fferent, all together. The clergyman, even if he were to
get into prison innocently, and were the best Christian in the world,
would never get rid of the jail-bird; and in the highest class his
companions would be no better than those in the lowest.

I grant that our directors could not classify convicts according to
their real merits, any more than a quack doctor could classify patients
suffering from disease; but although they cannot have the knowledge
necessary to do it properly, they might do a little in the right
direction. The quack, even, would know cholic from consumption,
diarrhaea from dropsy; so any man of sense would be able to distinguish
between a case of chronic moral disease and a case of partial or
temporary paralysis of the moral faculty!

The system of "marks," as it is called in prison, is the most prominent
feature in the new regulations, and is based upon the same absurd
principle as the classification clause. The rule relating to marks
specifies "That the time which every convict under sentence of penal
servitude must henceforth pass in prison will be regulated by a certain
number of marks, which he must earn by actual labour performed before
he can be discharged."

The method adopted is to debit the prisoner with a certain number of
marks, according to the length of his sentence, and if he performs the
whole of the work required of him he is credited with as many marks as
would represent a fourth part of his sentence.

If this law were carried out in its integrity it would be most cruel
and unjust. Fortunately for the prisoners it is not very strictly
adhered to--at least not at the prison where I was confined--the
officers making allowance for the prisoners' infirmities. To show how
it would operate, let us take the case of the clergyman and the
jail-bird once more. Assuming that the former was a stout and healthy
man, and able to work, but not having been accustomed to it, really not
able to do much of it, and that the latter had been at the work for
years--which would win in the race for liberty, if the law was strictly
enforced? The probability is that the clergyman would not earn a single
day's remission, whilst the jail-bird would get one-fourth of his time
remitted; and assuming that both had the same sentence originally,
would go a considerable way into a "fresh bit" before the poor
clergyman had finished his first sentence.

The "mark" system admits of great cruelty being practised,