.'. ' ', : , - ' - TO THOMAS CHAMBERS, ESQ., COMMON-SERJEANT OF LONDON, THIS VOLUME IS (BY PERMISSION) INSCRIBED, AS A TRIFLING EXPRESSION OF PERSONAL FRIENDSHIP AND HIGH ESTEEM. JUVENILE CEIME; CAUSES, CHARACTER, AND CURE, BY SAMUEL PHILLIPS DAY. " Happy are those few nations, who have not waited till the slow succession of human vicissitudes should, from the extremity of evil, produce a transition to good ; but, by prudent laws, have facilitated the progress from one to the other." BECCARIA. J. F. HOPE, 16, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1858. Vlll PREFACE. terest of mankind that crimes should not be com- mitted, but that crimes of every kind should be less frequent, in proportion to the evil they pro- duce to society." * In the treatment of these several subjects it was necessary that I should bring to bear a large mass of evidence from Blue-books and other authorita- tive documents not easily available to the general public. So far, a variety of interesting informa- tion will be obtained from numerous sources to which the ordinary reader could not conveniently have access. The chief aim I had in view in compiling this volume, was to throw an additional glimmer of light upon a very dark spot in our social system ; believing with Dr. Arnold, that "While history looks generally at the political state of a nation, its social state, which is infinitely more important, and in which lie the seeds of the greatest revolutions, is too commonly neglected or unknown." I am aware that in some parts I have touched upon tender ground ; but the step was inevitable. Should I have impugned the principles or offended the prejudices of any party, it was only out of re- gard to my conscientious convictions; and I only entreat that kind consideration for my opinions which I am ever ready to accord to those of my opponents. * Beccaria del Delitti e delle Pene, cap. vi. PREFACE. IX Surely, nothing can be of more vital importance than that the social diseases which affect a com- munity should be exposed. Indeed publicity of it- self would do much towards effecting a cure ; more especially in a country like England, where the force of public opinion is the main lever of the State and the originator of every social and political reform. I am not a little gratified to find that the hitherto immoveable authorities of Newgate have, at length, consented to and authorized important improvements in that prison. One hundred and thirty new cells are now in course of construction, which, when completed, will have the effect of partly preventing the promiscuous association and intercommunication of idle prisoners, for which Newgate prison has been so long and so disgracefully notorious. This statement I now make ( although somewhat out of place) as a set-off against the description of Newgate given in Chapter VII., which, by the by, was fully and truly applicable at the time the account was penned, as it most pro- bably is at this very minute. If, as Voltaire re- marks, " Punishments invented for the good of society ought to be useful to society/' * the peniten- tiary of Newgate cannot boast of having conferred much, if any, public advantage. What it yet may do time alone can tell ; for why despair of systems any more than of individuals ? * Comment, on Beccaria, cap. x. X PREFACE. I have to express my indebtedness for the polite attention shown to and the facilities afforded me in compiling this volume, by Sir George Grey, the late Home Secretary ; Sir Richard Mayne, Chief Commissioner of Police; Lieut. -Col. Jebb, In- spector of Prisons ; Capt. Greig, Chief Constable, Liverpool ; R. N. Stephens, Esq., Chief of Police, Birmingham; the Poor-law Board; the Secretary of the Committee of Council on Education ; Rev. Sydney Turner, Her Majesty's Inspector of Re- formatory Schools; Rev. J. Davis, Ordinary of Newgate; Rev. John Clay, Preston Gaol; Rev. Henry Smith "Warleigh, Parkhurst Prison; and the Rev. J. T. Burt, Birmingham Prison. The intense interest lately excited by, and the deep attention given to, the consideration of social questions by the middle and upper classes of this country, unmistakeably prove that " a benignant spirit is abroad." Hence, I am led to regard the " good time coming " as no aerial phantom of the brain, or escurient fancy ; and to adopt, as one article of my social and political creed, the terse aphorism of St. Simon : " L'age d'or, qu' une aveugle tradition a place jusqu' id dans le passe, est devant nous" "The golden age, which a blind tradition has placed in the PAST, is BEFORE us." LONDON: June, 1858 CONTENTS. PAGS Preface /' vii CHAPTER I. CAUSES OF CEIME. Pauperism CHAPTER II. Compulsion, Evil Example, Temptation, and Hereditary Predisposition 33 CHAPTER III. Incommodious Dwellings and Low Lodging- Houses . . 