The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-14 00:00:00

deduce the following points :—The exposure of
young children to corrupting influences • the great
expensiveness of even the most youthful crime, as
evidenced both in the amount of undetected plunder,
and the cost of repeated prosecutions and convic-
tions ; and, most important of all, the hopefulness
of the reformatory process, which I should have felt
myself less emboldened by this single instance to
lay stress"upon, if I had not the authority of the
superintendent for stating that the large majority
of cases already completed, of which he has been
cognisant, have been equally satisfactory. lam
aware that many of the farmers in my neighbour-
hood are not only willing to avail themselves of the
labour of the boys, while they are still inmates
of their school, but are ever anxious to take them
into permanent service upon their discharge. There
have been some verfpleasing instances of boys
making restitution after their discharge to per-
sons whom they had previously robbed. The
chaplain of the gaol at Hull writes—" The effect
of the reformatory movement on the juvenile
criminals of Hull has, I think, been of the most
beneficial character; some weeks ago we had
not a single boy in gaol." I believe that similar
satisfactory testimony can be given from other dis-
tricts, but I have deemed it best to confine myself
to my own. There are several points connected with
reformatory tactics which must be considered, so to
term it, as still afloat, and upon which I am willing
to hope that our present gathering may be destined
to shed light. A prominent one is the amount of
reformatory accommodation which ought to be sup-
plied. This, however, for its adequate solution,
hinges upon another, probably the most important
and the most difficult of all that await decision—
What ought to be the condition of admission ?
Ought the once convicted, ought the twice convicted,
ought; in any case, the wholly unconvicted to be
admissible ? It certainly appears to me that, with a
a view both to the due protection of the money,
partly at least received from the State, and to the
inadequacy of the accommodation as yet provided
for the criminal class, it would not be right to allow
any admission except of an actual convict. Then,
with respect to the once convicted, though I can
conceive cases where it might be so desirable to
remove a child from evil influences and companion-
ships, as to overcome all other scruples, yet, as it is,
the duty which the reformatory owes to the state
to -operate, preferentially, upon the most har-
dened and abandoned classes, and as there also
may •be many cases where a boy or girl may
have lapsed or been led into the commission of
some isolated fault or act of lawlessness without
any
.such perversity of temper or will as to
make them fit associates of the thoroughly
depraved, but yet] which some short, sharp
punishment would probably be the best method of
cure ; it seems to me that, at all events, till there is
more than sufficient room for the aggravated cases,
it would be 'advisable to make• a plurality of con-
victions the general condition of admission. On
this head the chaplain of the gaol at Hull has re-
marked, in a letter addressed to our superintendent,
"It has always appeared to me unreasonable, as
well as unnecessary, to send a boy to a reformatory
for a first offence, except in extreme cases, where
such cunning or depravity is exhibited, is mani-
fested, as indicates a most depraved disposition."
In our case we manifestly want increased accom-
modation in any view of the case. It app,mrs from
some returns we have obtained from East Riding
House of Correction at Beverley, and from the Hull
Borough Gaol, that of boys convicted during the
last three years under 16 years of age, there are—
Convicted once
Twice, not included above
More than twice

