New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-08-07
TIE CASE Or SARIH CHANDLER.

Our readers are familiar WITH the uetaliS vi
the recent expose of English local justice IN
the case of little girl aged thirteen. who
was sentenced last month by three lay and
two clerical magistrates to fourteen days i'm
prsonmcnt and four years in refOrmatory
school for plucking flower from private
garden. The child was released last week
when the matter was brought to the notice OF
the Home Secretary, and tho magistrates woke
one fine morning to find themselves Infamous
The English, like the American press is ready
enough to demand fair play for individuals,
however slow it may be to detect the injus-
tice of general laws. We might dismiss the
matter with the reflection that the race of
Dogberries is long-livcd in England, but for
one point, which brings the case home to our
selves. The defense of the magistrates is that
the child's mother found her incorrigiblo, and
that the affair of the flower was simply pre-
text to nut her in refOrmatOry. On the
other hand the horror expressed by the En-
glish journals in denOuncng the sentence Is
based on the certain and Irreparable injury
which the child should receive at this reforma-
tory, the demorallzing influences" and "in-
"effaceablc Disgrace Of which are spoken OF
~ common place and well known matters.
"The man." says The Spectator. "whO comes
"out of a reformatory is thereafter known as
"a thief. the woman as unchaste."
Now the British refOrmatOries are long-tried
experiments, and the conviction of most
thoughtful men il that they are failures the
routine management readily degenerates into
cruelty, when administered 10y just, unmerciful,
systematic men the effect upon the pupil OF
the system is hardening, and of the association
inevitably debasing. The child who lacks a
mothers handling, and the affections, the
daily trials and self-denials of family life,
has lost something which no bringing up
by machinery, however moral, will sup
ply. Anything can be manufactured to
order more easily than men and women.
This subject is unfortunately OF no little
general interest among us. But there ID
a large class of earnest and influential men
who have made the reform of the vicious
classes the chief object of their work in life,
and who find the only rational hope OF solving
the problem to lie in the training of the chill
dren of that class. We urge upon their atten-
ton this case and the fact which it has brought
to light of the position held by the reforma-
tories and reformatory pupils in public opinion
in England The developments OF last Winter
in the Philadelphia House of Refuge. and
others not so public IN our own, show that
these institutions require close and constant
oversight. 1t il a suggestive fact, too, that
these houses are frequently used by parents of
the lower classes as means to relieve them
selves of the care of children difficult to man
age and that the law and local magistracy are
usually quite as easily manipulated to that end
in New-York or Philadelphia as in Spalding.
Reformatores, to serve any good purpose,
should be open only to minors actually GRIM
inal and Boards of Public Charities or Com
missioners perform their work inadequately
who do not examine such institutions every
year and remove from them all children OF
simply careless and mischievous habits, who
will find in them contamination and not help.