The Sun.
London, England, 1848-09-08 00:00:00

INDUS TRIAL SCHOOL.

The reports of the several county sons having been
laid before the Court,

Mr. ARMSTRONG, pursuant to notice, rose to move,
" That as great numbers of the male and female pri-
soners discharged from the prisons of this county, from
being totally ignorant of any trade or business, and for
want of an honest calling, have no means of obtaining a
ilivel)ihdoiaotde,
commission
mariess,iocnonosf crime,eguent ,13, tempted again to the
immediate
whereby they again and
again incur the penalty of the law, to the great injury
of society, and heavy expense to the ratepayer of the
county; it is expedient that an application be made to
Parliament to empower this Court to sanction the estab-
lishment of a voluntary House of Industry to which such
discharged prisoners may resort for instruction in some
useful employment, handicraft, or trade, by the in-
dustrious exercise of which they may be rescued from
the temptations incident to ignorance, idleness, and
vice, and be no longer a disgrace to the community, and
a burden on the public ; and that a committee be ap-
pointed to consider and report to this court on the best
mode of establishing the same, and to what extent."
Since he last addressed the court, upon this subject, a
meeting under the auspices of the Duke of Richmond,
having reference to the reformation of juvenile offenders,
had been held in the City, but the resolutions passed at
that meeting did not, according to his judgment, touch
the evil on its merits. A meeting of the patrons of
ragged schools, headed by Lord Ashley, had also been
held, and one of its propositions was; that the Govern-
ment should annually send out, as free settlers to the
Australian colonies, a certain number of the youths that
attended the ragged schools. To some extent this bad
been acceded to by the Government, but when the boys
were sent out they would have no knowledge of any
trade or business by which they could earn a living.
The main object of the proposed industrial school would
be to remedy this evil, for is it those criminals, who
were ignorant of any trade, would be taught one, and
the ultimate result of that would be their restora-
tion to a respectable position in society, instead of
their being again driven to crime as a means of subsist-
ence. The Hon. Magistrate here proceeded to give, in
emxipneuntseedoeftamila,inthtaing
the statistical portion of the Inspector-
General of Prisons' Report, to show that the expense at
present borne by the county in the maintenance and
prosecution of offenders was considerably more than the
the proposed industrial school
would be. The public attention had latterly been much
turned to the subject of emigration, and the Government,
he thought, had not given it that sanction which the sub-
ject required. If this industrial school was established,
ot those ose
providing who partooks
eol
rf e ist swbi
tenn et fih
et s
mweoaunl
ad
ohf aevme
gt hr ea t
oonw
te
or
Australia, and where labour could not be found, and
where the artizan could not be found, all the arts of
civilised life would abound. To talk of reformation in
a prison was absurd. They should adopt means to pre-
vent crime, and the proposed industrial school would, he
was sure, prove the greatest blessing the Court could
bestow upon the county.
Mr. B. ROTCH said he would second the motion upon
two grounds; first, that it would be a disgrace to that
Court that such a motion could not find a seconder; and
the second ground was, that any support given to such
a motion assisted the great cause of the improvement of
prison discipline now in existence, and which every phi-
lanthropist considered wrong.
Sir P. LAURIE said that he came to the Court for the
sole purpose of giving this motion all the opposition he
could, for he considered, if carried into practice, it would
for
none the effect of placing a premium upon crime ;
none but a criminal would partake of the benefits offered
by these establishments, and those who were honest
and suffering at the present moment would be tempted
tt
ioo
nc os
tmo
wt
h ich crime,a prisont o
would
b e themselveslike aotfu-
turnpike-gate—
of
it must be passed through, before they could enjoy the
comforts the school mised. He apprehended that
his Honourable Friendpro
Mr. Armstrong had been study-
ing the French Revolution, and the grand scheme
which had been propounded under it (the ateliers
nationaux); and if so, he had seen the result. He ob-
jected to this Court being made the arena of political
agitation, and it was not consistent with propriety to
petition Parliament. Parliament had given them cer-
tain powers, amongst which was the entire control of the
county prisons; and they had not the power to under-
take the management of an industrial school. For his
own part he had never seen a reformed criminal; in fact,
he would walk twenty miles to see one. IL criminal

could procure sympathy, but a poor, struggling, honest
man could not. That was not as it should be. He saw
in an Australian paper he had received that morning that
at the last meeting of the Legislative Council there it
had been stared that out of every hundred Government
emigrants to that colony, ninety-five turned out useless
or bad. He had the fact from a gentleman recently
returned from Australia, and who had stated his views
in a conference with Lord Palmerston, that the
very best shepherds had been London pickpockets;
and if a cargo of convicts and a cargo of Govern-
ment en igrants were to arrive at the colony to-
gether, the farmers would rush to the convict ship,
and beg to engage the convicts in preference
to the emigrants. lie must again protest against the
Court taking part in political matters ; though the Court
of Common Council and the Marylebone Vestry did it,
it was not proper, and it would be a shame to this Court
to sanction the resolution. The acts and conduct of a
magistrate, and especially a body of magistrates, ought
to be dignified and reserved, fur there was that in the
name of a magistrate which gave more than ordinary im-
portance to whatever they undertook. The magistrates
of this county, it appeared, had made themselves so ob-
noxious, that the Lou! Chanceller would not approve of
list of names, 32 he believed, that the Lord Lieutenant
had sent in to be placed on the commission. He (Sir
Peter Laurie) had done his duty in opposing this motion,
and while he trusted the Court would do what it could in
the promotion of emigration and transportation, he did
trust that it would withhold its sanction to the proposition
at present before it. It had been agitated before, and it
was the opinion of the most philanthropical individuals
that the proposed scheme was a visionary affair.
Mr. I3Lucx declined to give the motion his support,
and quoted the following evidence, given by Lord Den-
man before the Setect Committee of the Lords, to in-
quire into the administration of the criminal law. "I
greatly dread," said his Lordship,'" the effect of giving
them benefits or privileges, which they never could have
hoped for, but from the commission of crime. I own
myself extremely jealous of the instruction given to a
young felon in a trade, merely because he is a felon, and
of the displacement of the honest from employment, by
means of the former obtaining it. . . I hold the only
legitimate end of punishment is to deter from crime, but
I think I see in the theories of benevolent men, such a
mode of administering the criminal law, as to encourage
instead of deterring."
Mr. KEMPSHAW thought that industrial schools would
be a ruinous competition to the honest tradesmen.
Mr. VALENTINE KNIGHT was one of those whom Sir
Peter Laurie called visionaries, because they considered
that industry and humanity were the best antidotes to
crime, and did not think that a child once a felon,
should, because it had once erred, be a felon when a
man, and remain with a brand upon him to the end of
his days.

Mr.- A RUSTRONG, in reply, urged the importance of
the motion.

The motion was then put from the chair, when there
appeared,
For the motion 6
Against __ _ ll

Majority against ..
CONDEMNATION OF THE EOUSE OF CORRECTION.

A presentment, signed by Mr. Rotch and Mr. Rose,
two of the visiting justices of the above prison, was put
in, in a hich they declare the present House of Correc-
tion in Coldbath-fields, to be unfit for the purposes of a
prison.