Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1891-11-07

| Liverpool, for the month of July last
failed to reach eighty four thousand: and
that, to provide for the detention of the
rebellious among this number, its Ragged
School" prisons in Park lane, Bond,
Queensland and Addison streets were
rated to hold l ,225 child prisoners, with
their capacity quite overtaxedi
Children are got on the school lists in
three ways-by house to house registra-
| ton, when more than one-half Of the
poorer classes deny all knowledge of their
| children, hide them in the most cunning
| manner and often incite riots with the aid
of sympathizing neighbors; by parents
| presenting their children for voluntary
| registration: and by spying them out in
the streets and dogging their footsteps un-
til they arrive at their homes, when an in
| vestigation, which often amounts to n
siege, at once begins.
The devices resorted to for seouestering
| children from registration are often piti-
fully grOresque. On one occasion when
accompanying ''visi:or" cn his rounds, /
saw poor woman caught in the act of
squeezing her boy into the over of her
hob; and among many quite as odd strat-
| agems witnessed was one by a mother,
who stood in the open door, and after
biuntly denying maternity, was finally
forced to admit the ownership of two
strapping girls that had for the fifteen
minutes parleying stified and trembled
| beneath the mothers over-amnle skirts
| Stuffed beneath bundles of rags: actually
covered with Goals; wedged in chimney
fiues; hid beneath floors; smothered be
| tween mattresses: and clinging to the
sides of privy vaults; are common be-
stowals of children to escape registration
or subsequen; capture No wonder that
the vaGGboud and criminal instinct be-
| Genes predominant in the nature of folk
| thus harrassed.
| 'Once on the school lists, always on and
/ always worri;-d," is a common saving
among the British lowly. An ex inspector
| of the Liverpool police force, now a rent
| collector for a wealthy Liverpool tene.
| ment-house owner, told me he believed
| there We're twenty Thousand families in
| that city known as .'sCampers" that is
| families that fit from one habitation to
another, and leave the landlord in lurch
/ for his rent. On mentioning this 10 one
of the most reliable Of the Liverpool
| schoOl-board visitors" he stated it to be
| his firm conviction that at least one-half
| that numbrr had been forced into the
''scamping" habit, and had become utterly
worthless people in their loss Of home life
and the saving ambition TO attain indepen-
| dence, from the uuceasing pursuit of their
children for compulsory school attendance,
| and tile judgments hanging over the heads
| of their parents for fees and fines which
| they never had been, and never wOuld be,
able to pay. In his opinion the whole of
these human beings had become veritable
outcasts, and outlaws in small way
| through this system of ceasel.ss, petty,
| but to them overwhelming, persecution.
We will suppose, for illustration, a boy
has been hunted down and got within the
school board jurisdiction. If a single ab-
In rarpr,1af 1,s l,a
under all the possibilities of the law. The
usual course is Ill case he makes a little
more than half time, that is, six out of
ten sttendances-two per day, or ten per
week, being the recIo.Iing-and warn
ing" having been served fer every absence,
the mother or the father. and usually the
former, is summoned before police mag
istrate. The visitor Is practically the
prosecutor for the board. He makes oath
TO the boys ''presencesH and absences"
If the mother answers the summons and
enters good de 5ense the boy may get off
with a reprimand but be is permanently
thereafter under court espionage. If a
breach of attendance now occurs a second
summons is issued against the mother. and
q fine, the lowest being shilling, is never
/ escaped. At the same time a suDerinten-
| dent OF ths National school board is pres
ent, who, whether the child is from par
ish or board school. will recommend his
commitment to an Industrial school. and
never for term of less than three years
This commitment is Il sentence tn one of
three conditions or grades OF Industrial
school prison life:
Ito the Truant school, for boys and
girls, fer three years term; in which
case the culprit is chased by "visi,ors" to
and from the school. where he remains
certain hours IF each day; and receives
his food, but no clothing. and sleeps at
home The parents are compelled TO pay
one shilling per week into the Industrial
school fund.
2-To the intermediate Industrial
school, for boys OILY, where he is commit
ted, to the age of sixteen, should he De
sentenced at the age OF five. Here the
lad is in absolute confinement: and his pa
rents nre compelled to pay from two shil-
lings to two shillings and sizpence per
wesk into the fund; and
3.-To the Industrial school proper, for
both sexes, under five-years' sentence
The parents must pay the same snm week
" as to the intermediate fund. They may
visit their children once every three
months; but the latter are never liberated
until finally discharged.
On entrance tn the Truant school the
child belongs to the law from eight in the
morning until six at night. 1t remains
under precisely tie same home conditions
that made its attendance ut board school,
before commitment, hateful or impossible
The parental adherence of the system is
intensified and in most cases the efforts
of both the child and its parents TO avoid
the "visitor's' clutches are red0ubled
Any adequate description OF the disgust
ing and brutal scenes witnessed in the
morning ''round up" of these children
from among lowly homes would fill every
page of this paper. If the child now at
tends the Trugnt school regularly, without
the Use of force, in six months time it is
permitted to return to the elementary
school during the remainder of its term of
sentence, the authorities regulating it's
conduct until it has reached the age of
fourteen years. But single infraction
secures its return to the Truant school re-
gime.
If the child becomes incorrigible under
this treatment it is brought before mag
istrate and sentenced direct TO the "ordi-
nary" industrial school; placed in abso-
lutte confinement; and is compelled to Ia
Dor like any other criminal; the boys at
! wood-choping, and making brush and SEN
nit mats: and the girls at knitting coarse
stocking and making coarse shirts. This
is called putting the child away" and is
regarded an achievement by the school
''visitors" and authorities Occasionally
| a boy or girl is licensed ont to service; but
these licenses must be renewed, on good
behavior, every three months, and they
are revokable by the Industrial school
board committee, instead of by a msgis-
trate.
The food of these children is as nearly
upon a starvation as can be adjusted by
expert keepers. 1t comprises a breakfast
| of bread and treacle, or bread, milk and
porridge; a dinner of pea soup and bread,
boiled rice and bread, or ''scouse" Ia
stewed scrap meat and potato hodge
| podge) on rare occasions only; and sup
per of cocoa, bread and treacle, or milk,
bread and treacle They are also fur
nished with prayer" three times each
day.
a trick of the authorities is to discharge
a child, whose term of sentence does not
reach to the compulsory age limit, month
previous to expiration of commitment
term. This throws it back into the COM
| pulsory elementary status under court es-
| pionage. At the first dereliction it is re-
sentenced to another three or five years
term. There are many instances where
children have thus been compelled to
serve two prison terms before they were
| fourteen years of age; and if these wise
authorities are sufficiently alert a third
term, as an ''incorrigible," can easily be