On the 4th January next the Hampshire magistrates are to
take into consideration at Winchester Lord Carnarvon's able report on the requisite improvements in the discipline of the county prison. It will, in some degree, be a critical day for the county prisons in England, for it will determine whether the quarter sessions of our leading county, unusually enlightened by having for chairman a man who has studied prison discipline long and thoroughly, are willing, so far as it is possible in county prisons and with criminals under short sentences, to adopt in England Sir Walter Crofton's method with the Irish convict prisons. The changes proposed are all in the direction of very much severer dis- cipline and less comfortable fare, with this one important addi- tion, that they propose to give the prisoner some small power, by extraordinary industry and good conduct, to graduate the
Feal part of his sentence, so that he may have less and less of exhausting treadwheel work, and more of spade labour and e occupations, as his sentence draws to a close. If the Hampshire magistrates accept this principle, the great Unpaid will for once have taken the lead in England of the Government officials.
Previous page
