The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-01-14 00:00:00

A LIVERPOOL REFORMATORY.

We have read with very great interest the first report of
the Mason street Reformatory School at Liverpool. which
was opened last spring, and has in the first nine months of
its life nobly demonstrated the healing power of the spirit
in which it was founded. The institution is bat a smell one.
Its two founders took a neglected little house, and having
at their own cost put it into good repairs and furnished it
sufficiently, Placed in it a young hush sad and wife, chosen
for the post because they liked it and hod energy enough
straightway to become house father and house mother to a
family of poor castaway boys, some of them young, most of
them from fourteen to six'een years old, and all of them
experienced in prison discipline. The undertakers of this
little reform story were aided by some friendly contributions,
both of money and of person s! assistance, but the main
hinol-ro both of cast and thought :hey have been well content
to take upon themselves. That none should come to
their estah'ishment who di I not bring with them the wi=h to
preseer, wets 'the first principle laid down by the founders
of the house in :Mason street. They would seek to reform
the most corrupt, and they have, in fact, taken boys each of
whom has bee en an average, four times in prison ; but
the basis of their effor's for reform was to be a desire on
the part or the young criminal to attain something happier
and better than a felo !'s life. If that desire existed, all
would follow; where it is absent, happy are they and wise
are they who can awaken it; hut to awaken it was not for
the purpose of the Mason street Reformatory; there it hog
been proposed only in as many cases as could be reached, to
add power to the wish to rise.
Twenty-one boys have been adm.tte.l, and how little
power they had of themselves to obtain any of the blessings
bred of human syrup ithy may be seen in this list of the
sorrows that begot their c-imes. In the twenty one uses
the causes of early crime are thus set down :-1, Drunken
stepmother. 2, Low Irish poverty. 3, Mother dead,
and father run away. 4, Father dead ; mother weak.
5, Homeless orphan. 6, Mother dead ; father
drinks. 7, Homeless orphan. 8, Father dead ;
mother weak. 9, Homeless orphan. 10, Abandoned
by father. 11, Vicious inclination. 12, Mother dead ;
felon, father. 13, Mother dead; father neglects. 14,
Homeless orphan 15, Felon family. 17, Mother dead ;
father out all day. 18, 19, 20 Felon families. 21, Home-
less orphan. 0.,e of these boys had been in prison six timer,
another eight, another ten, another twelve times. Who can
resist the pathos of such miserable troths as these ? It is
a wonder that so many let their sympathy stand still at the
mere sentiment of pi y. One might as reasonably have
walked in the wood and met the b does who, hand in hand,
went wandering op and down, and have gone by with bread
in one's pocket and light in one's home, while seeing how
" noels pretty lies, with blackberries,
Were all besmeared and dye,l,
And when they saw the darksome night,
They sot them down and cried."
One might as reasonably have done that as now a day's have
knowledge in one's head and kindness in one hear t
and not seek to bestow both on such as these.
The founders of the Mason street Reformatory
trust only to kindness in the training of their
boys, set them together in a family, under a man and wife,
who may by kindness touch their heat's with some instincts
of home affection, and so have them taught to read, and
write, and cipher, to help themselves in everything, to
exercise a trade, above all to do good, not through fear, but
for its own sake, or for the sake of showing gratitude to
those who ask from them this reward of generous exertion
made on their behalf. The result has been such as might
have been fairly expected. The average cast of a boy at
Mason street is 55s a month, and to reform boys so far that
they may be placed out in situations with some prospect of
doing well, has cost in one case only a month's keep, in
another case two months keep, in another case £8 153, and
in the most expensive case £l6 103. Here is an opportu-
nity of putting money out to noble interest. Such as this
is the experience of those who engage wisely and earnestly
in efforts for the reformation of degraded yowl,. As such
results are now becoming widely known, we need not
wonder that reformatories multiply.—lnquirer.