small handicrafts) are merely such as would be quite compatible with their former pursuits, and would enable them to employ their leisure hours. If beyond this some of the more profligate characters amongst the village poor were to be draughted off to the manufacturing towns, or were enabled to emigrate, the agricultural labour market would be relieved of a burden, and the utmost evil that could result would be a rise in wages above their present miserable level, with a more than equivalent reduction in the poor and county rates. So far indeed from this being an evil, every inducement should be offered to divert the growing population of the rural districts to more remunerative occupations. The phenomenon of 9s. a-week in the country, and strikes in the manufacturing towns for 30s., can only be accounted for by the preference of the agriculturists for their healthful pursuits and old associations. On the same principle the country squire might double or treble his rental, if he were to invest his capital in manufacturing industry.

The character of industrial labour which I should advocate would be that to which the prisoners had already been accustomed. The agricultural labourer should be sentenced to work on Dartmoor; the mechanic, in addition to supplying the wants of the prison, should make shoes or coats. The simplest mode of effecting this would be by taking contracts for the army and navy; but political economists would be under no apprehension of the labour market being injuriously affected if a shop were opened at the prison gates. We have got over the dread of the foreigner, and free trade is a principle which will not break down under the feeble competition of a few convicts.

In the reformed legislation of the future, I look forward to changes which, without undue centralization, will greatly improve our local administration. For the industrial system to be fully developed, it will be necessary to have trade prisons to which convicts from all the neighbouring counties can be sent, so as at once to be set at work in their respective callings, for even the shortest terms.

If in addition to these a Refuge were open for discharged prisoners, in which they could earn their living and accumulate a small fund, by means of which they might regain employment, I believe a great number of the unfortunate, and not wholly vicious, would avail themselves of it. I mentioned a case at the last sessions in which this might have saved life as well as character. A wretched criminal who had robbed a trades' union was cast upon the world

without any possible means to support his wife and family. Masters would not employ him, men would not work with him. I had to commit him to what is called "hard labour" for leaving them chargeable to the parish. He was only sentenced for fourteen days, and I warned the guardians of our union that when he came out he must lapse into crime. Within a few days after his release, reckless and drunken, he set fire to a relative's house. He was committed for trial, but cut short his life-long crime-bill by committing suicide in his cell. The union now supports his family.

Not the least practical advantage of a better system would be the lengthening of terms of imprisonment. In the case to which I have referred, I should have certainly given nearly the extreme sentence. Drinking habits, which in this and almost every similar case, lay the foundation of pauperism and crime, might have been broken by a long residence in the great teetotal establishments which ornament our county towns.

Time only can change habits; but with the careful development of higher motives, and by Hope aroused by the prospect of restoration, I believe that even the most degraded may yet be saved. The treadmill, like the task of Sisyphus, can never effect this. In the latest version of that classic myth, Despair is excluded even from Hades

-Fool! said the Ghost,

Then mine at least is everlasting hope:
Again upheaved the stone."

On the highest motives I earnestly commend this subject to your consideration. "Law and terrors do but harden," is the professed creed of Christendom. What is our practice? The treadmill and plank beds, discharge without resource or hope. In proportion as our Criminal Code has been mitigated crime has diminished. Let us introduce the better spirit within our jails, and I have great faith in its civilizing influence.

Skilled white slaves, consigned to an energetic contractor, could at least be made to earn their maintenance. "If a man will not labour, neither let him eat," should be written over the prison wards. Let us convert this into, "The labourer is worthy of his hire." It has been done in Bedfordshire, why cannot it be done in Devon?

In conclusion, I may be permitted to add, that the same remarks apply with aggravated force to small municipal prisons. In this borough I find that you have an average of

four males and three females; or more exactly, seven prisoners and three-quarters, in your town jail. It would puzzle the ablest of my opponents, if there be any, to devise profitable labour for such an establishment as this. Although the dietary is only 1s. 114d. per head, the total cost is £151 13s. 7d. per annum. In return for this the municipality is benefitted to the extent of from 12,000 to 15,000 turns of the crank; and the muscles of the prisoners are strengthened, their intellect enlightened, and their morals reformed, by the noble art of oakum-picking.

