A very interesting and commendable condition of the Holmesburg Jail is that the use of tobacco is prohibited. This prohibition includes the use of chewing or smoking tobacco or cigars, and extends not to the prisoners only, but to all the keepers. It is said that although this is a hard experience to a large majority of the prisoners on entering, they soon adapt themselves to it, and from the standpoint of health are undoubtedly better off for this abstinence.

The entire cost of the maintenance of this jail after deducting about $5000 each year for sales of manufactured articles or of waste materials, is a little less than $100,000, which money is appropriated by City Councils.

If the chief aim in the erection of this prison was to secure a place of confinement from which there would be but the remotest possibility of escape, the end has certainly been attained, but no one could go through the buildings and observe their harmonious and intelligent adaptation to all requirements without the conviction that the health and physical comfort of the prisoners had been made the chief consideration. The visitor, however, will have much occasion for dissatisfaction on finding that the majority of the convicts are without employment, but this is no fault of the Inspectors, who are charged with the administration of the affairs of the prison; the law of the State is at fault in that it limits to 35 per cent. of the whole number of convicts those who may be employed in any of the trades, and, as a consequence, the greater number of men are compelled to remain idle.

Notwithstanding this very much to be regretted condition, too much cannot be said of the good order and effective discipline which prevails at the Holmesburg Prison. A striking example of that was had at the time of a great storm which occurred in the summer of 1911, which overturned a tall chimney stack and unroofed a portion of the buildings. No effort was made by any prisoner to escape or in any way to take advantage of the unfortunate circumstances, but the utmost good order and propriety was observed by all of them.

J. L. B.

BORSTAL—ENGLAND.
(Extracts from letter of Daniel Buckley.)

Paris, February 24th, 1912.

... I have visited several prisons in England, amongst others, Pentonville, of which Secretary Votaw has already written (in 1909) and Borstal, which I shall make the subject of this letter.

... Borstal itself is in the country, in the county of Kent, about three miles from, and between, the towns of Chatham and Rochester, the former being reached by a forty-minute ride in a fast train from London. It stands high on the hills overlooking a beautiful valley, the shipping of Chatham and the Rochester Cathedral. However, Borstal means much more than a local institution, for it has given its name to a system of treatment during and after confinement which has been so extraordinarily successful that a modification of it is being practiced in nearly all British prisons for both sexes. Unfortunately, I chose a Saturday for my visit and as a sort of half-holiday is practiced there my view of the different departments in operation was necessarily hurried, and I cannot do better than give you, as much in his own words as possible, the description given me by Thomas Holmes a day or two before I made my visit.