D—Xo. 2a

THE JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT. apartment to which she can withdraw, nor one female assistant to attend her. Where humanity is disregarded, decency will seldom be respected, nor does it suprise a visitor to find that this yard, frequented by debtors and females, and through which all the criminals pass to and from the hard labor yard, is precisely the spot selected for double unmasked privies, built in one small block, under one roof, separated by a thin partition, and entered by doors placed in juxtaposition, so that men and women brush each other as they enter or return from these resorts, under the gaze of a prison public. Health of Prisoners.—Staff of Officers. Health. —Fortunately, it seldom happens that prisoners are confined in the Auckland Gaol long enough to test its influence upon their health. Many remain only a few days ; while three months is, with certain exceptions, the limit ; and even this length of imprisonment is in general suffered only by debtors, who, how unjust soever be their treatment, are not crowded more than three, or at most four, in a room of nine feet six inches by nine feet three inches. The female criminal " F." has indeed been incarcerated nearly fifteen months, and her health, she informed me, had not been strong, while that of her child languished seriously. One of the lunatics also appears to be sinking into a profound melancholy, and his appearance is painfully changed. This gaol, however, is laid at the lowest level, and 'no one, who observes its site, the dampness of the debtors' gaol, and the discolored rottenness of its ruinous buildings, can think it either politic or humane to continue the use of such a place as a public gaol. I tray indeed speak to your Excellency on this subject from recent personal observation. Yesterday, the prisoners being too numerous to take their meals in the mess-room (at least those waiting for their trial) were, when I was in the gaol, eating their dinners in the two cells which they occupy at night, while the melancholy lunatic lay cast upon his pallet in the adjoining cell. The cells were less crowded than at night, and the men had only been locked in for a short time, for the purpose of taking their meal. The cells and the men appeared clean, but the close atmosphere and stench were intolerable. To this account I may add that I have been in the habit, as well as the Registrar of the Supreme Court, of using chambers just above the cells Nos. 12 and 13 for the discharge of Supreme Court business, and both Mr. Outhwaite and myself have frequently experienced lassitude, vertigo, and a total prostration of bodily and mental vigour, produced by the atmosphere which, even by day, has penetrated through the flooring. What must be the suffering of the poor inmates, when shut into cells, like those below, during a hot summers night? The Staff. —The officers consist of the head gaoler, Mr. McElwain, (who, I believe, is also responsible for the Stockade, Mount Eden) and three assistants, viz., two turnkeys, and an overseer. Practically, this gives one officer to each yard. But the two turnkeys attend each to a separate gate at different parts of the prison, out of sight of each other; viz., the head turnkey at the entrance gate, Victoria Street, and the other at the gate of the debtor's yard, which communicates with a lane at the south side of the Supreme Court. Meanwhile the overseer ought to be superintending the work which is supposed to constitute " hard labor" in the hard labor yard. The prisoners are thus necessarily left to intermix at pleasure, and visitors cannot be watched. The head turnkey receives £120 per annum for wages, and the other turnkey and overseer, I am told, only £100 per annum. There being only three, one of them is necessarily " up" to watch every third night. Both Prisons. —The Regulations. From the above details your Excellency will perceive, that the Auckland Prisons do not accomplish and are not adapted to accomplish, any one object, of such institutions. It is not worth the while of an inmate in the Auckland City Gaol to risk escape and recapture, in the midst of a city population. But were it otherwise, nothing could be easier than for a prisioner or two to peel off the palisades from the scantling, which is in parts too rotten to hold a nail. Neither the Stockade nor the Auckland Gaol however are places of safe custody, or of reformatory discipline. Mutiny and escapes at one, and the promiscuous intermixture of men and women, Criminals aad Debtors, at the other, are facts to be regretted. At the same time, no attempt is made at moral, religious, or industrial training. Men or women come in and go out worse criminals than before. All this while however, your Excellency, and the Judges of the Supreme Court, and Sheriff, and Superintendents, and all the crowd of their appointees, become and are continued as abettors in that system of delusion which is characteristic of Colonial policy. The pomp of printed "Regulations," posted on the walls of these prisons, is continued. They are doubtless conceived in a good spirit and directed to good objects, but they exhibit a satire even on their own provisions. Thus your Excellency is made to establish Convict Prison Regulations, some of which are of the following kind, and with the following results: — 1. "Penal Servitude men shall be kept to hard labour within the prescints or in the vicinity of their prison,"—but the prison itself facilitates the convicts going beyond those precincts and escaping as above described. 2. They are to be classified according to good conduct, and the better behaved "shall, after their usual labour be allowed to work at some occupation, &c., and the proceeds of such work shall be deposited in the Auckland Savings Bank, in the names of the Viviting Justices for the time being. The sum so deposited shall accumulate for the benefit of the prisoner";—and then follow provisions for the forfeiture by the prisoner for misconduct, with a post obit interest in the Pro-