The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-23 00:00:00

QUEEN. SQUARE.

On Tuesday George Gilcon, John White, and William
Burgess, three boys of about sixteen years of age, were
charged with misconduct at St. Luke's Workhouse,
Chelsea.

Mr. Sutton, the master, said that about seven o'clock
on the previous evening, having missed the defendants
from the house, he watched for their returns and just be-
fore the hour of going to bed he saw them get over a
wall from the churchyard. As he had frequently cau-
tioned the boys he gave them into custody.
Prisoners made no defence, and were committed for
fourteen days.
Mr. Sutton observed, he was quite at a loss to know
what to do with the boys. They set the authorities at
complete defiance, and, notwithstanding that he had re-
sorted to every means in his power to keep up proper
discipline in the house, they were in the most insubor-
dinate state. How the present state of things was to be,
remedied he really did not know. Punishment in the
house, or punishment inflicted by the magistrate, did not
seem to check the evil ; several of these boys had been
brought by him before the magistrate a few days ago,
and on hearing their sentence of fourteen days' impri-
sonment, they laughed at him, and on being removed to
the cell set up a shout of defiance. One of the three de-
fendants in the present charge had been concerned in
the desperate attack on him a little time back.
Mr. BOND said he should have mentioned the circum-
stance before.
Mr. Ryder, the chairman of the board of guardians
of St. Luke, Chelsea, hoped he should be excused for
offering a few observations on the subject. How to
maintain that discipline so necessary in a large
establishment with such a refractory set of boys was
indeed a matter of great difficulty. All their efforts
to restore order were unavailing, and they were
placed in the most unenviable position. But a short
time since a number of the most desperate of them were
charged with a premeditated attack upon the master,
and, although that person was half murdered by them,
and it was shown at the last Middlesex Sessions that
their conduct had been of the very worst description, Mr.
Sergeant Adams had sentenced several of them to 24
hours' imprisonment. He had committed—it was true—
two, he believed, for three months, and three to two
months' hard labour ; but there never was a term more
falsely applied than this term " hard labour." The very
slow pace at which the wheel turned, with the circum-
stance of their scarcely having to raise their feet, added
to the fact that they were not on for more than a quarter
of an hour, or at most twenty minutes at a time, ren-
dered it anything but the term which had been misap-
plied to it ; he would undertake to say that there would
be more hard labour in running three or four times up
One-tree•hill, Greenwich Park, than there would be in
working at the tread-wheel. He would also make an ob-
servatio❑ with respect to the food. He had been over
Coldbath-fields prison, and had been informed that the
allowance of food to the prisoners was twenty ounces
of wheaten broad per day, and meat four times per week,
while that in Chelsea workhouse was twelve ounces per
day, and meat three times per week ; and it was con-
sidered that the paupers fared better (and he made the
observation with thegreatest respect to the ratepayers)than
tnaay who were compelled to contribute towards their
support. After such decisions as those to which he had
adverted, he would ask what protection there was to any
one administering the New Poor•law ? The parish
authorities had difficulties of no ordinary character to
contend against ; it was their anxious wish to treat the
poor with kindness and liberality, but it was at the same
time their desire to keep up proper discipline and order
in the house. After the triumph these boys considered
they had gained the law appeared to have no terrors for
them, and the authorities were perfectly at a loss to
know what course to pursue.
It having been suggested by the clerk that when they
had been guilty of such gross misbehavour it would per-
haps be the best course not to re-admit them,
Mr. Ryder observed, that the magistrates had said
that in some cases they should adopt that course ; in
others that they should visit the boys with corporal
punishment. If they refused to admit these boys, and
they were found in a destitute and starving condition in
the streets, the authorities would be held up to public
odium and contempt, and stigmatised as monsters in
human form. The view he (Mr. Ryder) took of the de-
cision to which he had before alluded was concurred in
by many masters of workhouses whom he had spoken to
on the subject.
Mr. BOND said he should be happy to assist the autho-
rities iu enforcing proper discipline in any way that lay
in his power. It was perhaps desirable that boards of