J an and consequently offer encouragement to indolent persons to enter the Gaol, where the work obtained from prisoners is less than that required from free labourers. This change of diet, although approved by the Executive Council, has by their advice not been enforced yet, pending Your Lordship's decision on the rule conferring larger disciplinary powers on the Superintendent of the Gaol, to which he attaches very great importance, as he believes it will enable him to check promptly any attempt at outbreak or mutiny, which he thinks is not unlikely to occur when the prisoners learn that their diet is not to be the same generous scale as hitherto. I think these powers can safely be entrusted to General Gordon, who has shown great tact, discretion, and firmness in the management of the Gaol; and the direction that all cases should be reported to the Governor will check any excessive use of those.