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The expences of the male establishment to be estimated by the governor. The ladies to be allowed a sum not exceeding 1000l. as outlay for each female establishment, to provide fitting up, furniture, books, garden and dairy implements, cows, &c.; and that they shall also be allowed a sum not exceeding 1000l. per annum for rent of premises, payment of secretary, &c.; and that the government shall then engage to pay a sum of five shillings weekly for the board and clothing of each girl admitted, in which sum outfit shall be included.

The books, accounts, and reports of the female establishments shall at all times be open to the inspection of Parliament, of the Secretary of State, and of the governor. The ladies to have the selection of all the female officers, both in the houses and on board the vessels. That the vacancies in the ladies' committee shall be filled up by election among themselves, and that no vacancy shall be unsupplied more than three months.

The only privilege asked by the ladies in return for their gratuitous services is, that they shall be allowed to admit orphans and destitute girls under fourteen into the houses, under particular circumstances, for the prevention of crime, upon a payment of five shillings weekly into the government fund; and that the managers of the Children's Friend Society be allowed a free passage for certain children from their institution, provided such privilege does not interfere with the passage of government wards.

A visiting chaplain to be appointed for the houses.

This system may, if necessary, be extended to the local schools of discipline in England, Ireland, and Scotland, but it is recommended that they should be to a certain extent under the guidance of the metropolitan establishment, and that no ladies' committee should be formed without their consent and co-operation, to preserve uniformity of plan and administration.

The testimonies in favour of the good effects of industrial education in promoting moral habits, industry, and mutual good-will among children are numerous and strong. In many continental schools labour is relied on as an efficient instrument of education; and in some of the Maisons Centrales in France it has been employed with marked success, as a reforming agent, on criminals of mature age: its efficacy has lately been tested in England in a few public institutions, and in some schools founded by the liberality of private individuals.* We have read in the recently published memoir of Sir S. Romilly a letter of the Count Mirabeau, which bears on the subject in question it is interesting to find the former speculations of a man of unquestionable ability borne out by the growing experience of the present time; we therefore transcribe the letter, though not professing entire concurrence in all its details.

"All hospitals, all institutions for the reception of the infirm, of foundlings, beggars, lunatics, &c. &c., are established within towns. Why are they not removed from towns, which they infect, and which infect them, to the country, and indeed to the most distant parts of the country, to deserts; for all kingdoms, even England, have deserts?

"First, Children, who are more susceptible to the effects of the atmosphere, take and communicate contagious disorders with extreme readiness, and to their little spongy bodies all diseases may be said to be contagious. In town hospitals, where they are huddled one upon another, contagion is established among them, and it may be almost said that they

Hackney Wick School, one of the first institutions of a purely industrial character in England has been the means of effecting several reforms in characters supposed incurable. Its simple and interesting system is worth attention. Parkhurst Prison, in the Isle of Wight, for boys only, has adopted many similar methods with success. One of the most extensive establishments of the kind is the Colonie Agricole de Jeunes détenus, founded at Mettray, in the Department d'Indre et Loire. A highly interesting account of this admirable institution, with a list of the Société Paternelle of founders, was published in Paris in 1839.

live always in a state of morbid disease. In the country they might be placed at sufficient distances from each other, to cut off easily all communication of infection. From this alone three great benefits would result; -the lives of many more would be preserved; the air of towns would be free from a great hot-bed of corruption; and the funds of the establishment would be relieved from the expence of all those remedies which must be given to children who are frequently suffering.

"Secondly, Is it not strange that in towns, where luxury increases all expence, where even opulence and the most active industry find it so difficult to live, that these establishments, which must subsist on the charity of government or of the people, should be placed? Let them be removed to the country, where every thing is cheaper, the cost of maintaining them will, according to the situation, be one third, one half, two thirds less, and what they consume will be a source of prosperity to the neighbouring country.

