The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-10 00:00:00

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.
MANSION-HOUSE.

In the course of the last week the Lord Mayor received tht
following letter, on a subject which his Lordship said he con-
sidered to be one of paramount interest to those who send their
children to France to be educated:--

" My Lord,—The friends of several youths who were sent
to France for their education are desirous to lay before your
Lordship the subjoined statement, with the accompanying me-
morandum, in order that, with your Lordship's permission, it
may be publicly read at the Mansion-house, as a caution to
parents_ against entrusting their children to the tender care of
French advertising schoolmasters. To substantiate the truth
of the statement, your Lordship is respectfully referred to the
parties whose names are below, and the boys who have written
the memoranda appended hereto will, if required, attend your
Lordship, to verify all they have asserted, and make such further
explanation as may be deemed necessary."
An exposu' e of the infamous establishment to which refer-
ence is made will, perhaps, conduce to correct similar abuses
elsewhere, and be a just infliction on the impostor who, by false
pretences, succeeded in deluding many anxious parents, and
formed a school wherein ill-treatment, hunger, and misery,
were the chief, and nearly the only lessons that were taught by
him. The persons to be referred to who had sons at the school
are, Mr. John Forrester, Police :Court, Mansion House (one
boy), Mr. 'James Earp, 156, Fleet-street (two boys), Mr.
Thompson, 15, Queen's-row, Pentonville (one boy), Mrs.
Wilson, 3, Vauxhall-place, South Lambeth (two boys), Mr.
Ruthven, of the Bow-street office (two boys).
The following is the statement, which will strongly bring to
mind the description given by the immortal Boz of the doings
in a Yorkshire seminary.
A FRENCH DO-THE-BOYS HALL.—At about five miles
from Boulogne-ser-Mer, is the academy of Monsieur de Bree,
known also as the " Chateau de la Capelle," a large ancient
house, situated in grounds of a very picturesque and enchanting
appearance. Monsieur de Bree is a single gentleman, who has
raised a. school by periodically visiting London and advertising
in the public journals, soliciting parents to submit their chil-
dren to his care and educational instruction, promising every
attention to their intellectual improvement, the culti-
vation of their morals, and their domestic comforts.
Till within a few weeks of the present date, the
establishment he had succeeded in thus forming, con-
sisted of English and American youths. In his circular M.
de Bree set forth that he professed to take the whole re-
sponsibility of their education by his own arduous and undi-
vided exertions for the proficiency of his pupils, rather than to
risk the negligence of tutors, while the domestic arrange-
ments of his household were committed to the anxious and
motherly superintendence of his revered parent.
Lulled by the speciousness of the charlatan, parents eagerly
embraced an opportunity to send their boys to be advanced in
the French language at an establishment apparently so com-
fortable and within so short a distance from London, where
they easily imagined a weekly correspondence could be had with
their children.

