GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



403 



Post-Office savings-banks on Dec. 31, 1882, 

 amounted to 39,037,821, an increase of 2,- 

 843,326 over the amount of the previous year. 

 In the Irish banks there was an increase of 

 90,503, which was more than the average 

 increase of ten years. The number of depos- 

 itors in the postal-banks was 2,858,976. 



Education. The act of 1870 provided that 

 there shall be established in every school dis- 

 trict public elementary schools with sufficient 

 accommodation for all children whose educa- 

 tion is not otherwise provided for. Children 

 whose parents are unable to pay the school- 

 fees have their expenses defrayed from the lo- 

 cal rates. The public schools are under the 

 supervision of district school boards, who, with 

 their other powers, have authority to compel 

 parents to provide for the education of their 

 children between the ages of five and thirteen. 

 The percentage of persons who were unable to 

 sign their names to the marriage register in the 

 five years from 1875 to 1880 was 14-8 among 

 the men and 20 among the women. In 1879 

 14 per cent, of the men and 20 of the women 

 married signed with marks in England, 9 per 

 cent, of the men and 18 of the women in Scot- 

 land, and 31 per cent, of the men and 38 of the 

 women in Ireland. The parliamentary grants 

 to primary schools amounted to only 40,000 

 in 1840. Since the school act they have been 

 increased from 914,721 in 1870 to 2,749,863 

 in 1882 and 2,938,930 in 1883. The number 

 of schools inspected in Great Britain was 13,- 

 954 in 1873 and 21,136 in 1881. The average 

 attendance increased from 1,783,730 to 3,273,- 

 501. In the vote for public education in 1883 

 allowance was made for 3,245,046 children. 



Pauperism and Crime. The number of paupers, 

 exclusive of vagrants and casual poor, relieved 

 in the poor-law unions and parishes of England 

 and Wales in 1882 was 797,614, against 803,126 

 in 1881, 837,940 in 1880, 800, 426 in 1879, 815,- 

 587 in 1875, and 1,079,391 in 1870. The num- 

 ber of able-bodied adult paupers included in the 

 above was 106,280 in 1882, 111,169 in 1881, 

 and 126,228 in 1880. The number of registered 

 paupers and their dependents in Scotland in 

 1881 was 97,787, against 98,608 in 1880. The 

 number of in-door and out-door paupers in Ire- 

 land, and the total, including others in asylums, 

 was, for the five years, 1878-'82, as follows: 



The number of criminal offenders convicted 

 in 1881 was 11,353 in England and Wales, 1,832 

 in Scotland, and 2,698 in Ireland. In England 

 and in Scotland there was a considerable de- 

 crease in ten years. In Ireland the number 

 remained almost stationary. The substitution 

 for penal colonies of a system of convict pris- 

 ons, which has been gradually improved un- 



der the efforts of scientific prison reformers, 

 has been attended with a gradual diminution 

 of crime. In the ten or fifteen years previous 

 to 1872 the practice of deporting convicts was 

 gradually abandoned in obedience to the wishes 

 of the colonists, who preferred a scarcity of la- 

 bor to having it supplied by the criminal out- 

 casts of the mother- country. In the five years 

 ending in 1874 the number of sentences to pe- 

 nal servitude in England and Wales averaged 

 1,622 per annum ; in the five years ending in 

 1879 it was 1,633 ; in the year 1881 the num- 

 ber was 1,525. As compared with the five 

 years ending 1859, when the population was 

 20 per cent, less, the convictions in 1881 showed 

 a decrease of almost one half. The number of 

 convictions for short terms showed a corre- 

 sponding improvement, being 9,266 in 1881, 

 against an average of 9,848 in the five years 

 ending in 1874, and of 12,058 in the five years 

 ending in 1869. The average length of the 

 terms to which convicts were sentenced has 

 increased, and the population of the prisons 

 has remained almost stationary, being 10,221 

 on March 31, 1882, against 10,160 at the end 

 of 1871. Under the British prison system the 

 convict is kept in solitary confinement, but at 

 hard labor, during the first nine months of his 

 imprisonment. During a second period he 

 sleeps and eats in his cell, but works in com- 

 pany with his fellow-prisoners. At the end 

 of this period, which is of variable duration, 

 he is conditionally released on ticket-of-leave, 

 under police supervision. The dread of the 

 term of isolation, of the spare diet and the se- 

 vere labor, has a greater deterrent effect than 

 the prison discipline had in the times when it 

 was less inflexible. The system of marks en- 

 ables a prisoner to shorten his term of impris- 

 onment by one fourth, and to earn money to 

 be paid on his release. The illiterate are taught 

 reading and writing, and trades are taught to 

 those who have none. Of 9,107 prisoners in 

 custody on July 1, 1882, 3,235 learned their 

 trades in prison. The estimated value of con- 

 vict-labor, exclusive of the portion utilized 

 in the service of the prison, was, for the year 

 ending with March, 1882, 217,274. There 

 are a number of Prisoners' Aid Societies which 

 encourage discharged convicts to lead honest 

 lives. Of 1,582 male prisoners liberated in the 

 year ending March 31, 1882, 954 were assisted 

 by these benevolent societies; of 249 female 

 prisoners, 34 received aid of this kind, and 144 

 were received in refuges. An important re- 

 form in priscn management is the separation 

 of prisoners hardened in crime from the rest. 

 This was adopted in 1877-'78, and two years 

 later the idea was further developed by the 

 separation of novices in crime- from the body 

 of the prisoners. Cruelty on the part of jailers 

 is not likely to occur, but the persecution of ex- 

 convicts by the police under the system of sur- 

 veillance has sometimes been complained of. 



Commerce. The total values of imports and 

 exports in 1882 and the six preceding years 



