The Express.
London, England, 1849-07-25 00:00:00

al d'i•

the punishment which he might meet with in after life, to
which the boy replied, " Well, it may be so ; but I don't
dikes it can be worse than this life." That was the condi-
tion of tens of %housed' of our population, and
he did not hesitate to say that if we looked to
no higher eonsidentien than our comfort and
welfare in society it would behove us to do our
best to remedy such a state of things. lie now came
to the question of prevention of mime before it was com-
sat tee, or punishment after, and he asked what we, the
better system? He did not hesitate to say, in the first piece,
that he distrusted prison &salable altogether as • preven-
tive of erime. Our prison discipline had gradually increased
in severity, yet mime also hat increased. He admitted that
prison di eipline might succeed in the case of those who, on
leaving gaol, bad resources of their own, or friends to fall
back upon; but he contended that on tee great Mess of
criminals our reformatory system world have no effect
: eyond the walls were it was enforced. Of 150 thieves he once
met, 42 confessed tbst it was to casual wards that they traced
the commencement of their crime. Again, another source of
crime was to be bland in oppression on the part of mas-
ters. Now, he ventured to assert that the preventative sys-
tem was the only one on which we could rely for the ref-rota-
tion of our juvenile population. (Hear, hear.) He asked
the house to centrau the effects pr ,duced by Parkhurst and
Pentonville, and other prisons of that description, with those
which bad been produced by the system which he bad ven-
tured to propound last year lie would premise that he be-
lieved it was next to impossible that thou who had been
convicted of crime should ever recover their pesitien in ba-
sest society if they were driven back to their old haunts and
their old asucittes. (Hear.) Last year he received • paper
signed by 150 of the most notorious thieves in London, asking
him to meet them at sore place in the Minories, and to
give them the best counsel he could as to the mode in which
they should extricate themselves from their difficult position.
He went to their appointment, and instead of 150 he found
250 thieves mumbled. They made no secret of their mode
of life. A number of address, • were delivered, and he pro-
ceeded to examine them. They said, "We are tired to
death of the life we lead—we are tweet by every misery—our
lives area burthen to us, fur we never know tr m sunrise to
sunset whether we shall have • full meal or any meal at all—
can you give us any counsel as to how we may extricate our-
selves from our present difficulties?" He told them that
that was a most difficult question to de ermine under any
circumstances in the present day, when competition was so
great, and when no simmers became vacant, but there were
at least three applicants for it ; more especially was it difficult
to cetermine when men, whose characters were tainted.
came in competition wi•k others upon whose character there
ens no stein. To that they replied, "What you say is most
true—we have tried to get honest employment but we cannot
—we find that our tainted character meets us everywhere."
In their efforts to escape from their miserable condition,
these poor creatures were constantly foiled, and driven back
to their old courses. One unfortunate young man had
given him his own case in point he had contrived to eat a
good situation, and after some trial his employer was as well
pleased with him as he was with his employer. Ore day,
however, there came a policeman, who said to his master :
" Are you aware that you are employing • convicted felon 1"
The master, upon ascertaining that such was the
ease, turned the young man at once out of his
service, and he had no alternative but starvation
or a recurrence to the evil courses from which he had so
nearly extricated himself. The reformatory system might
be successful in cases where the parts, 1, upon being
discharged from prison, were not in circumstances of absolute
privation, end there had been, within his own knowledge,
instances of persons who had straggled even against the
utmost privation, and had made their way to respectability
of position, and even to affluence, but the system produced
no such happy effects, as a general rule. On the other hand,
by the operation of the scheme which he (Lord Ashley)
advacieed, reformation was promoted as a general fact, ap-
plicaele to whole classes. (Hear. hear.) He had no hesita-
tion in saying that even the 1.5001. granted in aid of this',
scheme by the government last year, had done more to-
wards the devel ierment of the general reformation of oar
criminal population, than 150,0001. or 200,0001. expended
at Parkhurst or Pentonville. (Hear, hear.) Under that
scheme, emigration was held out as the reward of Rood con-
duct in the children at the Ragged Schools, and theeffect de-
siredwasproduced not only upon the individual childrea
es-
lected, but upon all the other children in the schools, whose
emulation was thus excited. The noble lord read several letters
from young persons who bad been sent out by the committee;
some wrhten at Gravesend on the evening of departure,
others at Australia, after an experience of the change, and
all these letters breathed but one sentiment, an earnestly
grateful recognit on of the inestimable service which had
been conferred upon them. The benefits conferred upon the
localities whence they hid gone, and upon unity at lap,
were not less valuable. lie bad addressed a circular to the
forty-three school committees, and tee answers he had re-
ceived from them were unanimously them—that the govern-
ment grant had been the means of largely benefiting ell the
localities to which it had been applied ; that the number of
reboots, the order effected by them, and the attendance urea
them, had materially increased by the example of the good
already deno ; and that the operation of a further grant
would be of inestimable advance's, since, were the means
given of opening new schools, there would be no difficulty
whatever in securing full and grateful and beneficial &nand-
ance at all of them, and by their means of grappling ener-
getically with existing vice. ( sr, bear.) The classes to
whom the objects of the committee peculiarly applied, were
themselves deeply sensible of the benefit sought to be
effected. An instance had come within his knowledge, of
a person who, hiving visited one of the ragged
schools, and expressed his earnest approbation of the
plan, intimated his intention of subscribing one guinea
a week to the general plan. A person present said to
him " I know who you are." He replied " Yes, I dare
say you do •, but I can tell you this, had there been such
schools as these when I was a boy I should not now be the
degraded wretch I am." This men was one of the most
noted thieves in London. (Hear, hear.) Even where
young perms get employment, under the present system.
