Welsh Journals

magistrates, armed with a growing police force, increasingly concen- trated on the smashing of the 'Empire'. Even the very environment in which the 'Chinese' had flourished was slowly disappearing as the worst slums were cleared and water and sewerage schemes were in- troduced. However, perhaps the major factor in this gradual transformation was the decline in the iron trade. A boom town in the 1840s, by 1860 thousands of workers were deserting the town in favour of the ironworks in the north of England, the U.S.A., Australia and the rapidly expanding sale-coal communities of the Cynon and Rhondda valleys. As their clientele/victims moved away so too did the whores and their bullies. Restrictions of space prevent further elaboration. Suffice to say that for this Merthyr chapter alone we owe Dr. Jones many thanks. The book adds greatly to our knowledge and understanding of crime in the nineteenth century and is much recommended. Keith Strange CONTROLS AND CONFLICTS IN WELSH SECONDARY EDUCATION 1889-1944, by Gareth E. Jones. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1982. 248pp. £ 14.95. In recent years, such masterly volumes as Professor Brian Simon's trilogy have provided challenging new insights into the fortunes of education in nineteenth and twentieth-century England. In Wales, numerous higher degrees have been awarded during the last twenty years for a wide ranging number of studies, mainly local in nature, of aspects of Welsh intermediate and secondary education. The time was opportune for the publication of a detailed study of the development of secondary education in Wales as a whole. Dr. Gareth Jones has accomplished that task admirably in a very well written volume based on the study of a vast range of primary and secondary sources. In particular, official files at the Public Record Office have been meticulously combed. In six chapters, the author examines the varying fortunes of Welsh intermediate and secondary education from the euphoric days of the