180 EEPORT— 1869. 



Plymoutli, Torquay, Tiverton, Tavistock, Barnstaple, Honiton, Dartmouth, and 

 proposed to assemble at Devonport in 1870. Succeeding Sir John, there had been 

 as Presidents, Mr. Spence Bates, Mr. Edw. Vivian, Dr. Daubeny, Earl Russell, 

 Sir J. D. Coleridge, Mr. Pengelly, and Mr. George Bidder, and the next President 

 Elect is Mr. Froude. Scarcely any portion of the local area had been unexplored, 

 and special attention had been given to the attractions of the localities v?here the 

 Meetings had been held. The number of Members had constantly increased, and 

 pride wan felt in the fact that Devonshire had, liowever imperfectly, and at how- 

 ever remote a distance, imitated the example and followed in the footsteps of 

 the greater Association. 



Oji Penal Law as applied to Prison Discipline. 

 By Sir John Bowling, LL.I)., F.R.S. 

 The object of this paper was to show the very unsatisfactory working of the 

 Prisons Act of 1865, and that while it allowed magistrates and governors to make 

 jail-labour remunerative, it permitted the greatest inattention to this important 

 object ; and that consequently the cost of prisoners and the produce of their work 

 was so incredibly various as to make it difficult to believe that the subjects of Great 

 Britain were under the rule of any common legislation. The coimty prison of 

 Devon was one of the most remarkable instances of the bad effects of routine, for 

 large amoimts of money had been spent to provide machinery for wasting labour. 

 A treadmill, at the cost of £1760, imposing in interest alone an annual charge of 

 more than £80, had lately been erected in Exeter prison, though it was well 

 known that the treadmill had been rejected in every prison in Scotland, and was 

 repudiated in most of the prisons of the civilized world ; the invention was a cala- 

 mity, its employment an opprobrium. The labour of the hundreds of con\-icts 

 passing through that establishment left nothing but heavy cost to the commimity. 

 It was disgraceful that in an enlightened and inquiring country the cost of felons 

 should vary from nil up to more than £120 each per annum. Prison inspectors 

 are helpless when magistrates are obstinate ; and to nothing but the application of 

 some sound general principles enforced by parliamentary reqmrements could we look 

 for any general improvement. The contrasts presented by the best conducted 

 prisons of the United States and the Continent, when compared with our own, is 

 disgraceful to British reputation, whether as regards the reformatory or the pecu- 

 niary residts of their administration. The author referred with great and hopefid 

 satisfaction to the International Confess proposed to be held in some great Euro- 

 pean city — he trusted London would oe selected — in the coming year, in which the 

 experience of the highest authorities woiUd be brought to bear on this important 

 question. He thought that the number of our prisons was far too great, and iU 

 adapted to these purposes, and that nine-tenths of that number might be usefully 

 sold ; and new prisons, on the best models, built not only with a view to economy, 

 but to the higher questions of discipline. Great advantage woidd be found if par- 

 ticular trades were carried on in particular prisons — shoemaking, for example, in 

 one, tailoring in another — selected with reference to the locality itself. In Belgium 

 the army was clothed by prison labour, in France the Government received £178,000 

 for work in 1868. In the United States the best prisons left a large balance of 

 profit to the State after the deduction of every outlay. He pressed the necessity of 

 making, as far as possible, retribution to the injured one of the requirements to be 

 laid upon the convict, and gave elaborate reasons for the abolition of the punish- 

 ment of death. 



Some Statistics of Railways in their Relation to the Public. 

 By Eaphael Brandon. 



The author showed that the returns made for railway investments had not been 

 such as might have been expected from capital laid out, and that the public had 

 every reason to complain of the present railway system. He suggested that it 

 could only be accomplished by uniting all the railways under one general manage- 

 ment, to form them into a separate branch of the public service. The author con- 