275
58
42

Of these 50 have been sent to reformatory schools.
The total number convicted more than once is just
100 ; so that, supposing none to have been sent to
reformatories who had not been twice convicted, 50
would still remain at large in the riding. In like
manner Mr. Shepherd, the Governor of the Wake-
field prison, has recently said that he knew of more
than a hundred West Riding cases for which he
could not find room in a reformatory. I believe
that different opinions are entertained respecting
the best sources of supply for the maintenance of
the schools. In some cases local rates have been
already resorted to. It is obvious that such a
resource cannot be called in without some sacrifice
of independence on the part of managers and
superintendents. Probably different methods may
be suitable to different places ; time and experience
will develop their own exigencies, and I am not
aware that they are yet ripe enough for any further
appeal to legislative. provisions. I feel that no
doubt can be entertained either of the pro-
priety or expediency of -the aid of the Govern-
ment being given to meet voluntary ' efforts
and subscriptions. Whether the withdrawal
of the grants hitherto made by the Committee
of Privy Council is justified on the ground of the
anomaly of two separate streams of supply pro-
urcding from the State I will not take upon my-
self to decide ; but I think that in any case there
has been reason to regret the abruptness of the de-
termination. It behoves the managers and friends
of the schools all the more to strain every nerve to
make them as independent as they can of all ex-
trinsic aid beyond the still remaining grant from.
the Home Department. I cordially embrace con-
clusions of which I believe the collective thought
and wisdom which have been exercised on this sub-
ject had already arrived, that the relations of
the State to the reform t rip. e3lablished shoull
embrace inspection, but exclude interference, ex-
cept, of course, in case of patent and obvious abuse ;
and that it would be inexpedient to lay down any
rigid or undeviating
exact
grauclet
schemeofmana of rewardsgement,
such,afnodr
instance, as any
punishments, to what extent corporal punishment
should be applied, and the like. The great essen-
tial condition is to procure the right men for super-
intendents or masters ; the interior details will best
be confided to their discretion, acting upon the ma-
terials with which they are called upon to deal.
It appears to me most desirable that the powers of
i levying contributions from the parents of children
placed in reformatories should be enforced as ex-
tensively as possible. A most important and preg-
nant subject for consideration is the after disposal
of the' pupils. Their ever best security against
relapse to evil courses and dangerous associations
would probably be found in emigration. Could the
State be properly called upon to contribute to this
end, at all events, in aid of private effort ? Boys
may in many cases be fitted to go out as emigrants
before it would be safe to discharge them at home,
within reach of old haunts and comrades, so that
a more than corresponding saving in the State
contribution to their maintenance would be thus
effected. Some of the inmates will unhappily
continue unfitted either for emigration abroad or
for employment at home. I think it well worthy
of reflection whether, for the thoroughly incor•
rigible and unmanageable, it might not be de-
sirable to have a more exclusively penal reforma-
tory. lam informed that Mr. Sydney Turner has
recommended the employment of the prison at
Parkhurst for this purpose. Consideration must, of
course, be given to the lawful duration of sentences ;
but it clearly would be conducive to the general
welfare that the periods of detention should be suf-
ficiently long to admit of the full process of refor-
mation, and that as few as possible should be let
loose anew on society till it has been thoroughly
accomplished. I may sum up what I have thus
imperfectly said on both branches of my subject by
stating that the same principle of treatment appears
to me to apply alike both to adults and juvenile re-
formation, as might have been expected when
human nature supplies the material to be worked
upon in either case, with whatever modification of
degree and circumstance. The almost indispensable
condition of success seems to be that the criminals.

of whatever age or description, should be brought
together in such numbers, and under such arrange-
ments, as admits of their being, to use a term which
I believe, is now understood, individualised ; of
their being each, in their own person, the subject
upon whom influence, argument, advice, sympathy,
are brought to bear ; that before they are restored
to a world which would naturally look upon them
with distrust and suspicion, they should have had
the opportunity of submitting to some trustworthy
test their altered resolutions and dispositions, and
that throughout this whole recuperative process
the machinery upon which, under the blessings
from above, we can mainly rely, is one human
heart acting upon another human heart. fLoud
and protracted cheering.)

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PROT

!ANCE.

