The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-02 00:00:00

Public Prosecutors.

The amendments in the Public Prosecutors Bill,
just published in its corrected form, refer chiefly to
the salary attached to the office of prosecutor.
The Act provides that on and after the Ist of June
1871 one of the principal Secretaries of State
shall have it in his power to appoint any attorney or
solicitor public prosecutor for any town or district, at
an emolument of £2OO a year, with a further
allowance in respect of an office and
clerk or clerks. The prosecutor will, how-
ever, be allowed to accept costs in the same
manner as ordinary prosecutors as part of his remu-
neration, but it shall be lawful for the Secretaries of
State at any time to offer him an increased salary
in lieu of any such monies. No solicitor will be
entitled, under the Act, to be elected for a longer
term than five years ; but his appointment may, at
the end of that period, be renewed at the will of the
Secretaries of State.
The Laws of Horse Racing.

According to the terms of Mr. Hughes' Bill now
before parliament, no horse or mare under the age of
two years will be in future allowed to take part in any
matches or races for prizes whatever, and no horse or
mare under four years shall be deemed capable of
winning a Queen's plate. The penalties for an in-
fringement of either of these regulations are severe,
as any person who shall receive, directly or in-
directly, any money as a deposit on any bet, or
make any arrangement whatever, on the speculation
of a race being allowed to take place, which would
involve a breach of the above defined laws, will be
compelled to pay a fine of not less than £3O with
costs. It is also ordered that any official, who
takes the entry of any horse or mare, under
two years of age, for a race or
match, shall be liable to a penalty of not less than
£5O. The bill proposes that all money received in
fines under the Act shall bo paid to the overseers of
the parish in which the offence shall have been com-
mitted to be ultimately applied in aid of the rates.
Cambridge Local Examinations'

On distributing the prizes and certificates obtained
at the last Cambridge Local Examination, the Right
Hon. S. H. Walpole proposed to take stock of
the examinations, which had been first held in
1858, and extended to girls in 1865. In the first
year he said there were only eight centres, at which
370 boys presented themselves last year there were
32 centres and 2,077 candidates, 1,562 of whom were
boys. He considered this increase highly gratifying
and enJouraging. He doubted whether there was
any characteristic of the present age more noble than
the anxious desire to extend education. In former
days large foundations had been made for
the education of the higher classes, and
more recently great attention had been
paid to providing elementary education, aided
by the State, for the poor, but the education of the
middle classes had been much neglected. He
alluded, with satisfaction, to the fact that attention
had lately been turned in this direction, and to the
liberal movements of the Universities of Cambridge
and London in granting certificates to women and
girls.
Prison Labour.

In a discussion on prison labour at the Social
Science Rooms, the chairman (Sir Walter Crofton)
observed, in alluding to the New Prisons' Act,
that it was not compulsory on magistrates to enforce
the use of the treadwheel in local gaols ; but
he considered that remunerative labour in prisons
should be preceded by work merely penal, such as
`the crank. He remarked that the American self-
suppolting prisons had not found their

JUNE 2, 1870.

labour to be tefotmatbi hi its tendency._
This statement was Controverted by Mr.
Sennaway, a Devonshire magistrate, just returned
from a visit to the United States, and by Mr. Frede-
rick Hill. The latter said he had
.been eighteen
years inspector of prisons, and, in frequent
communications from America, had received
most satisfactory evidence of reformation. Mr.
Tallock read an extract from the hist
report of one of the largest American prisons,
which mentioned that teaching the prisoners
a trade had more influence than all other
agencies united in reforming them. It
prevented them from again committing crime.
He argued that, as in England and Wales there
were only 18,000 prisoners, on a daily average, to
20 million people, most of the former being sen-
tenced for repeated short terms, which precluded
them being taught useful industrial habits, the
utmost competition with free labour must be very
small indeed.