to investigate, upon oath, all irregularities which may occur in the administration of the affairs of the institutions, or in the conduct of their officials. He is charged with the letting of all contracts for supplies, and with the supervising of the purchase of goods required in the government institutions, as well as with the monthly audit of the accounts incurred for their maintenance, and of the statements of their revenue. He has also to make an annual audit of the receipts and expenditures of all charities aided by provincial grants. He has to make enquiry into the cases of all lunatics committed to the county gaols, and to arrange for their removal to the various asylums, and he has to direct the transfer from the county gaols of those prisoners sentenced to the central prison. He also has the charge of the estates of all lunatics admitted to the asylums who have no committee or guardian appointed by the court of chancery, and he is effectually empowered to deal with such estates, as the statutory committee of such lunatics.

It is hardly necessary to point out that such extensive powers, the chief of which have just been detailed, would not be conferred upon any official without a direct check and partial control being. exercised over him by the government conferring the authority, and this is very simply, but most effectively, furnished. One of the members of the Ontario government is the executive head of the inspector's department, and with him the inspector is in constant communication; consulting with and advising him respecting all matters pertaining to the institution service. This cabinet minister is, of necessity, a member of the Legislature of the Province. He is, therefore, both as a cabinet minister and as a member of the Legislature, together with his colleagues in the government, directly responsible to the people for the proper administration of the affairs of the institutions referred to. He introduces, and takes charge of all legislation required in connection with the public institution service, and obtains the requisite money appropriations for their maintenance. Such being the method of supervision and control, we may now proceed to a review of the respective branches of the system.

With regard to the correctional and reformatory institutions, it will be noticed that they form five distinct and separate grades, namely:-1st, Common or County Gaols; 2d, Reformatory School for Boys; 3d, Reformatory School for Girls; 4th, Central, or inter

mediate Prison for Men; and 5th, Reformatory for Women. In addition to this chain of prisons and reformatories, the Dominion, or Federal Government, maintains in each of the Provinces, a penitentiary for such adult convicts as have been sentenced for periods of two years and over. I may here mention that the Dominion of Canada comprises seven distinct Provinces, each having a local government, with somewhat the same powers as the governing bodies of your States; the whole being under the Federal or Dominion Government at Ottawa.

These six classes of custodial institutions form one of the most complete series of prisons and reformatories that exists in any country, and constitutes a system which, with respect to the grading and classification of offenders, is quite up to the highest standard that has yet been advocated by the most advanced reformers in this important branch of social science. Having said this, it only remains to refer very briefly to the system of managing these respective establishments.

Each county in the Province has a gaol in its capital or county town, which is built and maintained conjointly by the county and the Province. These gaols, although managed by sheriffs and county councils, are largely under the control and supervision of the government inspector. That officer frames the regulations with respect to clothing, dietaries, labor, and all questions of internal economy; and when these regulations are approved of, as they have to be, by the Lieutenant-Governor in council, they have the same force as statutory law. No sheriff, gaoler, or gaol official is allowed to have the slightest pecuniary interest in the prison dietaries or supplies, or in anything connected with its financial affairs. As the result of this, the average cost of the gaol dietaries is only ten and a half cents per day for each prisoner. If a gaol was faulty in its original construction, as many were, and require alterations, additions or repairs, the inspector, with the consent of the Lieutenant-Governor in council, has power to order these to be proceeded with, and if the county neglects or refuses to comply with the order, the government can compel the work to be done by mandamus. The good effects of this authority are shown by the fact that all the gaols of the Province, with one or two exceptions, are structurally up to the most approved modern requirements. Notwithstanding this, however, owing to the number of these gaols, their location in all

parts of the Province, and for other obvious reasons, it was found impossible to provide hard labor for the prisoners whose sentences had that condition attached to them. In consequence of this, prisoners were left in almost absolute idleness; a condition of things, which, even under a perfect classification, is the greatest cause of demoralization in a common gaol system, and at once renders these necessary local establishments mere nurseries of crime and vice. To overcome, or to at any rate lessen, the bad effect of these evils in common gaol life, the Central Prison was founded and opened in 1874. This prison is an intermediate one between the common gaols and the Dominion Penitentiary, and is for the custody of adult male prisoners who are sentenced to periods under two years; for terms in excess of that, convicts are sentenced to the Penitentiary. Prisoners may be sentenced by the judiciary of the Province direct to the Central Prison, or any prisoner who is under sentence to one of the common gaols, and is physically and mentally fitted to perform hard labor, may be transferred to it under the warrant of the government inspector. The establishment is provided with the means of keeping every prisoner committed to it employed at hard labor; having attached to it a brickyard, where upward of one hundred prisoners are kept at work; a broom-factory for one hundred more; a shoe and tailor shop, where all the boots and shoes and clothing required for the common gaols and all the public institutions of the Province, are made; a cabinet factory and a garden of about ten acres. Notwithstanding the short period sentences of prisoners committed, which, of course, very seriously affects the financial results of the prison labor, the Central Prison is fast approaching a self-sustaining basis. Altogether, after an experience of six years, I am able to pronounce this prison to have been entirely successful in all respects, in accomplishing the objects of an intermediate prison between the common gaols and the Penitentiary; and it is now one of the most important links in our prison system.

