The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-22 00:00:00

ruult follows, that more than one-fourth of the
crime of the kingdom is committed by one-
tenth of its inhabitants ! Nothing can more
conclusively show where our first efforts should
be directed. In no department of social life is
the now almost proverbial line of WOUDSWORTII'S
more fully verified, that—

"The child is father to the man."

Nothing also is better substantiated than the fact
of the inutility of the chief discipline now applied
to these juvenile delinquents, namely, short im-
prisonments. Not less than thirty years ago, the
Governor of Glasgow Bridewell made public the
following facts :—That of prisoners sentenced for
the first time to 14 days' imprisonment, seventy-
five per cent. returned to gaol for new offences ;
of those sentenced to 30 days, sixty per cent. ;
to 40 days, fifty per cent. ; to 60 days, forty per
cent. ; to 3 months, twenty-five per cent. ; to 6
months, ten per cent. ; to 9 months, seven and
St-half per cent. ; to 12 months, four per cent.;
to 18 months, one per cent. ; to 24 months,
none !—yet, during the ten years over which the
calculation extended, the number sentenced to 24
months was ninety-three. It is added, that the
criminals who came back two or three times, went
on returning at intervals for years. Another re-
markable proof of the uselessness of short impri-
sonments is, that out of two hundred and nine
prisoners recommitted to Reading Gaol in 1852,
eighty-nine were under seventeen years of age
when first committed, and those 89 had been in
prison altogether 403 times, or nearly five times
a-piece. These facts, to which others of a similar
kind might be largely added, confirm Baron
ALDERSON'S infererg) that short imprisonments
are neither humane 'nor wise.

But while the ♦ast proportion of offences com.
mitted by the youthful part of the population,
and the inutility of the ordinary brief imprison.
ments, is fully established, the efficiency of
longer periods of Reformatory discipline is, so far
as experiments have been tried, satisfactorily
proved also. At Mottray, under the management
of the now well-known M. DE METZ, one repre-
sents that 85, another that 89 per cent. have
been reclaimed ; and the Report rests upon the
conduct of upwards of 900 youths who had passed
through the institution ; and, of those men who
had relapsed, one-quarter had been again re-
claimed. In the' Glasgow House of Refuge, out
of 400 lads, 85 per cent. had been reclaimed. At
Redhill, of 720 boys discharged, 70 per cent, have
been reclaimed, 228 being inmates at the present
time. Only contrast this with the recommittal, at
Reading, of 89 lads neatly five times each, and
the return to Glasgow Gaol of 75 per cent. of
those committed for 14 days, and the advantage
of longer and early discipline seems irresistibly
apparent. It is easy, indeed, for full satisfaction,
to wish for answers to some questions, which our
criminal statistics do not yet furnish ; but they
would probably only corroborate the evi-
dence we have ; and making every allowance,
and giving the largest margin to the well-know
illusiveness of statistics, there can be no doubt
that to deal effectually with the youthful criminal
is the most hopeful method yet proposed, and
that the Reformatory School is an admirable in-
strument for that purpose.
Could we seal up the fountain, indeed, that
would be the course to be taken, and at once ;
but that is hopeless. All accounts go to prove
that the greater part of youthful crime is due to
the habits of the parents, and it is impossible to
reach them ; they are irreclaimable as a class,
and if they were not you cannot bring them under
compulsory discipline. Mr. ADSHE AD, of Man-
chester, ascertained that of one hundred criminal
children at Manchester sixty were born of dis-
honest parents, thirty of profligate, though not
criminal, parents, and only ten of parents honest
and industrious. The experience of Mr. CLAY,
the chaplain of Preston gaol, is similar ; he found
that in seventy-five per cent, of the cases investi-
gated by him the fault lay unmistakeably at the
door of the parents ; in the case of fifty-seven
per cent. there had been habitual drunkenness,
often accompanied with brutality, on the part of
the father; iu the remaining eighteen per cent.
habitual neglect. In three cases out of four inves-
tigated by him the lad had hardly a chance of be-
coming anything but what he was, It is impos-
sible to put the whole case of Reformatory Schools
for juvenile delinquents more strongly than in
this sentence. Three-fourths of the unfortunate
lads, besides the ordinary claims of youth, are
objects for pure commiseration ; we ourselves, in
their position, must have been what they are.
No man can resist this appeal. •

There is, however, no mode of altering this
first education for crime ; at least none has been
devised at present. Nothing but the impossible
Maine Liquor Law could remove that most fertile
cause of youthful crime, drunken fathers ; and
no plan could deal with neglectful parents. We,
unfortunately, cannot begin with the lad till the
law can lay hold of him as a violater of it, and
we are then warranted in applying any process
which shall prove most effectual. The Reforma-
tory School system also, by the aid of Govern-
ment, furnishes almost the only means of reach-
ing the delinquent parent. He can now be
compelled to contribute to the support of his
child at the school, and is thus fined for years
for his own criminal neglect of his offspring.
This penalty must be rigidly enforced, less, in•
deed, for the direct saving to the State, than for
the purpose of deterring parent's from making
thieves of their children. The mortification, and
among his own class, the disgrace of having to
pay to a Reformatory School, seems to us the most
likely means of making a deterring example of
the bad parent. It will come to be understood
that it will not do to let children run wild or to
train them to crime. Unwbrthy parents, to save
their pockets, will take some thought for their
offspring. The favourite beer or gin itself will
be in danger when several shillings weekly must
go to his child's support. Oa the whole, nothing
better deserves the aid of the community than
these efforts ; they must, to be successful, be
chiefly voluntary and individual, but they ought
to be, and we trust will be, universal.

There was perhaps no vexed quesition on which
so large a majority would, a few years since, have
been obtained as that of the necessity of an
equitable modification of the Income Tax. Men
of all parties had recognised the absurdity of
treating all sources of revenue, whether temporary
or permanent, precarious or certain, as of equal
value, and subjecting them to an equal charge.
It was just as ridiculous to say that one of the
long annuities which would expire in some six or
seven years was in every respect equal to a per-
petual charge, as that personal earnings, depend-
ing on health, fashion, and a variety of circum-
stances over which the recipient has no control,
are equivalent to a similar amount of dividends,
which the proprietor is sure of receiving during
his life, and of bequeathing to his children and
their issue throughout all future generations.
The moneyocracy can appreciate the justice of the
argument respecting the annuity, although per-
fectly insensible to the wrongs of the industrious
middle classes. They saw that the charge Ql2 bug