Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court at Special Term which dismissed for insufficiency the petition in a proceeding in the nature of mandamus under article 78 of the Civil Practice Act. Petitioner was sentenced on April 2, 1935 to 12 years and 6 months for a felony committed February 21, 1935. With credit for jail time, his maximum term would normally have expired on August 23,1947. He was paroled on July 6, 1943, owing, according to the computation of the Department of Correction, 4 years, 1 month and 17 days and this time he was later required to serve before commencing a sentence imposed May 1, 1946 upon his conviction of a felony committed June 2, 1945. Petitioner, now on parole, contends that he had earned 2 years and 9 months compensation while serving his 1935 sentence; that this time could not be taken away from him and must be applied in reduction of the 1935 sentence, which must then be held to hax'e expired in 1944, prior, of course, to the commission of the 1945 felony and the 1946 conviction thereof; and that, therefore, the respondent Board of Parole should be required to credit against the 1946 sentence the 4 years, 1 month and 17 days supposed delinquent time he served upon the 1935 sentence and to advance the expiration date of his present parole accordingly. The first provision for “ compensation ” to be earned for labor in prison was enacted in 1916 and the statute itself distinguished between “commutation or diminution of * ° “ sentence”, to be earned by “good conduct”, and “compensation”, in further reduction of sentence, “for efficient and willing performance of duties assigned”. (Prison Law [now Correction Law], § 230, subd. 3, as amd. by L. 1916, eh. 358; 1935 Report of N. Y. Law Rev. Comm., pp. 498-500.) Thus, in distinction from “commutation”, granted as “a matter of grace ”, it was held under the provisions of the statute in effect prior to the 1926 amendments (L. 1926, eh. 736) “that ‘compensation’ once earned and credited in the convict’s ‘ account ’ was irrevocable and automatically reduced the convict’s sentence — except in cases (1) where he xdolated prison rules (Prison Laxv, § 236), (2) where he escaped from prison (§ 238), and (3) xvhere he was convicted of a felony later committed (§ 243).” (People ex rel. Vanilla v. Denno, 7 N Y 2d 29, 33.) Respondents mistakenly rely on Vanilla, apparently in the viexv that it projected a post-1926 rule indefinitely into the future and governs this ease; but what was there said was, of course, xvith reference only to the 1926 amendments to section 230 (L. 1926, ch. 736) whereby a new subdivision 4 was added, applicable to every convict received in prison after July 1, 1926, and making no prov.ision for compensation and, in fact, providing that the “ term of such convict shall not be reduced by compensation ”; but provision for compensation was later reintroduced and was applicable to prisoners received after July 1, 1932 and thus to relator (Correction Law, § 230, subd. 4 [sixth paragraph], as amd. by L. 1932, ch. 601 and L. 1934, ch. 731); and although in 1935 the section was radically amended and the provision for compensation again deleted (L. 1935, ch. 902), the amendment was inapplicable to relator as it was expressly proxdded (L. 1935, ch. 902, § 16) that it should not apply to persons committing crimes before the effective date of the act, June 1, 1935. Respondents are, however, justified in relying on Vanilla (supra) to the extent that it clearly indicates (pp. 33, 35), if only by way of dictum, that compensation once earned and credited was nevertheless revocable under section 243 of the former Prison Law, although, of course, the language of the decision is not necessarily to be construed as comprehending a revocation after the expiration of a term reduced by compensation. The varying language of the many amendments which followed the 1916 act seem to blur somewhat the distinction between “ compensation ” and “ commutation ”