59 CHAPTER IV. Ignorance 85 CHAPTER V. Intemperance 115 CHAPTER VI. Minor Theatres, Penny Gaffs, Dancing and .Singing Saloons, Gaming and Betting Practices, and Demo- ralizing Publications 156 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. * PAGE Workhouses and Prisons 217 CHAPTER VIII. CHARACTER QF CBIME . Increase and Extent of Crime ., ... 282 CHAPTER IX. Nature and Cost of Crime 307 CHAPTER X. CUBE OF CBI3TE. Chief Preventive Check to Crime . . . .337 CHAPTER XT. Kepressive Checks to Crime , 405 JUVENILE CEIME; ITS CAUSES, ETC. CHAPTER I. PAUPERISM. " Rather than continue to labour under this affliction, individuals who are experiencing it will naturally and necessarily, in proportion as they find opportunity, do what depends upon them towards obtaining, at the charge of others, the means of rescuing themselves from it : and in proportion as endeavours to this purpose are employed, or believed to be intended to be employed, security for property is certainly diminished security for person probably diminished on the part of all others." JEREMY BENTHAM. " Pauperism and crime are connected with each other, not only because they are analogous corruptions of the moral nature of man, but because they act and re-act on each other as mutual cause and effect." G. H. BOWYER, one of her Majesty's Inspectors of Parochial Union Schools. \ IT has been well and wisely observed that te an enemy discovered is an enemy half conquered." The alarming increase of juvenile delinquency during late years has excited the public mind beyond precedent, has led to considerable inquiry as to its causes and extent, and has originated a B 'I t J JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. few remedial measures which, so far as they have been tested, appear to work beneficially. Although the occasions of this evil are numerous and various, nevertheless there are some of a pro- minent and permanent character, which demand especial notice. Among the proximate and co-operative causes of juvenile crime pauperism must not be over- looked. It needs but a tolerable acquaintance with our large towns, the mode of living adopted (sometimes from necessity, at other times from choice) by the lower classes of our population, and the wretched penury and squalid misery in which tens of thousands are v steeped to the very lips, to demonstrate this fact. Fortunately, how- ever, it does not become indispensable that all individuals interested in the well-being of society, should have the disagreeable duty imposed upon them of visiting the purlieus- of poverty and crime, in order to have their minds informed respecting the desperate character of our social distempers. This work has been already done by Parliament, the Health of Towns' Commission, as well as by eminent writers and philanthropic societies, the published results of whose inves- tigations unfold a tale of horror enough to harrow up the human soul, and are as revolting to decency and humanity as they are repugnant to civilisation and Christianity. PAUPERISM. 3 Perhaps there is no stimulative to crime more powerful, and indeed more pardonable, than want. "Hunger," says, the proverb, "will break through a stone wall/' a figurative expression to denote the extremity to which persons, urged by the stern necessities of nature, will have recourse in order to appease her demands. " A man," observes an eminent political economist, " deprived of the means of subsistence, is urged, by the most irresistible motives, to commit every crime by which he may provide for his wants. Where this stimulus exists, it is useless to combat it by the fear of punishment, because there is scarcely one punishment which can be greater, and no one which, by reason of its uncertainty and its distance, can appear so great, as the dying of hunger." * Surely, then, it need not evoke surprise that the miserable hordes of homeless and nomadic outcasts who infest our towns should also become lawless and predaceous, tainting the moral as much as they pollute the physical atmosphere by their unspeakable filth and loathsomeness. The worst is, that these youthful derelicts, who " Lurk about In dismal suburbs and unwholesome lanes," * Jeremy Bentham's Works, vol. i. part iii. chap. iv. p. 539. 4 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. grow into adult, and, in many cases, confirmed criminals, thereby becoming a life-long burden to the community, as well by the property they from time to time purloin, as by the expenses arising out of repeated prosecutions and necessary maintenance during their several periods of im- prisonment. Besides, the ranks are being con- tinually recruited both by natural and artificial agencies, so that the number of dangerously destitute and criminal children absorbed by the refuges and reformatories already in existence, have not had the effect of thinning them to any remarkable extent. This is easily accounted for when we take into consideration that, apart from the ordinary mass of seething and ap- parently ineradicable poverty, and consequent criminality, which exists, there are no less than 71,000 illegitimate children born every year, of which the metropolis alone, furnishes no fewer than 7,000.