In criticising the system, I would not be understood as in any degree disparaging the praiseworthy exertions of our visiting justices or your borough magistrates. Through their efforts the present administration is a great improvement upon the old absence of all system, when prisons were little better than normal schools of crime.

NOTES ON THE PRIORY OF SAINT MARY,

AT PILTON.

BY TOWNSHEND M. HALL, F.G.S., ETC.

THE Priory at Pilton appears to have been in former times one of the most important, as well as one of the most ancient, ecclesiastical establishments in the neighbourhood of Barnstaple, and a few notes on its history may, therefore, be of some little interest to the members of this Association.

History and tradition are so much intermixed that it is always more or less difficult to separate between them, and to fix with any degree of certainty the date of the foundation of any building which lays claim to great antiquity. The assertions of Leland, Speed, and other historians, that Pilton Priory was founded by king Athelstan, might almost, therefore, be looked upon with distrust, were it not for the strong and independent testimony afforded us by the official seal of the Priory, impressions of which are still in existence. This seal bears on one side the image of the Virgin Mary, to whom the Priory was dedicated, and on the other is a figure of a man wearing a crown, and carrying in his right hand a sceptre, whilst the orb, another symbol of sovereignty, is borne in his left hand. That this figure is intended to represent king Athelstan is proved beyond doubt by the inscription which surrounds it :

"HOC ATHELSTANUS · AGO · QUOD PRESENS SIGNAT· IMAGO."

The Priory belonged to the Benedictines, one of the most powerful orders of monks, who, even as early as the year 1354, are said to have possessed 37,000 monasteries in different parts of Europe, and could boast of having numbered amongst their followers no less than 24 popes, 200 cardinals, 7,000 archbishops, and 15,000 bishops. The monks are described as wearing a long black robe, with a hood or cowl of the same colour; and hence they were frequently styled the "black monks." It was usually the custom for a priory to be de

pendent upon some abbey, and to be subject in a certain degree to its jurisdiction. That at Pilton is mentioned by Leland as forming a cell, or appendage, to the Abbey of Malmesbury, in Wiltshire; and the records of this priory show, that on two occasions priors of Pilton were thought worthy of being selected to fill the high and responsible position of abbots of Malmesbury, which then ranked as the principal Benedictine establishment in England.

One of the most interesting relics connected with the Priory at present in existence, and one which belongs to a very early period in its history, is now in the possession of John R. Chanter, Esq., vice-president of the Association. It is a ring of gold found a few years ago in the neighbourhood, and which is supposed to have belonged to the prior. It bears two inscriptions: that on the back or inside of the ring is in Latin,

NOBISCVM SIT. IHESV ADONAI."

Whilst the front bears an inscription to the same effect in ancient Hebrew :

אל אלהים יהזה ישו יהי עמנו:

In the centre is a large sapphire, fastened, for the sake of additional security, with a pin or rivet of gold, which passes through a hole drilled in the stone. I believe this ring has been pronounced by a good authority at the British Museum to date about the early part of the tenth century.

A list of the priors of Pilton was collected from different documents by the late Dr. Oliver of Exeter, and was published in his Monasticon. It begins, however, only with the year 1200, or nearly three centuries after the Priory was founded. Most of Dr. Oliver's data were taken from the scattered entries contained in the registers of Bronescombe, Stapledon, Grandisson, Lacy, and other bishops of Exeter; for none of the actual records of the monks are known to exist. They were probably destroyed at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries.

Until the middle of the 15th century, the town of Pilton was separated from Barnstaple by an almost impassable marsh, and no direct communication could be carried on between the two places except by a dangerous ford, which could only be crossed at low water. Pilton, therefore, had to maintain a kind of separate independence, and had its own special market days and fairs. The monks, however, are supposed to have possessed a private means of holding com