The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-28 00:00:00

THE ARMY.

Total £3OB 4 7
In the majority of the cases inquired into and brough,
under contribution, the parties resided in London or in Liver-
pool, for each of which localities a special agent was appointed
to condect and carry on the necessary investigations and
proceedings, and to collect the payments. The result leads
me to anticipate a similar success in other large towns, as
the system is more completely carried out. Much will de-
pend on the views and feelings of the magistrates on the
reformatory movement, and still more on the activity and
earnestness of the police. As a general principle, I have
urged the importance of exacting some contribution, how-
ever small, in every case. I believe the object of the law
to be, not so much the collecting a considerable sum of
money, as the producing a just sense of parental duty, and
the applying a check to the negligence and the drunken
habits by which so many parents cause their children to be-
come first vagabond and idle, and then vicious and criminal ;
and I have found that the enforcing even so small a pay-
ment as sixpence or ninepence per week has proved effectual
for this purpose in several instances ; examples can now
be referred to in which dissolute and drunken fathers bare
been led to be more sober, and the family at home made
more comfortable, by the pressure exercised in exaction of
the payment for the children in the reformatory. I have
not had to resort to legal proceedings iu more than a few
cases. Usually it has been sufficient to give notice that a
summons will be applied for, if a fair contribution be not
agreed to. The ailment to be demanded I have fixed, as a
rule, at one-twelfth of the average wages (i.e., a penny in
the shilling). But a larger payment is reasonably required
where the family is small and the wages large. Ou the ave-
rage, the payments are one shilling per week for each per-
son actually contributing, er sixpence per week for each
person that has been inquired about or summoned. In a few
cases the penalty of ten days' imprisonment has been in-
flicted in default of payment.
I trust that the magistracy will gradually use the powers
given by the last Reformatory Act more frequently, and
assess the parent at the same time as they sentence the child.
Much trouble and expense will be thereby saved, and a more
direct effect produced on the parents themselves, as well as
on their neigbours and connexions.
I cannot complete this part of my report without acknow-
ledging the willing and effectual assistance I have generally
received from the police authorities I have had to apply to.
With scarcely an exception, the inquiries I have requested
have been made; the further steps, when necessary, have
been taken; and the payments received and remitted, and
when in arrear applied for and enforced at the expense of
much personal trouble by the chief constables and superin-
tepdents of police, both in most of the large manufacturing
or borough towns, and in many of the country districts, not
only gratuitously, but with great readiness and regularity. I
should especially record the friendly aid afforded by the Rev.
Thomas Carter, chiaplain to the borough gaol at Liverpool,
In directing and superintending the inquiriesand proceedings
in this matter in that large town. The Reformatory Act has
been more extensively applied in Liverpool than in any
other place, and that this has been done with safety, so that
juvenile delinquency has been effectually diminished there,
is very much to be attributed to the judicious earnestness
with which, under Mr. Carter's direction, the parents of all
the young offenders committed for detention during the
last 18 months have been inquired about and called on to
contribute.
In concluding this general report, I would refer to the
gratifying fact that the criminal statistics for the last year
show so considerable a diminution in the number of juvenile
offenders in England. The commitments of offenders under
sixteen years of age, for the year previous, i.e., to Septem-
ber 30, 1836, amounted to 13,981. Those for the year ending
September 30, 1857, amounted to P 2,501, being a decrease
of commitments of 1,480, corresponding to a decrease of
individual children committed of at least 600. There is
reason to hope that the returns for the present year will
show a similar and continuous decline.
While, however, the juvenile delinquency of Middlesex
and Surrey continues to be comparatively so little interfered
with, the reformatory system cannot be said to be fairly or
effectually tested. The commitments under fifteen years of
age for the metropolitan districts amounted in the year 1857
to 2,696. The long-contemplated Middlesex industrial
schools will now shortly be in operation, and the Surrey
magistrates are taking active steps to place a considerable
number of the juvenile criminals of that county at
and other reformatories. An effectual impression on this
serious amount of youthful delinquency and vice
the mayro si siloonws
therefore be looked for. It is to tie hoped that e p f
of the Middlesex Industrial Schools Act for . enforcing
contributions from the parents may be steadily eptorced ;
so long as reformatory interference was only_ occasional, an
act of charity in a limited number of cases, there was
no serious risk of holding out any premium to vicious or
negligent parents to throw their children on the streets in
order to be relieved of their maintenance; but when this
interference becomes the rule, and is noon ltmritteitr.oprofyided t
fhore
by individual benevolence, but by ac 1 u rom
public purse, the question assumes a totally different aspect,
and the interests and moral welfare of the community
demand that while the child shall be reformed, the father
her shall be held liable to aid in its reformation.
Or thither
If this principle be steadily acted en, on the one hand, and
the schools be rightly managed, and their style and furni-
ture, and the dietary and employments of their inmates, such
as offer no undue temptation or inducement, ou the other,
gain much, and risk little by the reformatory
society will
system, however widely it may be extended.
11. SCOTLAND.
There are four reformatories in Scotland certified under the
17 and 18 Vic., c. 86, four certified under both this act and
the 17 and 18 Vic., c. 74, and. fourteen certified under the
last-named statute only.
Of the first and second classes, the well-known houses of
refuge for boys and girls at Glasgow are the most deserving
of special notice. They contained, on the 31st December,
1857, 525 children (394 boys and 131 girls), and appear to
be conducted with great earnestness and ability by Oleic
managers. The reformatories at Aberdeen and Montrose are
still struggling with the difficulties of their first commence-
ment.
In the other Scotch reformatories of the same description
at Greenock, Paisley, Stranraer, and Inverness, convicted
children are mixed with paupers and day-school scholars, a
practice which I cannot think defensible or safe.
It is to be regretted tha. the previsions for compelling
parents to contribute have remained hitherto a dead letter
in Scotland ; many of the inmates of the houses of refuge are
the children of parents in the receipt of considerable wages.
The schools certified under Mr. Dunlop's act are, in fact,
industrial feeding schools of a superior description. Scarcely
any of the children in them are committed under that act,
the clause enabling the parochial boards to withdraw such
children on giving security for their better protection hav-
ing almost neutralised the direct operation of the statute
altogether. But the indirect operation of the law appears
to be considerable and very advantageous ; large numbers
of children coming voluntarily, or being sent by their
parents—from the knowledge that, if found idling and beg-
ging in the streets, they can and will be sentenced to the
school, and compelled to attend it—l think the value of
these certified industrial schools in Scotland can scarcely
be exaggerated. They seem to offsr the cheapest and roost
effective means for preventing the evil which the reforma-
tory can only cure. No one can visit Aberdeen,
especially, without being struck by the absence from
ne-
the
streets and lanes of that large class of disorderly
and
glected children so abundant in most large towns, andi apt;
preciating the beneficial working of the schools wne
Sheriff Watson and Mr. Thomson of Banchery, have
established. I sincerely hope that th e Industrial
Schools
Bill Bill of last year (20 and A VlCVic.,c, 48) may ere longbe y