Mr. John Forrester, of the Mansion-house police establish-
ment, having some business at Boulogne, made a hasty visit to
his son, who was one of Monsieur de Bree's pupils. The fa-
ther was so shocked at the child's appearance, and at the report
the boy gave of the treatment the pupils received from Monsieur
de Bree and his mother, that he immediately removed the lad,
and with him his friend Mr. Ruthven's two sons, who had been
sent to the school by,his recommendation. - He brought his son
home-, and called on the parents of some of the other boys, to
gtfite his reasons' for.reiaormg Ale boy from the academy. Two
sons of Mr. Earp,-of Fleet-street,,,being at the school; Mrs. Earp,
upon being informed that they were subjected to a starvation-diet
.aisd cruel treatment, hastened to Boulogne, for the purpose of
-eitherratisrying herself or thrincoirectness of the report, or to
tiring her sons ,lOnie. On her arrival at the Chateau dela
Capelle, she vies not idmitfed beyond the large hall, and she
there hactan intirview with Monsieur de Brae. and his .mother-'
She found her children half famishing, and from being of strong
and robust appearance on their leaving home nine months pre-
viously, both were now thin and emaciated, having also lost
their former flow of spirits, and become afflicted with a harsh
rush all over the surface of the skin. One of them had had a
sore foot for four months without any attention being paid to
it by Madame de Bree. On complaining of the situation in
which she found the boys, and referring to the hearty and
healthful condition they exhibited at the time they joined the
academy, Madame de Bree, in an emphatic manner, declared
that all English bays were in a rotten and vulgar state,
from repletion, and their unhealthy flesh t equired to be reduced
by a spare diet. Mrs. Earp brought her sons home, and from
them learned that the boys were seldom indulged with meat at
a meal, and that whenever it was allowed the quantity was con-
fined to scarcely two ounces each. Thirty pounds of flour
weekly supplied the whole establishment with bread and pies.
At breakfast a cup of bran tea, unsweetened, and two thin
slices of bread formed the meal. Eight or nine hours after, a few
potatoes sufficed for dinner, and no supper was allovred at all, there
being no servant, male or female, or occasional helper of any
kind. The boys were compelled to become cooks, bakers,
butchers, porters, field-labourers, gardeners, ostlers, cow-boys,
housemaids, scullery maids, and, in fine, to perform all the
drudgery of the establishment. The chateau being of large
dimensions, 12 of the rooms were unoccupied : neither these
nor those tenanted were ever cleaned. Clean sheets to the
beds were too refined a luxury to be indulged in fre-
quently ; and during nine months, it is solemnly as-
serted, that those essentials to comfort were only changed
once. Water was brought from a distance by the
boys (by yoke and pails), and then carefully locked up from
their use. A slight complaining by any of the boys was imme-
diately silenced by severe chastisement and starvation. Medi-
cine, of which there was always abundance, was carefully in-
troduced whenever meals were short, and by a singular instinct
Madame do Bree readily discerned which of the boys would he
benefited by being well dosed for the day, in preference to
their taking a meal. During the late severe winter fires
were seldom allowed, but the boys were constrained to
gambol in an underground stone kitchen without food for
ten or twelve hours together to warm themselves. Sometimes
they were sent out to gather sticks to kindle a fire with, which
afterwards were very sparingly used. By neglect and want of
cleanliness many boys contracted very bad chilblains—some
were confined to their beds by the ulcerations which supervened.
Several from this cause were for months unable to attend to their
ordinary occupations, and although claiming the sympathy of
Mons. de Bree and his mother, were frequently severely beaten
while in bed for presuming to complain. It is difficult to conceive
that the boys could not communicate their miseries to their
parents. Let it be remembered•that the chateau was five miles
from Boulogne ; that the watchful eye of Monsieur de Bree
and his mother prevented any attempt on the part of the boys
to correspond, excepting under their dictation, and that any in-
fringement of their rules was met by certain and severe punish-
ment and starvation. Although three cows were kept, the
boys did not benefit by that circumstance. Bran tea, in
an unsweetened state, and slightly coloured with milk being
the only beverage allowed. The boys were actually employed
to slaughter, skin, and dress a calf, the entrails of which were
afterwards biked in a pie and brought to table for several
successive days. Monsieur de Bree also kept a pony and
phaeton, which were looked after by the boys; and
occasionally, when he drove his mother out, the boys were
made to follow for many miles on foot. Those who were
enable to do so by reason of their bad feet, were shut
np in a room till their return. One little fellow who,
from being a strong stout boy, had dwindled by excessive bad
treatment to a mere skeleton, and was so weak as to be scarcely
able to walk—was often subjected to the most cruel treatment
in being beaten, cuffed, and made sport of to amuse the other
boys. A surgeon's certificate, appended heretd, will show the
condition in which this youth was brought home ' • and the
statements of four of the boys, also appended, will evidence
the cruelty, starvation, and misery to which the whole school
was so shamefully and inhumanly subjected. The pro-
spectus issued by Monsieur de Bree pretended to a pecu-
liarly happy method of instruction to his pupils, by which
emulation was made to be the chief incentive to their intellec-
tual exertions ; yet it appears there were no regular school
hours,—that Monsieur de Bree rarely or scarcely ever heard
the boys their lessons, but that each repeated them to the
other; so that, in fact, no improvement could fairly progress.
An imposition, therefore, in every instance, as gross as it is im-
pudent, has been practised by Monsieur de Bree, the exposi-
tion of which, it is hoped, will deprive him of all future support
in this country, and operate as a caution to parents in sending
children to France for their education, without previously
making all necessary inquiries as to the haracter of the esta-
blishment which they may select.' The following list exhibits
the names of the boys still remaining at the school, and of those
who have been brought home since the discotery by their pa-
rents of the inhumanity practised at the Chateau de la Ca-
pelle

BOYS BROUGHT AWAY FROM CHATEAU DE LA CAPELLE.
George Forrester, son of Mr. John Forrester, Mansion-
house Peke.