* Although a large proportion of this num- ber die during infancy, the mortality 'among children being very high,f and making due allowance for those supported either by their putative fathers or their mothers' industry, still * Return furnished to the House of Commons. f Between one-third and one-half of all the occurring deaths are of children under five years old Registrnr- Generals Ninth Annu^ Report. PAUPERISM. 5 a sufficient surplus remains, who are abandoned in childhood, and left to experience the miseries and dangers inseparable from such a state, to maintain the standing army of juvenile recusants, to whom the language of Arviragus in Cymbeline* may not inaptly be applied : " We are beastly ; subtle as tbe fox for prey, Like warlike as the wolf, for what we eat : Our valour is to chase what flies." In Paris, the number of illegitimate children born, annually exceeds those of London by nearly 3,000 ; but an exact computation cannot in either instance be arrived at, as very many of this class are either not registered at all, or else the regis- tration is falsified by the misrepresentation of their immoral parents, in order to escape exposure. One thing, however, is certain, that much of the juvenile crime in both capitals is traceable to this source. It is a painful consideration that poverty, which in itself is crimeless, should become the prolific parent of such an abnormal growth. Poverty is not only "a bitter draught," as Sterne describes it, but a withering and damning curse. There is no confidence which it will not betray ; no friendship which it will not violate ; no crime which it will not perpetrate. It * Act iii. sc. iii. 6 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. heeds not conscience ; it denies all morals ; it defies all law; it will not distinguish between right and wrong. Once within the gripe of this fell despotism, and there is no liberty its hold is as fatal and invincible as that of the intervolved serpents of Laocoon. " While this, as a motive, actuates the demoralized child to steal the smallest article of value, it urges the greatest culprits to commit the foulest murders." * The writings of Mr. Mayhew and Mr. Dickens, the Poor Law Returns, the reports of refor- matory institutions, and the nightly asylums for the homeless, irrespective of the police intelligence furnished through the newspapers, present a sad and sickening history of the phases of human misery and crime. Nor could one well accredit such reproachful revelations did not the reputation of the writers, the official returns, and the faithful chroniclers of daily events, place the facts beyond dispute. It would be difficult correctly to compute the aggregate of indigence and positive destitution which prevails even in this wealthy metropolis. In order to be fully informed as to the condition of the most abject class, one very wet night last April I visited the Asylum for the Homeless Poor in Playhouse-yard. I wended my course through * Ordinary of Newgate's Report for 1856. PAUPERISM. 7 the dark, narrow lanes and dingy byways which abound in the district of Clerkenwell, some idea of the character of whose low inhabitants may be gathered from the fact, that, attached to the window of a public-house appeared the following notice, printed in very large capitals, as an in- ducement to customers : " FANCY HATS TO BE SEEN AT THE BAR ! ALSO A DOG WITH TWO LEGS ALIVE \" It was not long ere I reached Whitecross-street. Being Saturday night a singular spectacle pre- sented itself. Fronting the shops and houses on either side were extensive ranges of stalls, upon which were piled small pieces of meat, having the appearance of offal ; oysters as large as scallops, potatoes, greens, chinaware, carrots, ironmongery, watercress, and lots of ail conceivable articles, to which heterogeneous commodities the owners were not backward in drawing attention ; for their hale and husky voices jarred most gratingly upon the ear, realising if not precisely a Pandemonium on earth, at least a fair illustration of the ancient Babel. As far as my eye could stretch, the street, which owing to the great glare of light appeared brilliantly illuminated, was one floating tide of human life. Numerous ragged urchins with sooty countenances, bare feet, and uncovered heads, were