The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-11 00:00:00

PRESS, JUTS 11, 1857:

hall, and a Parliamentary tribunal of five
select gentlemen sit day after day healing the
allegations of one side and the refutations of
the other, who are assisted by counsel in the
great art of mystification. From our own
recollection we candidly admit that there has
been a decided improvement in the constitu-
tion of the committees. The proceedings
before them are conducted in a more orderly
manner, and they are generally presided over
by a chairman experienced in Parliamentary
business.

It is rather unfortunate that in Election
Petitions there cannot be an appeal. In all
serious cases where grave rights are in dispute
the law allows an appeal. A motion for a new
trial can be got at Westminster-hall on an
appeal from the decision of judge and jury
upon circuit. In the Equity Courts there is an
appeal from one judge to his superior, and
lastly there is an appeal to the House of
Lords. But in Election Petitions there is,
practically, no appellate jurisdiction. In the
Wareham case, to say the least, it would be
very desirable that there should be a re-adju-
dication. We are aware that this point has
been often considered, and the House of
Commons would dread the expenditure in-
volved in a second hearing, yet we must call
attention to the anomaly of a court (for a
committee is one of high rank and authority)
which sits with absolute power. The cut and
dry answer "Oh ! you must take things as
" they are ; it works as well for one party as
" for the other; take your chance, life is full of
lottery, &c. etc.," sounds badly in our ears.
In clubs, on the turf, in light amusements, we
can allow much to solving things by chance,
but we do not like to hear of the word in
judicial affairs, and we must say that the
result in the Wareham case has caused much
animadversion.

One thing upon which we must specially ob-
serve, is that the choice of a chairman should
be regulated by more stringent rules than are
now in force. An able chairman gives force
and tone to a committee, keeps the counsel in
order with a mere nod, and saves the public
time. In the Maidstone Committee, the tact,
shrewdness, and experience of Mr. G. A.
HAMILTON made him an admirable chairman.
No doubt it would be very difficult to find
chairmen so experienced as that Right Hon.
Gentleman, who, of all members now in the
House of Commons, has gone through the
most prolonged electioneering struggles. Mr.
HAMILTON, besides, is a capital man of busi-
ness, completely versed iu political detail, and
possessing a vigorous understanding that can
rapidly discern principles, and apply them with
judicial precision.

In the Maidstone case we do not see at what
other decision the Committee could have
arrived. Without an ex post facto stretching of
the law, the Committee could not have acted
on the information given it of 3,5001. spent on
a p►ior election. Some playful gossip which
had been artfully put in c►rculation about the
unfair use of influences by canvassers who
are amongst " the fair of Mayfair," gave some
anticipated piquancy to the Maidstone Com-
mittee, which was not realised by its prosaical
proceedings. The Oxford Committee (pre-
sided over by a Queen's Counsel of the Irish
Bar) unseated Mr. NEATE, on account of the
excessive number of paid canvassers who voted
for him. This latter electioneering abuse is
peculiar to large constituencies, where few
candidates can hope to be successful, unless
they have either a democratic popularity, or
unless they are ready to " bleed'' most co-
piously. Mr. NEATE is excluded from represent.
ing Oxford in the present Parliament, just as
Lord BELPER (when Mr. Strutt) was incapa-
citated by a decision of a similar kind some
years ago. If the rule was inflexible, it would
operate to prevent the abuses complained of ;
but in the Wareham case, the Committee
required that guilty knowledge should be
brought home to the candidate. Could this
ever be done? Or what could be more easily
managed than technical avoidance of respon-
sibility?
The " Mayo case " is the hardest battle of
all the committees, and the disputants on both

sides are well matched. In listening to the
proceedings one gets a sensation like that of
reading an Irish novel, full of fun and fury.
But on this and other committee cases we
must reserve our remarks to another day.