Thomas Ruthven and Henry Ruthven, sons of Mr. Ruthven,
of Bow-street Police Court.

Thomas Earp and James Earp, sons of Mr. Earp, 156,
Fleet-street.

Charles Wilson and John Wilson, sons of Mrs. Wilson, 3,
Vauxhall-place, South Lambeth.
William Cooper, son of Mr. Cooper, of Mount Hotel,
Lower Grosvenor-street.

Henry P. Griggs, son of Mrs. Thompson, 15, Queen's-row,
Pentonville.

Henry W. Style, son of Mrs. Style, Thorp Perron, Bedale,
Yorkshire.

LEFT AT SCHOOL AFTER THE REMOVAL OF THE BOYS
ABOVE NAMED. THE RESIDENCES OF THE FRIENDS OF

THESE YOUTHS ARE NOT KNOWN.
Charles Cruchley, William Cruchley, and George Cruchley,
Americans.

George Michael Nasmyth, son of Lady Nasmyth
James Hoare.

William Gough.
The documents herewith in confirmation of the foregoing
statement are the statement of H. P. Griggs, and a Surgeon's
certificate ( A and B), the statement of H. W. Style, and his
mother's letter (C and 1)), the statement of Thomas Earp
(E), and the statement of Charles Wilson (F).
(A.)
1 have been as pupil with M. de Bree for one year and ten
months ; for the first twelve months we were treated very well,
and during that time M. de Bree attended to our studies, and
on my visiting my parents at Midsummer 1840, in answer to
their inquiries, I informed them I was very comfortable, and
expressed my willingness to return with M. de Bree, as my
parents seemed much pleased with my improvement in French,
&c. On my return to the school M. de Bree for two
or three weeks paid his usual attention, but we soon
found a great falling off in onr diet and other comforts,
and by our taking notice of it, either by word or ac-
tion, we were severely beaten, and otherwise ill treated. Our
breakfast consisted of bran tea, and two slices of bread, with
hardly any butter ; we then dined at three or four o'clock, and
had a very small piece of meat and potatoes, not half sufficient
to satisfy our hunger, but we dare not complain, as, in that
case, we were dreadfully beaten. As the cold weather ap-
proached, our lessons were neglected, and we were sent to
pick up wood for our scanty fire ; our wishing also was much
neglected, and from being exposed to filth and cold, I had chil-
blains in my feet, as well as many others, and on our
complaining, we were beaten and shut up in a room with
scarcely any food; what we had was bran tea and potatoes,
without any meat. In consequence of want of food and ill-
treatment, I was unable, from weakness and sore feet, to stand.
I was then entirely confined to my room for four months.
Mad. de Bree visited me, and threw two or three dry
potatoes into my bed, without salt, or a knife to peel
them. And as my feet were now so bad I could hardly
crawl, when I wished them to be looked at or dressed,
Mad. de Bree would beat me over my head, call me
dreadful names, and say she had no time to dress my rotten
feet. 1 slept on a very hard matt ass with hardly any cover-
ing, and the sheets were torn and very old ; they were not
' washed for many weeks, and in consequence of the discharge
from my feet the smell was very offensive. For many days
' together I was not allowed any water to wash my hands and
face, as I was not able to procure it myself ; almost every time
I was visited by Mons. or Madame de Bree, I was beaten
or called bad names. A few days before my coming
home, they stood over me, and made me write to
my parents, stating I was well, happy, and com-
fortable, and had every thing I could wish for ; this was done
when I could not stand for my sore feet. I was so weak from
hunger my bones were wady through my skin ; myself and the
other boys often ate the cabbagesleaves, beans, and other
refuse left by the cows—in fact I cannot state all the hardships,
ill-treatment, and hunger, W.t. have' undergone, all of which
will be corroborated by the other boys ; and had not Mr. For-
rester and Mrs. Earp witnessed our sufferings,
"and taken us to
our_ friends; we must have_sta.rve4l.tWe haveall endeavoured to
write secretly to our friends, buttould not get an OpPortteity,
as we had no servant, and were not allowed to speak to any'
person visiting the house, At the time I write this lam ;till