Orders were yesterday received at Chatham for the follow.
lug reinforcements, to embark for Bombay, at Gravesend,
on the Ist Sept., on board the East India Company's troop
ship Sardinia, 969 tons, Capt. W. H. M'Cleery, which vessel
is previously tote inspected by the Commandant of Chatham
Garrison, in order to ascertain that the required arrange-
ments for the comfort of the troops during the voyage have
been carried out, viz.,-50 men of the Bth Hussars and 28 man
of the 17th Lancers,from Canterbury; 64 men of the 33d (Duke
of Wellington's) Regt., 82 men of the 89th Regt., and 58
men of the 95th Regt., from Fermoy ; 18 men of the 18th
Royal Irish, and 20 men of the 86th (Royal County Down),
from Buttevant ; 20 men of the 71st Highlanders, and 30
men of the 92d Hi4blanders, from Stirling ; 16 men of the
56th Regiment, from Colchester; 15 men of the 51st (the
King's Own) Light Infantry, from Weimer; 20 men 6f the
72d Highlanders' from Aberdeen; and 20 men of the Royal
Artillery, from Woolwich—total, 475 men of all ranks.
The following draughts are ordered to embark the same
day on board the Velocity, 1,100 tons, Captain E. Shrews-
bury, for Kurrachee—namely, 10 men of the 61st Regi-
ment, 15 men of the 70th Regiment, 18 men of the 81st Regi-
ment, and 21 men of the 94th Regiment, from Chatham ;
30 men of the 7th (the Princess Royal's) Dragoon Guards,
and 35 men of the f, Bth Regiment, from Canterbury ;
40 men of the 27th Eeniskilleus, and 30 men of the 87th
Royal Irish Fusiliers, from Buttevant—total, 194 men. The
reinforcements for Calcutta and Madras are to embark at
Gravesend on the 2d and 7th of September.
The contracts for the supply of the whole of the infantry
regiments with free kits have been given to the following
firms :—Hebbert and Co., London ; Gilpin and Co., Lon-
don ; Prater and Co., London ; Dolan and Co., London ;
Messrs. Marks, Chatham ; Grover, Chatham ; and Ireland
and Co., Dublin. The whole of the kits were previously
supplied at £2 lls. 10d. each, until the authorities at the
War Department refused to receive any more kits from the
firm. The price at which the contracts have now been
taken averages £3ls. 6d. for each kit. In order to provide
against anything like inferior articles being supplied to the
troops, the whole of the kits as they are supplied are to be
sent to Mark-lane, instead of Weedon, where they will be
inspected by a board appointed for that purpose.
The steam-ship City of Manchester,belonging to the Liver-
pool, New York, and Philadelphia Steam-ship Company,from
Portsmouth and Gibraltar, arrived at Algoa Bay on the sth
of July, after a passage at sea of 391 days, and a total time
of 47 days, including disembarkation and embarkation at
Gibraltar, and coaling at St. Vincent's and Cape Town.
The whole of. the troops, comprising 1,216 men, women,
and children, were landed without a single case oesickness.
On the 14th of July she was officially inspected, and was to
leave again about the 25th of July an ber return voyage,
with about 600 men of the Royal Engineers and 12th Regi-
ment, and may be expected at Portsmouth during next week.

THE MILITIA.
The 4th West York Militia Is to assemble at Leeds on the
28th September for 21 days' training. This regiment gave
a great number of volunteers to the Line when it was em-
bodied about two years ago.