either roving about or sheltering from the rain at the entrances of courts. Pushing my way through this dense and motley throng, I shortly arrived at 8 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. Playhouse-yard, which, from its darkness, afforded a striking contrast to the abutting thoroughfare. A few yards on the left, straggling groups of poverty-stricken creatures had collected in front of the asylum, from whose saturated garments arose a humid and offensive exhalation. At the door- way stood a police officer in all the haughty dignity of authority. I entered the abode of misery, over which I was politely conducted by the secretary and superintendent; and never shall I forget the ghastly scene which presented itself; it is indeed as Mr. Mayhew observes, " a thing to haunt one for life."* Ranged along the lower or ground floor, I observed tiers of sleeping berths (each one six feet by two feet in dimensions) already crowded with miserable occupants, some of whom were sitting upon their pallets, partly nude, while re- pairing their dank and tattered raiment. In this ward, too, lay some forty boys of various ages, head to foot, and crouched here and there two in a bed, almost enveloped in their leathern coverlets, so that I could but merely catch a glimpse of their faces. They had had, poor things! their modicum of bread, and were now indulging in the luxury of sleep the last refuge which Heaven in mercy leaves to the unfortunate ! Proceeding up one flight of stairs I reached another extensive dor- * Great World of London. PAUPERISM. 9 mitory, where a crowd of people were, as it is termed, " passing the doctor, " apparently a kind and tender-hearted man, whose duties must be not only onerous but odious. It was positively painful to hear the heart-broken tones in which some of these afflicted and impoverished creatures told, in few and feeble accents, the tale of their physical infirmities ; and the avidity with which they seized the proffered rations of bread, left no doubt but that they were in a famishing condi- tion. One poor aged and infirm Irishman, who really looked respectable, had a bowl of gruel given to him. Higher up still, and I arrived at the female wards and the " nursery/' appropriated solely to women with infants. This was the most har- rowing sight of all. Never shall I forget those young and rather comely faces, upon which the deep furrows of grief could distinctively be traced, nor those aged women, who seemed as woe- begone and bereft of hope as they were destitute of th^s world's comforts. Some did not even raise their eyes to look at me, so absorbed were they with their own thoughts; others were fondling their hapless babes, who smiled beguilingly upon their mothers' bosoms. Though it was piteous to behold, and impos- sible to gaze unmoved upon, such a rank con- glomeration of living wretchedness and suffering 10 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. as six hundred destitute fellow creatures, huddled together, like swine, within so small a space and with such scanty accommodation, still the thought flashed across our minds, How would it have been with these unfortunates had not this asylum afforded them temporary shelter, food, and warmth ; and how will it fare with such outcasts when its provisions, mean and meagre as they are, cannot be obtained until the next winter season ? What can be expected from such an offensive mass of poverty ? But even here we have merely a fractional part of the national destitution. The swarm of orphan children in London, Man- chester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other popu- lous cities, thrown friendless and penniless upon the wide world, is of itself sufficient to create alarm, even were society not menaced from other quarters and by other causes, while the number is periodically and numerically increasing there being at the present moment at least 100,000 of these English Bedouins roaming about the country ! * The social and physical condition of this abject type of the genus homo is without a parallel in the history of any civilized * The number of out-door pauper children in England and Wales exceeds 300,000. Mr. T. B. Browne's General Report for 1855. PAUPERISM. 11 race. Deprived by the casualties of human life of a parent's fostering care, by society of timely succour, without food to eat, means honestly to procure it, or a roof to shelter him, the friend- less orphan has recourse to the most desperate expedients, when he does not or cannot steal, to eke out a miserable subsistence. Half naked, half starved, wholly ignorant, dirty and idle, with moral and physical faculties stunted or debased, he roams at large, living upon whatever eatable refuse might perchance be picked up out of the gutter ; at other times relieving the gnaw- ings of hunger by a smoke of tobacco.