"One objection presents itself, and one only, as I believe. It may be said that establishments at a distance from large towns, where are also the large fortunes, would not be so well placed to attract the beneficence of charity; in losing sight of them, compassion might perhaps diminish; they would no longer be enriched by the expiations of crime and the generous gifts of virtue. But, my friend, I do not believe that it is from momentary and fleeting emotions of pity that these institutions derive their benefactions. They are very little known in those large towns, in the midst of which they stand; they are there as much out of sight as they could be in the country. It is the natural and the lasting feeling of humanity which brings offerings to them, and these two feelings go far in search of objects for their liberality. It is commonly by the last dispositions of life, by wills, that property is left to them; and the thoughts of a man who disposes of his fortune for the time when he shall be no more, are not more distant from the unfortunate at fifty leagues off than from those who are by his side. Reflection, intercourse, and intelligence, in spreading far the feelings of humanity, have perhaps weakened them, but have singularly extended them. Fewer tears are shedmore assistance given. Quick and impassioned pity is the generosity of barbarous ages; well considered and combined generosity is the pity of enlightened times. It must not, therefore, be supposed that the source of public or private charity would be dried up in towns, if hospitals for foundlings or beggars were removed from them; it would flow on, fertilising in its course to the most distant spots on which these buildings might be placed. And if these numerous advantages concern the hospitals alone, observe, my friend, that much more important ones result to the whole nation. Complaints have at all times been made, and for half a century they have wonderfully increased in England, as it seems to me, as well as in France, against the blind and fatal inclination, which induces all people to abandon the country for towns, which peoples the workshops of art and manufacture with the men who are wanted for the cultivation of the fields. Charitable establishments in towns tend much to maintain and increase this evil. Children bred there can only be brought up for trade and for towns. The sedentary labour of trade kills children, whose first want is to run, to jump, and to play about; and this is, no doubt, one of the causes of the frightful mortality of these hospitals. If removed into the country, these children, fed there at the expence of the nation, will be fed and brought up for the country. Government, which will always have this source of population at its command, will at pleasure spread and distribute it through the kingdom; and thus, while the vices natural to society draw mankind from the country to towns, the wisdom of government will make the tide flow back from towns to the country. These unhappy children, the produce for the most part of the vice of cities, will at least be brought up in the good and simple morals of the country. . The fruits of corruption will themselves serve to arrest its progress; a greater number will be preserved, and this increase, far from being to be dreaded, will be to be desired. The state, which will form for them, and by them, great agricultural establishments, will look upon them in the same light that the labourer looks upon his numerous family, in whom he sees his wealth. I know not, my friend, whether these would be good speculations for England, but I know that it would be one of my main resources in France.

"The government which had adopted these children would have two legitimate kinds of control over them, that of governor and that of father; it would have an absolute right both over their education and the produce of the labour of their early youth. How many experiments, useful to the children themselves and to the whole nation, might not an enlightened government make in the culture, the legislation, and the morals of these infant colonies! How many old customs might they not abolish! How many new ideas, which pass for theories, would there acquire the authority of facts! Prejudices, errors, abuses, become eternal, by being transmitted from father to son. These fatherless children would

find themselves adopted by government with less of error and less of prejudice. From the bosom of an antiquated empire there would arise as it were a new people. If, indeed, there are any means of fertilising the waste lands of Normandy and Champagne, the deserts which are between Bayonne and Bourdeaux, I believe these means would be found in turning to this new account children and men now shut up in the national hospitals."

These speculations refer chiefly to hospitals, and are made with reference

to a country whose agricultural population is considerably less numerous than our own, but Mirabeau's reasons for the choice of country localities might be applied with advantage to every sort of institution for the youthful poor. For the advantages of agricultural training our colonies instead of our provinces will, in the present case, reap the benefit; and as is stated as its objects by the Children's Friend Society, the three following ends will be accomplished:

1. To improve the character and condition of a class of children placed here in situations of nearly hopeless vice, neglect, and misery.

2. "To benefit the colonies by their labour, so turning that to some account which here was worse than useless.

3. "To benefit the mother country, by withdrawing a large amount of incipient crime, or immediate mischief from her towns and villages, while at the same time the local change, and new occupations in themselves, should prove one means of mending the moral habits of the children removed."

Some persons have expressed disapprobation of the design of taking children on their first conviction from their parents for so long a period as seven years. Parents, it is true, may be most worthy, and yet have the misfortune to have children of very different characters: it would be a cruelty, then, to separate parents and children, and to deprive the former of all chance of influencing the latter to good. There would be much force in this objection, if the duration of detention proposed were unconditional and absolute, but it is otherwise. The state proposes to take the guardianship of criminal children, but as its objects are to improve their condition, and save them needless suffering, a power will reside with the Lord Chancellor or the Secretary of State to restore them before the termination of the period to their parents or friends, on the representation of those to whom they are intrusted, that such a proceeding would be desirable. In by far the greater majority of cases the parents of criminal children are either criminal, negligent, weak, or incapable; from parents of either of these classes the young delinquent ought to be removed; and the good and careful parent, whose own efforts have been inadequate to preserve a wilful child from crime, is very unlikely to complain of an arrangement which will give a further chance of reformation. It is very important that there should be some tabular form of report in which the managers should, at stated periods, make 'known the condition of the children under their care: this would prevent the continuance of needless expence for detention in cases where the children are fit to be restored to their parents, and preserve for future reference various other particulars of their previous and present state, progress in reform, and ultimate destination.

There remain two objections, perhaps the most weighty that have been urged against the measure, the possibility that it may act as a premium on crime, and its very considerable expense. The first of these objections requires careful consideration; the other may be easily shown to be futile.

It is found, from practical experience, that even the worst characters, except in a very few cases, have a sort of affection for their children, resembling that of the animals, which, while it neither leads them to consider their present or future welfare, induces a reluctance to be deprived of them. This has been found to be the case by all persons who have been anxious to relieve poor people of the care of their children, by placing the latter with the Children's Friend Society. Parents of bad character gaining a precarious and insufficient living by begging, selling matches, and often less honest means, and whose wretched children, totally untaught, are running in the

streets in dirt and rags, yet manifest an unwillingness, often insurmountable, to part with them; while the honest and industrious poor, who find that the moral care of their children is too great a charge for them while labouring for the daily support of their families, have cheerfully consented to let them go, in the belief that such a course will be beneficial to their offspring.

