SCIENCJE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 205 



tion in his little steamer, only to find it in posses- 

 sion of the Arabs. Mr. Deane was found among 

 some negroes soon after. M. Coquilhat thinks 

 that the situation is quite serious ; not, perhaps, 

 so much for its effect upon the immediate pros- 

 pects of the Kongo Free State, as because it will 

 show the natives that the whites and the Arabs 

 are no longer on good terms. Then, too, it brings 

 the day nearer when the inevitable conflict be- 

 tween the trade association and the slavers must 

 be fought out. It has also closed the route to the 

 lakes via the Kongo and Tanganyika. 



But the Kongo State has still an interest in 

 connection with the relieving of Emin Bey, 

 referred to in another column. Mr. Grenfell 

 has ascended a large tributary of the Kongo, 

 which joins the main river about twenty-five 

 miles south of the equator, to a point in longi- 

 tude east from Greenwich of 19° 40', and in 

 latitude 4.27°. Dr. Junker passed six years in 

 the Niam-Niam territories. He telegraphs from 

 Zanzibar that on one excursion he followed 

 the WeUe to longitude 22° east. These two points 

 are not more than from one himdred and fifty to 

 two hundred miles apart. It may be that the 

 Welle, instead of being a tributary of Lake Tsad, 

 is, after all, a branch of the Kongo. If this 

 proves to be the case, and the river proves also to 

 be navigable, the key to the Soudan may yet be 

 found to be the Kongo railway and river. 



The annual report of the directors of the 

 English convict-prisons, drawn up by Sir E. F. 

 DuCane, is interesting, principally because of the 

 valuable statistical tables appended to it. It 

 seems that the number of sentences of penal servi- 

 tude passed by ordinary courts in England and 

 Wales in 1885 was 1,027, a decrease of 23 per cent 

 as compared with the number so sentenced in the 

 previous year, which, in turn, was lower than 

 any year on record, and only half the number 

 sentenced to penal servitude twenty years before. 

 At the date of the report, the convict-prison popu- 

 lation was only 8,183, as against 11,660 in 1869. 

 There is also a remarkable and gratifying decrease 

 in the number of females under sentences of penal 

 servitude. It is now but 821, only a little more 

 than half what it was ten years ago. During the 

 year the commencement of a new work for the 

 war department near Chatham afforded some 

 points of interest in connection with the employ- 

 ment of convict-labor. The report on this reads 



as follows : ' ' The work in question being quite in 

 the open country, and distant about two miles 

 from the prison at Borstal, special consideration 

 was necessary before deciding that the work could 

 be undertaken. Arrangements were ultimately 

 entered into, which have enabled the convicts to 

 be employed there with complete security. A line 

 of narrow-gauge tramway has been laid dowm by 

 the royal engineer department along the whole 

 line occupied by the forts under construction, and 

 this is made use of for the conveyance of the con- 

 victs to and from their work. A train of railway- 

 carriages, specially fitted to insure the safe cus- 

 tody of the convicts, has been furnished. The 

 site of the works is enclosed by a palisading ten 

 feet high, with a ditch on the inner side, and wire 

 entanglements on the inner side of the ditch. 

 Warders and civil guards travel with the train, 

 and an addition has been made to the armed 

 guard at the works, where a selected officer is 

 always in charge. A system of signals is estab- 

 lished between the work and the prison, and an 

 engine is always available in case any thing should 

 be required, or to facilitate inspection by the 

 superior officers of the prison all along the line." 



Sir Edmund DuCane has also something to 

 say about the operation of the separate system, 

 which Pentonville prison was designed especially 

 to carry out. He recalls, that, when the system 

 of separate confinement was decided on, grave 

 doubts were expressed as to whether it could pos- 

 sibly be carried out without injury to the mental 

 and bodily health of the prisoners. At first the 

 isolation and seclusion were very strict, and were 

 imposed upon all prisoners for two years, after 

 which they were removed to Australia. At first 

 the apprehensions of the opponents of the separate 

 system, those who had favored a system of silent 

 or classified association, seemed justified ; for it 

 was found that a certain class of minds became 

 enfeebled and lost their balance under the regi- 

 men adopted. As the result of this experience, 

 the period of isolation was reduced to nine months, 

 and its strictness was much modified. Since these 

 changes, no evil results have followed ; and Sir Ed- 

 mund DuCane writes, that, "although a complete 

 moral reformation is no longer expected to be the 

 usual result, the separation undoubtedly prevents 

 prisoners mutually contaminating each other, good 

 influences have an opportunity of acting on them, 

 and it has been found of the highest advantage as 



