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 think that narcotic was as perilous as dynamite, yet the contraband goes on. At Lusk the men may buy tobacco with their gratuities. Dr. Robert McDonnell's suggestion at the Commission—that tobacco should enter the prison system of rewards as well as of punishments —seems worth a thought.

I would hope for such an organization as might permit the execution of public works by prison labour through various parts of the country, undertaken by Government either alone or in contribution to projects in which private capital could not profitably engage: such works as reclamation of waste and slob lands, piers and harbours for the protection of our fisheries, county bridges and roads, government buildings. To go no further than this county, we have two very large and unmeaning sea-lakes at Malahide and Donabate already walled in by the railway, the draining of which would add many hundreds of acres to that subject of highest competition, the Irish soil; and there is a smaller one at Clontarf, now an eyesore and nuisance at every ebb tide. This would presuppose the formation of moveable prisons, as referred to by Mr. Bernays (Q. 7,205). One was projected by Sir W. Crofton twenty-five years ago (Q. 12,540), and actually built for 250 prisoners; but then the War Department forbade its use. As instances of detached working parties already used successfully, I find Dartmoor prisoners employed at building schools in the village of Prince Town, and 200 men work for the War Department at Portsmouth outside the dockyard (Q. 7,853). There are many cases, too, in which prison labour and free work have been successfully conjoined. Under Mr. Wood, for example, in the brick works at Portsmouth (Q. 7,856), where also free engine-men drive the locomotives in connection with the convict works; and Sir E. DuCane mentioned (Q. 13,524) that it was proposed to make a railway at Dartmoor, the convict labour being the government contribution to the undertaking.

Turning more exclusively to Ireland, there is as usual an Irish grievance to state. Twenty years ago the Irish system was regarded everywhere as the best solution of the convict problem, and a model for imitation in Europe and America. Since then the system in England has immensely developed, whilst here the old staff of two directors and two inspectors was several years since reduced to a single director, and Captain Barlow left for five years single-handed (as was said at the Commission, to be worked like a slave), with new duty of registering convicts under the Crimes Prevention Act, 1871, further imposed on him, whilst all reforms were meanwhile deferred. Accordingly, we find the Commissioners recommending the suppression of our only public works prison, Spike Island, as entirely insufficient, the defects of which had been pressed on government by Sir W. Crofton twenty years ago—repeatedly by his successor since. The excuse for this retrogression and postponement was the long pendency of the measure for amalgamating the government and county prisons, which has, as we know, been effected by Sir M. Hicks-Beach, through our Prison Act of 1877 (40 & 41 Vic. c. 49), by which every prison and gaol in Ireland is placed under a single government prisons board in connection with the office of the Chief Secretary. The