The Sun.
London, England, 1865-11-14 00:00:00

served, the condition of poor children is the most

urgent question of the day. However we may
thrust them aside in the busy pursuit of more
exciting objects, in the engrossing discussion of
the politics or novelties of the day, they
are growing up around us—the future citizens of the
State—in yearly increasing numbers, too often under
every disadvantage that nature and circumstance
can lay upon them. Mr. DISRAELI has finely said,
in one of his works, that " The youth of a nation
are the trustees of posterity!" And how will the
fortunes of the future stand if we do not teach those
guardians of its welfare how to perform their duties ?
Dr. MANNING reminded us that it has been asserted
that the majority of the children of the working
classes are neither at work nor at school. And
whether or no this be the case, it is certain that
there is a vast amount of that ignorance which is
the handmaid of crime still amongst us. The re-
formatories, of which the Archbishop principally
treated in his address, are intended for those un-
happy children who have passed from mere idleness
and ignorance into the commission of actual crime—
who have become raw recruits, in fact, of that great
army of criminal offenders who are the terror of our
legislators and the problem of our philanthropists.
Entering upon the principles of State punishment,
Dr. MANNING quoted the words of Lord BROUGHAM,
who, discussing the question some years since, said
that it was an accepted doctrine that the only end of
punishment was to deter the criminal from repeat-
ing the offence, and to warn others by example, but
that he went further, and asked what right had we
to leave even a " prisoner for life " unreformed ?
Archbishop MANNING, as might have been expected,
supported this truly Christian theory, and said that
the first end of justice was to teach by example,
otherwise to let justice vindicate itself ; the second, to
protect society; and the third, to reform the offender'
towards whom the State was bound to show all possible
compassion and mercy. This principle is admitted in
all criminal law, even to theprovision of all necessary
help for the man condemned to death, during the
short time left to him. The Archbishop observed
that all that was said about the reformation of
adults applied with tenfold force to the juvenile
criminal. He quoted the old maxim, Qui non habet
patrem poplin est films, which is certainly never
more applicable than to those poor children whose
natural protectors alternately neglect them and lead
them astray. The influence of parental example
is always powerful, but When it is seconded to vice
by every association of childhood without one coun-
teracting agency, and points in that downward
direction to which human nature is always too
prone; it cannot be wondered at that the results are
what they are. To condemn such children, when
they are actually caught in the commission of a
felony, to a temporary imprisonment and enforced
association with hardened criminals, further pro-
, ficients in the arts to which they have been initiated,
/ is so far an outward vindication of law and justice,
but it serves no better purpose. To suppose that
three or six months' incarceration in a gaol will
arrest a boy of 14 or 15 in his downward road, will
convert him from a professional pocketpicker into
a hardworking labourer, would certainly be the
height of credulity. It may, indeed, transform
the pickpocket into a thief, the thief into
a burglar, the vagrant into the crimi-
nal, but what else it is likely to do,
is uncertain. In rare cases, where sudden
temptation has led a naturally honest and well-
brought-up boy into vicious courses, the shock may
arrest his progress, but this can but seldom hap-
pen. So unsatisfactory are the results of treat-
ing all ages and classes alike, that the attention of
our social reformers may well be turned to the
discovery of some better and more efficacious
method of dealing with juvenile offenders. The
hardship of punishing children of tender years for
what are, in fact, their fathers' and mothers'
sins, is so great that it impresses itself on every
observer, while it cannot be forgotten that not
' only does the child suffer by the neglect, but that
the neglected juvenile offender grows up a curse to
society and a burden to the public. The cost of
maintaining a regular criminal, whether directly
or indirectly, is no slight matter. If he is at large
his depredations are incessant, and he lives at the
expense of his more honest, if not more industrious,
neighbours. The amount of property annually lost
through fraud and violence in any of our great
cities is something startling. If the criminal be-
comes a convict he still costs us a good deal,
though in a more satisfactory manner, for it is
pleasanter to pay a certain sum for his mainte-
nance than to run the risk of his depredations,
as persons insure against fire, preferring to crisa-
fice a fixed sum than to chance the alternative of
total immunity or total loss. Still, the keep of a
criminal is not an inexpensive matter. Archbishop
MANNING quoted a few statistics on this point
furnished by different authorities, which estimated
the expenditure of justice in Dublin in one year to
be 3i millions; while many years since the Times
asserted that every pickpocket sent to Holloway cost
the pay of a curate ! The amount of the annual de-
predations in Liverpool was estimated by the late Mr.
CLAY at £700,000. From the figures at his command
Archbishop MANNING drew an interesting parallel
between the amount of money spent in punishment
and reformation: " Mr. RUSHTON, of Liverpool,
stated to a committee of the House of Lords, in 1847,
that 14 boys were arrested and tried for certain
offences ; 10 were transported, and cost Liverpool
£1,400; whereas 77 boys placed in the asylum at
Warwick cost £1,200, and 40 were reclaimed." It
may well be asked what chance of reformation
would these 40 boys have had under the old system,
which sent them out into the world after an enforced
association with older criminals, hardened rather
than reformed. The Archbishop went on to say that
" The reformatory schools of this country were now
costing the country £66,000 annually ; towards this
the parents paid £2,000, and £lO,OOO was contri-
buted by charitable people. The money which had
been spent on the children in reformatories, to which
the £66,000 related,
iwhich h
compared with that wash disproportionatelya d been
lavished
onsmoaullr
prison system.
We had, he hoped, passed from
inflicting penalties without seeking for the refor-
mation of criminals, and had entered into what
he might call a penitential system tempered by
mercy." The Archbishop expressed a natural satis-
faction at finding so many of the f
re ormatory
establishments had been undertaken by members
of his own faith. It is, indeed, a good work, in
which all denominations of Christians must heartily
agree, while its practical and social utility com-
mend it even to those who are indifferent to the
welfare of the individual, and regard only the in-
ter ests of the State: Its success as yet has been
most satisfactory ; and, were it even less so, we
should still know that we were performing our
duty towards these unfortunate children by at least
giving them their chance. The employment of
manual labour has been found a valuable assistance
in training and steadying the boys, to whom idle-
ness is a terrible incentive to discontent and rebel-
lion against authority. After a long day's work in
the open air the
criminal, who after all is but a boy,
is much more • •
inclined to go to sleep than to devise
means of escape or recite the tritimp`A of pocket-
picking or sho •p- Wig. The busy man, says good
old JERE= 'bald() •
R) in far less danger than the