and drawers; in the winter there shall be shirts, drawers, stockings and shoes.

And officers employed in these removals have a fixed allowance beyond their usual salary. The whole arrangements for the removal of prisoners are wonderfully minute as it regards all that concerns officers, court, or prisoners.

REFORMATORIES AND INDUSTRIAL
SCHOOLS.

GREAT BRITAIN-REFORMATORIES.

There is in Great Britain a class of schools partaking of the character of "Houses of Refuge," which are denominated there, Reformatory Schools, of which there are 64, situated as follows: In England, 36 for boys, and 14 for girls; in Scotland, 8 for boys, and 6 for girls.

Of the qualifications, or disqualifications, for admission to these reformatory schools, we are not exactly apprized, but we infer that crime of some kind or another must be found, as we find the term "convicted" is used with regard to most of the boys and girls placed in these institutions. These schools, then, are prisons, places of penal residence, wherein reformation is a primary consideration.

These reformatory schools are under the care of a staff of officers and assistants, usually a Superintendent