Some causes cannot afford to stand still. Those
who advocate them must advance that they may
not retrograde. Motion to them is life ; like the
skater they fall prostrate if that motion is inter-
rupted. Such a person was the great Napoleon,
who had brought himself to believe that to him
tranquillity was certain destruction, that he must
be for ever astonishing France by some new ex-
ploit, and that the moment he left off conquering-
others he would himself be conquered and over-
thrown. Upon the example of this great man
the French School of Prohibitionists have
formes themselves. Napoleon is once reported
to have said, if an empire was formed
of granite political economists would reduce
it to powder, and the prohibitionists seem
determined that in their day, at least, this process
of macadamisation shall not take place. Granite is
their beau ideal, a substance out of which nothing
can be got, and into which nothing can enter—
hard, homogeneous, barren, and worthless, without
elasticity, development, or life.
We have to notice, however, to-day, two excur-
sions of the spirit of Prohibition in France into
regions whither it has not hitherto ventured. We
have long ago been accustomed to hear the most
frantic complaints against everything that is im-
ported by foreigners—to hear arguments in favour
of native sugar that does not sweeten against
foreign sugar that does—the praises of wood as
against iron, shoddy against wool, and everything
in the world against calico or flannel. We have
heard the sighs of Amiens and the lamentations
of Lyons, and have become well aware that the
empire of the French is divided between the
Emperor Napoleon and the French manufacturers,
and that if he can rule they can tax the nation
as they please. But we certainly were not pre-
pared for the advance which the French Prohi-
bitionists have just made. The colour which the
principle of Protection has assumed among us, and
hitherto among the French, is that of an intense
desire to promote the grandeur and dignity of
the country by shielding it and its manufactures
from the unequal competition of foreign producers.
We say the colour, for we have always held this
talk of nationality to be a transparent pretext to
veil the selfishness of men whose whole and sole
desire was to make money out of the public to
which the merits of their industry did not entitle
them. France is the land of logic, and we have
no reason, therefore, to be surprised to find the
principle of Prohibition stripped of the veil of
patriotism behind which she lurked, and produced
in all the naked deformity of her native selfishness.
The object of attack is not now the production
of any foreign country, but the work of French
capital, to which the empire is mainly indebted for
the surprising progress which has been made in the
last few years. The complainants are the Canal
Proprietors of France, and the objects of their
complaint the Railway Companies. To be sure,
these much injured men do not approach the
throne of the Emperor with a request that he will
command a sufficient number of Sappers and
Miners to go forth and level to the ground the
railway works which now traverse France in all
directions. They do not even request that the ac-
cursed English iron with which these anti-national
enterprises have dared to construct their rails
should be torn up and Last into the sea, and that,
instead thereof, a contract at their own prices
should be given to the distressed forgerons of St.
Etienne or the Limousin. They will permit
railways to exist, they only ask to be delivered
from their competition. Nay, they are mag-
nanimous ; passengers they abandon to the rail-
ways. They do not require that France should
be traversed in barges, or that the Indian
mail should be carried down the Rhone in
a steamer ; but over goods they have a sovereign
right—a right which they are prepared to assert to
the uttermost.
The Canals of France—almost all of which, if
our memory serves us, have been made with public
money—reproach the railways, the concessions of
which have not been by any means gratuitous, with
having received public support. and thus involving
them in an unfair competition. It appears that
these heartless innovators have actually lowered
their tariff for carrying goods, whenever they have
had to compete with water communication, to a
point with which the canal owners find itimpossible
to compete. This is intolerable, and the modest re-
quest of the canal owners is, that for their benefit
the railways shall be compelled to charge a sum for
the carriage of goods so high as to enable the canals
successfully to compete with them. They ask the
Emperor, in fact, to employ his power in compelling'
the railway companies to regulate their charkes,
not with a view to their own interest, but to that
of their opponents. The public, of course, who will
have to pay these extra charges, go for nothing in
the matter ; or, rather, the Emperor is asked to pro-
tect them against the effects of their own folly.
The public, say the French monopolists, are not
sufficiently alive to the benefits of competition.
With an ignorant impatience of high charges—
which they ought to know are beneficial to them—
they fly to the railway. because they ask least, and
if things are allowed to go on in this way the
canals will be shut up altogether, and then there
will be no competition at all. In our eyes the French
public are excusable for not appreciating the value
of a competition the result of which is to make things
dear instead of cheap, and for thinking little would
be gained by establishing a legal monopoly for fear
the superiority of railways should create a virtual
one. The request, as we have said, does not appear
to us very reasonable, but it is, at any rate, logical
and consistent. Once admit the principle that the
interests of the consumer are to be systematically
sacrificed to those of the producer, and we can se3
no reason why the weaker producer should not be
allowed to invoke the aid of Government to pro-
tect him against the competition of his stronger and
more fortunate fellow-countrynien. Why should a
barge be subject_to the competition of a steamer, or
a punt to the competition of a barge P Why should
human labour be displaced by that of bullocks, bul-
locks by horses, or horses by the steam-engine P On
the principles of Protection we cannot say, and we
strongly recommend to the perusal of the Canal in-
terest of France the petition against the light of the
sun suggested by M. Frederick Bastiat as the pro-
per exposition ofthe griefs of the afflicted manufac-
turers of lamps, candles, and girandoles.
We have left ourselves but little room to expa-
tiate on the second development of the spirit of
Prohibition. It appears that the Basqups of the
Pyrenees have not studied under Mr. Bright's
direction. They have man's blessings positive and
negative. Among the former may be enumerated
Universal Suffrage, Vote by Ballot ; and among the
latter the total absence of a powerful aristocracy,
entails, and the law of primogeniture. Yet, even
with all these aids and appliances for happiness,
they are as anxious to emigrate as the Glasgow
weavers themselves. They are. the Swiss of France
—keen, active, and iniustrious, • and particularly
well fitted to push their fortunes in foreign coun-
tries. Perhaps they are disposed to think that even
the good things they enjoy would not be ill ex-
changed for a moderate amount of personal and
political freedom, for permission to buy cheap and
sell dear, for emancipation from the extortions
which-their protected manufacturers conceive them