On the other hand, it not unfrequently happens that parents who are perfectly indifferent to the moral training of their children, do nevertheless refuse to part with them, merely through love of power and desire of showing their authority, though that has never been exerted except in forcing their children into guilt and misery.*

We should gladly see inserted in the proposed bill, a clause to the effect that all children whose parents' ill usage has called for the interference of justice, should be placed in the same situation, with reference to the state, as the unfortunate young creatures for whose welfare the enactment will provide. At present there are means of temporarily punishing the parent for misconduct, but no way of protecting his little victim from future suffering.

In addition to the facts above stated, which show that the measure need not be feared as offering a reward to vice and idleness, it must always be remembered that the children of the dishonest poor are valuable instruments in carrying on the occupations of vagrancy and crime. For the first named purpose, beggars who are without children often hire them, from infancy to the age of eight or nine years; for the second, children are notoriously so often made the tools of house-breakers and pick-pockets, that the latter would find considerable difficulty in carrying on their robberies without their young confederates.

The expence of the measure in contemplation will only be startling to persons who are not familiar with the details of outlay now incurred by the nation on account of crime and its remedies. In order fairly to estimate the amount to which the dishonest prey upon the deserving portions of the community, it should be remembered that the convictions bear but a small proportion to the number of offenders. This proportion varies in different places according to local circumstances, activity and number of police, &c. The Constabulary Force Commissioners having caused estimates to be made in different places, obtained as part of the result of their inquiry the following statement and returns.

"The course taken was to endeavour to ascertain the following points: first, the average duration of the career of common thieves or habitual depredators before their permanent removal from the field of depredation by transportation, death, or other means: secondly, the number of habitual depredators who annually pass through the gaols, and are permanently removed from the field of depredation by such means. Upon the first of these points it was estimated, in 1830, on the information of governors of prisons, attorneys practising in the criminal courts, and other persons conversant with the habits of the criminal population in the metropolis, that the average career of impunity to common thieves was not less than six years. On the second point it was estimated that the total number of habitual depredators annually tried in the Crown Courts of the metropolis was, in ro und numbers, 1000; hence it followed, that the number of common thieves at large in the metropolis, from which the annual supply of 1000 convicts was made, without apparent diminution, could not be less than 6000. In the year 1834 an estimate was made of the number of common thieves in the metropolis known to the metropolitan police. The total number then known to them was 5210. Upon a more close enumeration made in the year 1837 the number was returned as 6407."

The following table will also throw light on this part of the subject:

* A striking instance in proof of this assertion may be found in an article on the Mendicity Society, published last spring in the Quarterly Review.

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In the same Report we also find these facts, taken from the Statement of the Watch Committee of Liverpool:

"To the list (of female thieves and their companions) must be added nearly 600 employed in or frequenting the docks, and upwards of 1200 thieves under fifteen years of age who are, in general, the tools of the adults. This mass of vice is maintained at an expense to society, the amount of which staggers belief. By the accounts placed in the hands of your committee, it is estimated at upwards of SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS per annum; and from the information your committee have collected, they must declare their conviction that, immense as this sum is, it is not exaggerated; on the contrary, it is much understated." (P. 402.)

When such statements as these are brought before us, and when in addition, we consider the enormous expense incurred by the nation in maintaining the various prisons of the kingdom, with their costly but ineffective machinery for the punishment of crime, we feel that it must be indeed a narrow and short-sighted economy which can object to even a greater outlay than that proposed, the efficacy and excellence of its purpose being once acknowledged.

"The number of criminal commitments to our gaols may be stated in round numbers as 100,000 annually, and the number of prisoners varying from 12,000 to 20,000." The young vagrant or pickpocket (for the latter is only one step in advance of the former) of the present day will, in all human probability, be the convicted offender of 1846; and those who object to incurring the expense of the proposed Schools of Reform will do well to remember that, taking his weekly income at a mean between the average of the sum stated in one of the tables in the above-named report to be that gained by juvenile thieves, viz., 10s. per week, and that of adults, viz., 20s., each individual will cost the community in the six years, which is computed to be the period of a thief's career, the sum of 2347.

In a little paper published by Serjeant Adams, on the Juvenile Offenders Bill, the number of convictions of young delinquents, from seven to twelve years inclusive, is stated to be, by the summary process, 2,299; by trial by jury, 169; in the county of Middlesex. If children who are thus summarily convicted, as it has been said, "for want of evidence," are not absolutely guilty of the offence for which they are imprisoned, they are for the most part individuals living entirely on the community, either by vagrancy or petty thefts; while the younger ones serve as tools to facilitate the robberies of more experienced depredators. From whichever condition

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