REFORMATORIES AND REFUGES.
IN dealing with our juvenile criminals, either
actual or potential, two formidable difficulties
have always been supposed to impede us.
The one consisting in the fact that, for a body
of individuals to step forward and interfere
between the children of the lower classes and
the temptations with which they are sur-
rounded, is to offer a premium on parental
negligence ; the other, that the teaching of
trades to youthful criminals was an unjust
interference with the claims of honest labour.
The patient experiments of able and energetic
reformers have, however, been gradually bring-
ing to light results which in the one case
materially modify, in the other almost entirely
remove, the objections we have alluded to.
One of the institutions whose managers
have industriously aided in this useful work is
" The Reformatory and Ragged Factory," in
Belvedere•crescent, Lambeth. At the annual

meeting of this institution, on Wednesday
last, some valuable truths were made public.
One result of long and careful investigation of
the vagrant's habits will, perhaps, rather
surprise our readers. It is, that of
the whole number of juvenile pickpockets in
the metropolis, but very few, if any, are
driven into crime by want. Hence at once
arises a distinction between the voluntary and
the involuntary vagrant. The first will pro-
bably be a boy, who is not without a home,
but has got tired of its restraints—who is not
without parents, but who neglects and is
neglected by them. He wanders into the
streets for the mere pleasure of vagrancy, falls
into bad company, with whom he enjoys the
delights of the gaff and the ginshop, and find-
ing the necessity of money to continue this
course of life, takes to thieving as naturally
as a duck takes to water.

It is of course highly desirable that these
unfortunate lads should be reclaimed from a
career of vice ; but that appears to be a
work better fitted for great public institu•
tions than for private reformatories, and has
been rejected by the Belvedere Reformatory
from the commencement of its existence.
But there is another class of street vagrants,
a class of which comparatively little is heard,
who endure with passive stoicism a vast
amount of cold, hunger, and fatigue, before
they succumb to the temptations of the pick-
pocket's career ; and who, even after repeated
convictions, will still make repeated efforts to
replace themselves in an honest position.
This class usually consists of orphans with
whom vagrancy has been a hard necessity,
who had their parents lived would probably
have turned out respectable members of
society, and who have not, at all events,
voluntarily left their homes through a love of
vicious excitement. It is this latter class to
which the conductors of the Belvedere•crescent

Reformatory believe that the efforts of such in-
stitutions should be principally directed. In-
stitutions which confine their attention to this
class of vagrants get rid at the threshhold of
the first difficulty we have mentioned—that,
namely, of rewarding the neglect of parents.
Nor, on the other hand, are their serviccs to
the community so much less valuable
than the reclaiming of actual thieves,
as might at first sight be imagined.
The involuntary vagrant acts as a conductor
to the voluntary one. When the latter is in-
clined to quit his home, it is among the home
less, parentless tenants of dry-arches and
market-shambles that he first finds com-
panionship. They initiate him into the
vagrant life, and prepare him for his future
profession. When other resources fail, and
the hardships suffered by his associates become
1 hateful to him, he flies to thieving, as afore.

4~..

said, naturally and inevitably. This is the
point at which the two classes touch one
another; and the necessity of keeping them
distinct in any efforts for their reformation
must be obvious to any person who will
devote five minutes' reflection to the subject.
It is obvious that such conclusions as these,
if only tolerably accurate, cannot have been
obtained without much well-directed study of
vagrant habits, sad a careful comparison of
phenomena. In this, perhaps,. consists their
chief value. They point to the only proper
method of conducting inquiry upon this
important subject, and show us that if we wish
to get to the root of the matter we must not be
content to accept the traditional theories
about the origin of crime and destitution, or
merely to do good at random by collecting
together boys of every character, but that we
must endeavour to find a principle of classifi-
cation, and maintain a broad line of demar-
cation between those who are still struggling
to live honestly and those who, yielding to the
current, have been finally absorbed into the
criminal classes. _ _

The question of labour—i.e., interference
with honest workers—need not trouble us a
great deal, as far as juvenile reformatories are
concerned. We believe that, in those institu-
tions which attempt to teach any special trade,
the attempt is usually a failure. At all events,
boys placed under the instructions of a skilled
workman, who has no motive for carefulness
beyond that of earning his daily wages, can
never compete successfully with an apprentice
in whom every advance of skill is so much
dear gain to his master. The best proof of
the uselessness of this education to those it
is intended to benefit is the assertion of
Lord SturrseeuaY, that he knows but very
few instances in which au emigrant from any
reformatory has pursued in the land of his
adoption the trade he had been taught at
home.
We trust this subject will continue to receive
the attention which its growing importance
demands, and that the public will, sooner or
later, recognise the invaluable services of those
men who have been the pioneers in opening
up the great social question of modern times.