the toil to which they were heartlessly exposed, ass general
rule, made it no matter of wonder that they should escape
from it, even at the cost of returning to their former privation
and misery. Only the other day two instances of this heavy toil
had rome within his knowledge ; in the one case • poor boy
of 10 or 12 years old had been apprenticed by the parish to
• shoemaker. It appearing to him that this child's labour
was exceireve, he questioned him, and found that he was
employed every day from half-put five in the morning till
halepast ten at night. " Well, said he to the boy, " that
is smart work, hut I upset..., at all events, you have the
Sunday to yourself." " No," replied the boy, "only
half the day; till half-past four I've got to nutse
the baby." It was no wonder that such excessive and unre-
mitting toil should disgust a child with that honest employ-
ment which, exercised in reason, he might joyfully pursue.
(Hear, hear.) In the other case, a girl who had been ap-
prenticed out as a servant, had to work every day from 4 in
the morning till pest 10 at night, and so far from the Sunday
being • day of rest, it was the hardest workday in the
week, for on that day the poor girl had to la.
hour at the washing from early morning till
late sight. (Hear, hear., As to the condition of the
parents of these wretched children, it was one of the lowest
poverty. One large proportion, indeed, of these poor crea-
tures had no parents at all ; another proportion were the
children of convicts; • third ware, as he had stated, the off-
spring of the direst poverty. In illustration of this poverty
he might mention, that of the poor women who availed
themselves of the public wash houses, the great majority
brought as the whole family stock, but 6or 7 articles; in
numberless cases, the persons employed at the washbowl's
were fain to lend the wretched women gowns to wear while
they washed their only garment, that in which they had
come. (Hear, hear.) It was well known that in very many
came these unhappy person., as the only remaining resource
against the starvation of their families, sold their
hair. (Hear, hear.) The number of this clan of
children at the present moment roaming about
London alone was upwards of 30,000. (Hear. hear,) What
did parliament propose to do with these 30,000 children ?
Some people suggested that they should be taken care of in
the union houses. Already in the union houses of England
and Wales there were 66,000 children of paupers; and,
highly as he estimated the administration of his excellent
friend the president of the poor law board, he could not
deem it advisable that 30,000 other children should be placed
in these establishments. It was said that the scheme which
he supported had a tendency to induce parents to desert their
children; but the tendency was quite the other way,
for the scheme involved the necessity, on the part
of the parents, of combining their efforts with those of the
committees. The National and Borough Schools could never
answer the purpose of these ragged schools without aban-
doning their aim, for the more respectable children who
frequented those schools would naturally enough be with-
' drawn were it attempted to bring them into contact with
the ragged filthy creatures whom the Ragged Schools re-
ceived. With the limited means at their disposal,
the committee had now 82 schools in operation,
attended by 8,000 children, and taught by 124 paid
teachers and by 929 voluntary teachers, of whose services he
could not speak in terms of adequate acknowledgment.
It was quite clear that they could not trust this charge to
private benevolence ; it was to the House of Commons, then,
that they directed their attention, hoping that the legisla-
ture would take up that duty which individuals seemed to
re'use. He committed the sane to the representatives of the
people, believing that they would not gainsay by their'. ac-
tions what so many of them every Sunday professed with
their lips—viz., "That it would please God to defend and
provide for the fatherless children and all that were desolate
and oppressed."
The SPEAKER having put the question,
Sir G. GREY said that he was not going to say one word
undervaluing the importance of ragged schools, in the forma-
tion and extension of which, in this metropolis, the noble
lor had taken so great an interest. He had, on a former
occasion, expreasei his opinion fully ; and he believed the
opinion of all persons was that the formation of these ragged
schools was of great advantage to the interests of society, and
that they had provided the means of education for a class of
persons who had peculiar claims to benevolence. He believed
that Sheriff Watson, of Aberdeen, had been the first to set
the example of making an effort on behalf of this class
of persons. But the noble lord was not as well acquainted
with the prison system as he was with the system of these
ragged schools. The noble ford seemed to think that by the
Pentonville and Parkhurst system the prisoners were thrown
loose on English society, and, because they did not go to the
colonies, relaxed into crime; but the noble lord was mistaken
in this supposition. No persons were sent to those prisons or
to Wakefield, which was established oathesame system, who
were notunder sentence of transportation. When the noble lord
spoke of the permanent effects of his system, and the permanent
results of the Pentonville and Parkhurst systems, be must be
reminded that the permanent results had yet to be tested.
As to the letters, he could put in volumes of letters from pri-
soners who had gone from Wakefield, Pentonville, and
Parkhurst, which were equally gratifying with those re-
ceived by the noble lord. The anselieratioa of society must
be a gradual and a slow process, and he must caution the