In regard to the Reformatory for Boys, I regret to say that up to a recent period that institution very impefectly fulfilled its design. During the last session of the Legislature, however, an act was passed having for its object an entire change in the system, and an appropriation was also voted for alterations in the present structure and the erection of additions thereto. The changes in the administration of its affairs involve the complete reorganization of the

institution in respect to discipline, interior economy and structural arrangement, so that in its future operations the Reformatory may in the most effectual manner perform the great and important work for which it was designed. In short, it is intended that instead of being a prison, with all the objectionable features and surroundings of such an institution, it shall become a reformatory school, in the most liberal sense of the term, for the education, industrial training and moral reclamation of juvenile delinquents.

With respect to the Reformatories for Women and Girls, both of these institutions are now being fitted up and will be ready for the reception of inmates sometime during the present month. In the construction of the Reformatory for Women the most advanced designs have been introduced so as to obtain as perfect a system of classification as it is possible to have in the various dormitories, shops, work-rooms and other departments of the institution where the inmates associate. There are twelve distinct corridors, or wards, in the building, to each of which is attached a separate workroom, and, in addition, the general workshop is divided into two flats and five distinct compartments. Means are provided for serving the meals either separately or in partial association, as may be found most desirable, and there are also four distinct yards for airing and exercise. In fact, the structural arrangement of the building secures the means for as perfect a system of classifying the inmates as can be obtained under the partially associated system, and as effective and practical a method of separation, in my opinion, as under the silent or solitary system.

The building to be used for the purposes of the Refuge for Girls comprises a wing of the Reformatory for Women, from which it is entirely cut off. For all practical purposes the disjunction of these two institutions, although they are under the same roof, will be as complete and effective as if they were miles apart. The rooms and other portions of this Reformatory are well lighted, airy and cheerful in appearance, the most distinctive feature of the whole structure being the entire absence of everything of a prison character. There are no cells, iron bars nor grates, and the sleeping rooms are all of the associated character, with space for from five to twelve beds in each.

With respect to that branch of the system relating to the care and treatment of the insane classes, I have already stated that there are in the Province four hospitals for the insane and one

asylum for idots, the whole having a receiving capacity for 2,700 patients. All these institutions are entirely maintained and directly controlled by the Government, there being no private asylums whatever in the Province. In the Toronto Asylum, however, two wings are set apart and properly fitted up for the reception of the better class of paying patients.

The asylum structures are all plain but substantial. In providing accommodation for the insane, the largest proportion of whom are drawn from the lower classes, all expensive ornamentation and elaborate structural adornment have been carefully and, I think, wisely avoided. The entire cost of these asylums, including their furnishings, amounts to one million, five hundred and twenty thousand, seven hundred and thirty dollars ($1,520,730), or a capital cost of five hundred and sixty-six dollars ($566) for the structural accommodation for each lunatic. At the London Asylum, where a large quantity of land is attached to the institution, the cottage system, for the care of the chronic insane, has been in successful operation for five years. The cottages are placed in groups upon the grounds; each group, of which there are three, having accommodation for thirty men and thirty women, which number of patients are looked after by a man and his wife and one attendant. The capital cost of these cottages is equal to two hundred and seventy-eight dollars ($278) per inmate.

The four asylums for the insane have each certain counties allocated to them, from which they receive patients. The sufficiency of the asylum accommodation to meet the requirements of the Province is best shown by the fact that while there is accommodation for two thousand seven hundred patients (2,700), the number now in residence is two thousand four hundred and fifty (2,450), leaving at the present time vacancies for two hundred and fifty (250). No insane persons whatever are maintained in the local houses of refuge, all being in the public asylums referred to.

There are three methods by which lunatics are admitted to the asylums, viz.:

First. Upon the certificates of three qualified medical practitioners, each stating that he has personally examined the patient, separately from any other medical practitioner, and that he finds such person to be insane, and specifying the facts upon which he has arrived at such conclusion.

Second. When a person is committed to one of the common