The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-01 00:00:00

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PRICE 4D. - STAMPED, 51).

stupidity and blindness to consequences which is
their general accompaniment., (Hear, hear.) Among
the class of minor offenders, at least, the intellectual
deficiency is quite generally proportionate to the
moral deficiency. Of such offenders there is only
one way of getting rid—get hold of them in youth,
get hold of them, if you can, before they have sunk
from mere idleness and beggary into crime ; if you-
can't do that, get hold of them before they arc har-
dened in crime, separate them, isolate them, prevent
them at least, if themselves corrupted, from corrupt-
ing others; and try to instil into them habits of in-
dustry and self-respect. (Cheers.) That is a work
which is equally divided between the reformatory,
strictly so called, and the ragged school. The one
deals with the lad who has offended, the other with
the lad whose position and mode of life are such as
to make it probable, not to say certain, that he will
offend. "The mode of treatment in each case differs,
but the principle is identical, and the end is the
same. You start in each case from the assumption
that the child, whether criminal or merely desti-
tute and vagrant, is not itself to be held respon-
sible for the habits it has formed and for the circum-
stances in which it is found. That responsibility
belongs to the parent, if there be a parent; if not,
then to society at large. And what you have to do
is, not to give them a high intellectual training,
not to bring up the child so that it shall be an object
of envy to honest and industrious parents, but to
trhin it, physically and morally, for the duty which
a labouring man or woman in this country has to
discharge, to make it healthy, strong, patient of
labour, honest, and truth-telling; and to correct
those roving, restless, and unsatisfied habits which
are almost invariably found in children who have
been irregularly brought up. If you succeed in
doing this, if you succeed even in partially doing
this with one generation, you will largely add per-
manently diminish the amount both of immorality
andpauperism in England, (Cheers.) For there is
no fact better attested than the strong tendency of
both pauperism and crime to become hereditary in
certain families and localities. Paupers breed
paupers, vagrants breed vagrants, and habitual law
breakers have for the most part been brought up
in disorderly homes. It is only within the last four
or five years that the subject of juvenile reforma-
tion has seriously attracted public attention. It is
only within the last three years that the State has
given a helping hand. There are now in reforma-
tories, strictly so, called, in England and Scotland,
and in industrial schools, some 2,700 boys and girls.
The number who aro lodged in ragged and indus-
finial schools, not under Government supervision, I
decrease
(Hear.) No doubt,
do not know, but it is probably not considerable.
And, coincident with this state of things, I do not
remarkable
juvenile
crime.
say consequent upon it, there has been a great and
crime, and m more especially
the
gone
of .
ral decrease various causes may be assigned ; work
is abundant, the community is prosperous, and the
extensive recruiting for Indian arid general service
has drawn off many of those turbulent rind adven-
turous characters who are most apt to get into
trouble at home. But the diminution of juvenile
crime (that is below the age of 16) is a fair test,
and when I find for 1858 a decrease of committals
under that head of 18 per cent. as compared with
1857, followinr, a decrease of 5 per cent. in 1857, as
compared with 1856—in all a decrease of nearly one-
fourth in two years—l think we have reason to be-
-leve that the experiment, so far as it has gone, has
succeeded, and that the £50,000 a year which the
Government contributes has not been thrown away.
Indeed, even these figures, though they tell the
truth, tell much less than the truth, because they
do not aid cannot take account of the fact that
among the young persons placed in sechrion and
under reformatory treatment are included by this
time moat of those who were leaders and teachers in
mischief—most of those whose ingenuity enabled
them to commit the greatest number of undetected,
and therefore unrecorded offences, and I have it
strongly stated, in answer to inquiries that I have
made in various parts of England, that the real
decrease in juvenile crime is far greater than those
returns show ; for that the character of the
offences committed is materially altered, and now
indicates rather the casual offender than the habi-
tual breaker of the law. (Hear.) I ought, perhaps,
to ask pardon for introducing a subject which is
only indirectly, though very closely, connected
with that which we are met to discuss ; but I have
this apology—the industrial and ragged school
stands in the same relation to the reformatory in
which the reformatory stands to the prison. You
send children to the reformatory in order to reclaim
them from a life of wrongdoing, on which they
have. it may be ignorantly, entered ; you take them
into these schools, to save them, not merely from
poverty—not merely from destitution and suffering,
but from that life of vagrancy and idleness which,
in a country like this, can hardly exist without
leading to crime, and which may almost be consi-
dered as its first step It is the same cure applied
at an earlier stage of the disease. There are three
remarks which I should like to offer by way of
caution—though probably here they are little
needed—and which apply equally to reformatories,
strictly so called, and to ragged and Industrial
schools; considered as places of de tent ion. The first
is—wherever possible, even though it may be trou-
blesome, even though it may cost more than it is
worth in money,---enforce the principle of parental
responsibility by compelling parents to contribute.
The law gives you the power, and if it be not used
there is always a danger of children being inten-
tionally thrown on your hands for support, in which
case you will do more mischief than you prevent.
In the next place, let it be known, let it be under-
stood, that there are at industrial schools no advan-
tages, whether in the way of present indulgence,
or teaching, or future prospects, which are not
equally in the power of any honest working man
to attain for his children. (Applause.) If that
caution be disregarded you create a feeling of envy
and jealousy which is very difficult to deal with
—all the more so because it is founded in jus-
tice. And, in the third place, let it be remem-
bered that the process of taking and lodging a child
at the school, though the most effective,.is the most
costly by far,and that it ought never to be resorted
to except where either there is no home for the
child, or where it is clearly proved that the cha-
racter of that home is such as to be fatal to
every prospect of amendment and honest training.
I notice this rule, though obvious, because I know
that in some places it has been neglected, and an
unnecessary outlay has been the result. These are
the few plain, and, I hope, practical remarks which
I have to offer on this great subject. We have suc-
ceeded so far; don't let us grow over confident.
This whole question of reclaiming and reforming
the idle, the vagrant, and the incipient criminal is
one which needs constant caution to deal with; a
mistake may take us very far wrong, and our expe-
rience is as yet of very recent date. We all, I trust,
feel the duty which society imposes, and the claims
which society has upon us. From those who went
before us we have inherited many benefits—a 1-mg
peace, a vast increase of wealth, valuable adminis-
trative reforms, a better and more cordial feeling
between class and class. Much remains to be done;
much is required at our bands; but we shall have
paid no small part of the debt which we owe to our
predecessors if we cut off the most fertile source of
crime by reclaiming those who are brought up to it
as a profession ; if get rid of that class, unci-
vilised and dangerous in the midst of civilisation
and security, which is the reproach of our great and
populous cities; if we show, by labour in the cause
of those who are least able to help themselves, that
English citizenship is a real bdnd of union, and
English religion something more than a form of
belief. (Cheers.)

THE AUSTRALIAN MAIL.—The Postmaster-Gene-
ral gave notice yesterday that the time for the departure of
the Great Britain, with ship mails for Melbourne, vill
be extended to the 9th inst., instead of the sth, as hoteto-
fore advertised.

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