selves born to practise upon them, and for a state of
law which permits and encourages the employment
of capital and skill on land, and thus favours the
improvement of agriculture and the remuneration
labour. However this may be, many Basques have
emigrated to Buenos Ayres, have acquired fortunes
there, and many others, stimulated by their success,
are preparing to follow their example. The Minis-
ter of the Interior is horrified that the people should
think of leaving the paradise which Protection,
Prohibition, Conscription, and Subdivision have
made for them. " Must I :believe," says the dis-
consolate Minister of the Interior, " that the agri-
cultural labourers do not receive sufficiently high
wages ?" The Prefect replies, "On the-one hand,
the moderate salary paid to daily labourers, parti-
cularly.during' late years, on the other hand the
insufficiency of the produce of patrimonial portions
of land for the small cultivators, which is sub-

divided at every inheritance, constitute the prin-
cipal causes of the Basque emigration." Again
he says, Insufficiency of means to live on their
native soil in consequence of the minute subdivi-

sion of property is among the principal causes."
The remedy is characteristic-,---to refuse passports
to all persons under age. This makes the whole

circle complete. The State deprives every one of
right of disposing of his property at his death, and
substitutes for that right an enforced subdivision
by which it ruins agriculture. It forces every one
to pay an enormous tribute to a number of greedy
monopolists, thus depriving him of the natural
right to buy and sell where he pleases • and when,
reduced to extremity by such treatment, the
peasant proposes to carry the only commodity
which the mischievous meddling of Government
has left him to a better market, his native country
is converted into a gaol, from which, for the
benefit of the protected interests, he is on no ac-
count to be allowed to escape.---Times.

DEPARTURE OF THE SWALLOWS.—A large num_
ber of swallows assembled yesterday morning, on the south
side 'only of Lincoba's-inn-flelds ; a few were also seen
in the square of Lincoln's-inn, and attracted consider-
able attention. About two o'clock, when a steady rain
set in, they collected on the roof of the College of Sur-
geons, where by their incessant twitting -thoy appeared to
be holding a council, after which they suddenly disappeared,
and were not Rem for, the remainder of the day. Mr. Yar-
rell states, inVOhis " 'Natural History of Birds," that about
the middle of October martins generally leave this country
in large flocks, having previously assembled on house-tops,
about churches, and lofty trees. It was supposed that this
gathering was preparatory to a general migration.