Portland Prison, as the chief punitive establishment under this new system, is, of course, most deserving notice. In 1857, the total expenditure on this prison was £48,782. The total value of the labour performed in the same year was £41,855, which, divided by 1488 (the average number of prisoners), gave £28. 2s. 7d. as the rate per man. We doubt if the labour in our county prisons has ever reached the half of this value. Large numbers of the Portland prisoners have obtained employment

at harbour and other similar works since their discharge, and generally their conduct has been satisfactory. The Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society regularly assists the well-behaved convicts in finding employment on their release from confinement, and that society’s operations have been remarkably successful. Pentonville prison has ordinarily from five to six hundred prisoners; while in Milbank the daily average number, in 1857, was about 1100. Parkhurst prison is kept for boy convicts, of whom the average daily number in 1857, was 431; and Brixton, for females, of whom 784 in all were received in that year. The Fulham Refuge is another female institution, in which convicts are received previous to being discharged on license, and in which they are taught a knowledge of household work, such as cooking, washing, &c., calculated to improve their chances of getting employment. Portsmouth, Chatham, Lewes, and Dartmoor are also used as convict establishments; the latter, however, is being gradually given up, as utterly unfitted for such a purpose, its temperature in winter somewhat approaching to that of Nova Zembla. It is difficult to say what are the numbers requiring to be disposed of in these convict prisons in the average of years, but they probably range about 7,000 males and 1,200 females. If the decrease of crime in 1858 continue in subsequent years, our home prisons will amply suffice for the reception of our convict population.

CHARTER XVIII.
CONCERNING CABS.

One of the most blessed institutions of London is the cab. I prefer it much to the ’bus—to equestrian exercise—and if I had, which I have not, a carriage of my own, I dare say I should prefer it even to that. If the horse falls down, it is not yours that breaks its knees; if the shafts suddenly snap asunder, they are not yours that are damaged. And you need not be imposed on, unless you are flat enough to ask cabby his fare, and then it serves you right. The number of cabs now licensed in London is 4,500; each common cab and the two horses with the appointments requisite to work it are estimated to cost not more than £60, so that the capital engaged is, in round numbers, upwards of £270,000, provided by upwards of 1,800 small owners. The waste of the capital committed by this competition within the field of supply is visible to the eye, at all times and all weathers, in full stands, or long files waiting hour after hour, and in the numbers crawling about the streets looking out for fares. The cost of the keep

of each horse is estimated at 16s. 4d. per week—the depreciation of horse stock is put down at 2s. 6d. per week each, and of the vehicle at 8s. per week. The market value of the labour of such a man as the driver of a cab may be set down in London at 4s. per diem. The stable rent is at least 10s. per week, per cab and horses, so that the capital invested for man, horse, and vehicle, may be set down at more than one shilling per hour lost during every hour of the twelve that cabs are kept unemployed. On every cab-stand, where in foul weather as well as fair a dozen cabs are seen constantly unemployed, the administrative economist may see capital evaporating in worse than waste at a rate of 12s. per hour, £7. 4s. per diem, or at a rate of between two and three thousand pounds per annum, to be charged to some one, i.e. the public. If all were employed, as the usual rate of driving is six miles per hour, they must be each employed at least four hours per diem to pay for their keep. If, however, the cabs were constantly employed daily, at least three horses must be employed, which would augment the charge, by that of an additional horse, at the rate of 4d. per hour. A large proportion of the cabs are employed during the whole 24 hours; but there are then two men, a night man and a day man, and three horses. It is probably greatly below the fact to state that at least one-third of the cabs are, the week through, unemployed—that is to say, one-third of the capital invested is wasted, a service for two capitals being competed for by three, to the inevitable destruction of one. As in

other cases of competition within the field, efforts are made by violent manifestations of discontent at the legal fare, by mendacity, and by various modes of extortion, to charge upon the public the expense of the wasted capital. Sometimes it is in the form of a piteous appeal that the driver or the competitor has been out all day and has not before had “one single blessed fare.” And yet the legal charge for the frequently wretched service of the man, horse, and vehicle is, when taken by the hour, nearly double, and by the mile, nearly treble—when only two horses per diem are used—its actual prime cost, which is, when driving at little more than six miles an hour, 2d. or 3d. per mile, and when waiting, 1s. 4d. per hour. But there is now a cry from the cab proprietors that this charge of double the prime cost does not pay, as it probably does not under such a ruinous system, and an appeal is proposed to parliament for an augmentation of the fares, but such augmentations, under this principle of competition within the field, would only aggravate the evil, for it would lead to an increased number of competitors, and instead of there being a competition of three to do the work of two, there would be a competition of two or more to do the work of one—that is, a greater waste of capital to be paid for by some one. Since the reduction of the fares in 1852, the number of cabs in the metropolis, instead of being reduced, has been increased from 3297 to 4507 in 1857.

The criminal returns afford melancholy indications of their moral condition to those conversant with penal

statistics. Thus, in the police returns we find, under the head of “Coach and cabmen”—but it is stated by the police to be chiefly of cabmen—a very heavy list of offences. In the year 1854 it was 682; in the year before that, 777. The recurring crimes are thus denoted:

Apprehensions for 1853. 1854.
Offenses against the Hackney Carriage Act 369 335
Simple larcenies 29 36
Other larcenies 10 12
Common assaults 54 42
,, on the police 24 11
Cruelty to animals 57 27
Disorderly characters 15 21
Drunk and disorderly characters 66 62
Drunkenness 82 73
Furious driving 24 18

In respect to this service of cabs, says a writer—from whom I have taken these figures, I regret I cannot find out his name, that I might quote it—“the analysed charges and statistics show that by a properly-conducted competition by adequate capital for the whole field—for which, in my view, the chief police or local administrative authorities ought, as servants of the public, to be made responsible—service equal to the present might be obtained at 3d. or 4d. per mile; or at the present legal fare of 6d. per mile, a service approaching in condition to that of private carriages, might be insured out of the waste which now occurs.”