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under my notice, both in Great Britain and India, would hardly be credited; and, though I believe it to be next to useless to attempt the reformation of old and hardened systematic drunkards, we may save juvenile and incidental offenders from the fate of the habitual criminal by a system of training and separation which shall deter them from further crime, and remove them from the pernicious teaching of confirmed offenders. 14. The reformatories and industrial schools already in existence are no doubt very valuable institutions for training such juveniles, but the scope of such training requires extension so as properly to increase its beneficial results ; and I believe an establishment similar to the Philanthropic Society's Farm School for the Reformation of Criminal Boys at Redhill, Surrey, might be opened with great advantage somewhere in the colony, where the boys, after learning farm-work for a certain portion of their sentences, might be apprenticed to farmers willing to take them, who, as long as the boys continued to behave well, would give them employment, and take an interest in their future welfare. 15. The female criminal population of the colony, I regret to report, is, with few exceptions, of the most degraded class, and long past all possible chance of reformation ; but the younger portion should, I think, if possible, be sent to a reformatory direct, without, as far as practicable, suffering imprisonment, as it is quite impossible to prevent the contaminating influences of the older females in prison seriously interfering with them, it having been found injudicious to place females under separate or isolated treatment for any length of time. 16. In my last year's report it was stated that I considered the system of endeavouring to educate prisoners to be a mistake; but, as a wrong interpretation has several times been placed on that statement, I take this opportunity of explaining that I referred to the system (if it can be so designated) carried out in most prisons in New Zealand, of daily, for an hour or eighty minutes, assembling in association, in one of the prison halls, those prisoners who voluntarily desire to attend for the purpose of being taught by one of their own number, the attendance not being confined to the uneducated, but to those who have themselves asked the gaoler's permission to be present, no matter how good or bad their education may be, and who arc indiscriminately associated, regardless of their crimes or prison characters. It was this mistaken mode of association to which allusion was made in my last report. A proper system of cellular instruction would doubtless be attended with beneficial results ; and in some of the smaller prisons (where every prisoner occupies a separate cell J considerable progress has been made by prisoners in educating themselves, books and, as far as practicable, instruction by a toarder being afforded them. This is the system I would advocate being carried out as soon as accommodation will admit —a system which will allow of prisoners making good advances in education without the contaminating influences of indiscriminate association. Considerable personal experience of the working of this cellular system of education was gained by me when at Millbank in 1874. Millbank is a close prison to which convicts are sent to undergo the first nine months of their sentences, preparatory to being drafted to the Public "Works prisons, and in which they are never in association except in chapel. It was found that many, who endeavoured to do so, taught themselves the rudimentary portion of education even in nine months in their cells —a result unattainable by the associated system of teaching, which is too often made a cloak for nefarious schemes. Many of these criminals were afterwards under me at Portland, Dartmoor, and Wormwood Scrubs Prisons, and they invariably agreed in their statements of dating their education in crime and debauchery from the time of their arrival at a public works prison. Many of the better class of these men made repeated applications to be allowed to return to Millbank and finish their sentences in close confinement, and, when questioned on the subject, have frankly admitted that escapes, outbreaks, assaults, and such-like prison crimes are invariably concocted at school, or when at exercise, and not when in associated labour, where a man's thoughts are fully occupied in performing, under immediate supervision, the task allotted to him, instead of in planning mischief. 17. A. progressive-stage system of classification, which includes a gratuity scale, has been introduced, and is now on trial at Lyttelton Prison. This gives all prisoners (with more than three months' sentence) an opportunity of earning, as a reward for good conduct and industry, a right to periodical visits and letters, and in addition grants them a small sum of money on their discharge, when they may be without the immediate means of making an honest living. 1 trust the day may not be far distant when there will be established at all the larger towns of the colony societies for the aid of discharged prisoners, which would hold out a helping hand to such of them as are desirous of retrieving their lost characters and living honestly for the future, not by actually giving them cash, but by affording I hem the means of procuring tools, clothes, &c, or by finding them suitable employment, and taking an interest in their future well-doing, or in some cases perhaps by augmenting the gratuities above referred to. The Dunedin Patients' and Prisoners' Aid Society, under the management of its indefatigable secretary and agent, has been instrumental in helping, and I believe saving, many whose cause it has taken in hand. My experience is that, no matter how hard may be the actual sentence a prisoner has to undergo, a far harder task is before him in retrieving his lost character, without some friend to assist and advise him when such sentence expires. 18. The prisons are at present utilized extensively for the detention of supposed lunatics, pending the decision of two medical officers on their eases, and also of persons suffering from delirium tremens ; and I deem it my duty to state I consider prisons totally unfitted for the location of such cases. The staff is altogether too limited to admitof supposed lunatics being properly watched, and there are no means of preventing them disturbing the requisite quiet and discipline of the prisons, should they be disposed to do so ; whilst, as regards inebriates, there is an absence of appliances for giving them proper treatment -—no dispensary, no orderlies or nurses, no cooking allowed at night, no lights after hours in cells, whereas in a hospital they have the advantage of all these requirements. A serious case of delirium tremens was recently admitted to one of the prisons, and the patient was ordered stimulants and beef tea, &c, at intervals during the night. This necessitated cooking all night, and, as only prisoners were available for nurses' work, there was no guarantee (hat the stimulants and medical comforts prescribed for the patient were ever given to him. In a hospital this would of course be very different, but in the case under reference the local hospital authorities distinctly refused to admit the prisoner, even on a District Judge's order. I have quoted the above because the Prison Surgeon, in reporting it, adds that

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