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information affecting the value of evidence relied upon at the trial, strongly distinguishing circumstances entitling a prisoner to a special exercise of grace—facts like these may afford patent grounds for the intervention of the Crown. Such an use of the Prerogative, if not reducible to fixed principles, will yet (when the facts of the case are made known) at once vindicate itself to common notions of humanity, justice, or propriety. It is, however, in our opinion of the utmost importance that the exercise of the Prerogative should be relieved from all appearance of mere arbitrariness, and it is as much on this ground as on any other that we approve of the proposal to offer to convicts a fixed scale of remissions, hoping as we do, that under such a system extraordinary interference with the sentences of the Judges will become of rarer occurrence. We have referred to the fixed principles or plain equities which should rule the exercise of the Prerogative of Mercy. We are far from saying that such may not have hitherto governed the use of that Prerogative in this Colony ; but we feel it our duty before closing this Memorandum to state that we have been wholly unable to conjecture from the circumstances of several recent cases, so far as they have become known to us, what may have been the grounds of remission. This is in itself a great evil. It is not enough, we most respectfully submit, that the Prerogative should be exercised in accordance with definite principle, or upon righteous grounds. It is of the last importance that those grounds and principles should be publicly known, understood, and recognised. It is our duty to point out this evil, leaving it to the wisdom of other powers in the State to provide a remedy, if possible. Christchurch, March, 1863. George Alfred Arney, C.J., Alexander J. Johnston, J., H. B. Gresson, J., C. W. Richmond, J. The Honorable the Colonial Secretary, Auckland.

No. 4. ON GAOL DISCIPLINE. Our opinion as to the necessity of introducing more severe rules of Prison Discipline than are at present in force in the Province of Otago, having been invited by the Honorable the Colonial Secretary's Letter to the Chief Justice of 6th January, 1863 (No. 11), we, the Judges of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, in Conference assembled, have the honor to reply as follows :— We have to observe, in the first place, that the Visiting Justices of the Dunedin Gaol in their Report of 18th November last, appear to conceive that for an offence such as that of which they narrate the circumstances, they were enabled to punish the offender only by a sentence of fourteen days solitary confinement. Their language is not free from ambiguity, but their meaning seems to be what we have stated. If so, they appear to be in error. The offence they describe falls within the third and highest class of offences against discipline defined in the Convict Prison Regulations of the 17th October, 1862. It therefore seems to be punishable under those Regulations by six calendar months' solitary confinement, to be inflicted in distinct periods of fourteen days separated by intervals of forty-two days ; by placing in irons ; and by reduction for the space of at least a year to the second class. The total duration of solitary confinement thus inflicted is double what is allowed by the Victorian Act (17 Vic, No. 26, sec. 4). Disregarding the distinction between lunar and calendar months, the Otago Regulations would appear to authorise, as we have above stated, six months' solitary confinement in twelve distinct periods of fourteen days each, separated by intervals of forty-two days, the punishment extending over two years less forty-two days in the whole. (See, however, our note appended as to the construction of the Secondary Punishment Act and Regulations.) The Victorian Regulations authorise three months' solitary confinement in three distinct periods of one month each, separated by intervals of one month ; the punishment extending over five months in the whole. We should see no objection to substituting the Victorian measure of punishment if upon mature consideration it were thought more effective, and if experience of its operation in Victoria warrant the belief that the mental and physical constitution of ordinary criminals can support the infliction. But this cannot be done without a repeal of the 10th section of the Secondary Punishment Act, 1854, which provides that solitary confinement shall not exceed fourteen days at any one time, and shall not be repeated at a less interval than forty-two days. Continuing the comparison of the Convict Regulations of Victoria and Otago we find that the chief remaining difference consists in the power accorded to the Visiting Justices by the Victorian Act, of inflicting cumulative sentences of imprisonment with hard labour, upon prisoners summarily convicted before them of breaches of discipline. We consider that this provision of the Victorian Law is entirely misconceived. It confounds offences against discipline with substantive crimes. In such grave cases as that of the ferocious attack referred to by the Visiting Justices, or that, still graver, of the mutiny in Wellington gaol, where the Gaol was broken, and a convict (whose original sentence His Excellency the Governor was lately advised to remit) very nearly succeeded in an attempt to murder the turnkey,—in such grave cases as

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JUDICIAL MEMORANDA AND REPORTS.