The Social Science Association at Edinburgh has discussed many topics
and shed a valuable light on some. On the principles of the system pursued in the Convict Prisons of Ireland and England respectively the general voice has gone for the Irish system, and, What is somewhat curious, has, on one point at least, received the ad- 'hesionof the Times, hitherto resolutely hostile. The Times now thinks that the careful police inspection after discharge on licence, which is one of the great distinctive features of the Irish system, ought to be tried. Sir Walter Crofton also drew attention yesterday week to the report of the Lords' Committee on houses of correction, which expressly recommends graduations of penal and disciplinary labour from the tread-wheel at the penal end of the series to the less irksome stages of disciplinary employment. To this end they would make the whole system strictly progressive through its several stages,-like the Irish system.
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