* And when faint and foot-sore he seeks repose, his bed is either the hard door-step where, crouched and skulking, he lies exposed to the mercy of the elements and the policeman ! or else the slimy pavement of some dark archway, where con- gregate hordes of homeless urchins, but too frequently as polluted in body as they are soiled with sin. " It always grieves me," writes Mr. Dickens, " to contemplate the initiation of children in the ways of life when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and sim- plicity two of the best qualities that Heaven gives them and demands that they share our * The Dens of London, by K. W. Vanderkiste. 12 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. sorrows before they are ^capable of entering upon our enjoyments." * Irrespective of the shoals of illegitimate and orphan children 3,000 of the latter class being annually committed to prison in England f the great mass of destitution, and consequent crimi- nality, is further augmented by the youthful progeny of vicious and brutal parents, from whose inhuman control, ill-treatment, and in- tolerable abodes, they are but too glad to flee. Under such circumstances what can be expected but infamy and ruin ? Let their minds be ever so well disposed, their intentions ever so upright, they are not equal to the sharp situation in which they find themselves. Like a fragile reed borne rapidly upon an eddying current, they become the mere sport of destiny, until they are finally engulphed within its stormy vortex. Alluding to these unfortunate classes, the Chap- lain of Manchester Gaol asks : " What resource has a lad without parents, or what is perhaps worse, with drunken and vicious ones, a wretched home, and precarious subsistence; what refuge is open to such a one but a prison ? Gloomy, penal, and * The Old Curiosity Shop. j- First Report of the Birmingham Conference on Refor- matory Schools, &c. PAUPERISM. 13 repulsive as it may seem, its forbidding aspect is greatly lessened when contrasted with the mise- rable hovel, ragged and scanty covering by day and night, want of proper nourishment and warmth with which, from his very infancy, he has been familiar."* Rigid moralists, and people who pride themselves upon their esoteric correctness, may not be inclined to make allowance for any breach of the eighth commandment; but there are not wanting those and good men too whose views of right and wrong disdain to be measured by the square and compass. Solomon, the wisest of law- givers, says, "Do not despise a thief if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry ;"f an d as- suredly if there be such a thing as mercy, it should be extended readily to such ; who, one is disposed to believe with Dr. Guthrie, will " never stand at God's bar for that crime." The description of juvenile wretchedness fur- nished by the various refuges recently established, presents a sad and gloomy picture of our social state, and affords a painful contrast to British wealth and influence in the scale of nations. Hard indeed must that man's heart be, who can read un- moved the following story. People have been known to shed tears over imaginary suffering, * Rev. P. J. O'Leary's Report for 1851. t Prov. vi. 30. 14 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. being wrought upon by the power of human elo- quence ; but here is stern reality, the production of no novelist's pen : " J. B. is a little fellow between nine and ten years of age. He was born in Ireland. His father died when he was an infant ; his mother when he was very young. After her death he was put into the workhouse, from whence he was taken by his grandmother and sent to his aunt in Cardiff. Here we again find him in the workhouse, from which he was again withdrawn by his aunt, and, in company with her, her husband and children, he came up to London. They walked the whole way and arrived in the metropolis ; his uncle endeavoured to convert Johnny into a tailor, but the boy failing to prove an adept at the needle, his relatives sent him into the streets to ' earn his own living/ while they betook themselves he knows not whither. The world of London was now before him, ' where to choose his place of rest/ Where that generally was is a point diffi- cult to determine, but the last place was at the ' hot stoves' in Leman-street, Whitechapel. This is the outside of a sugar bakery, the furnaces in which heat the pavement; and, as this renders the place very comfortable in winter nights, it forms a favourite resort of juvenile wretchedness ; so many as a score of miserable boys being sometimes found there huddled together, rejoicing in the heat. This PAUPERISM. 1 5 was Johnny ''s f place of rest/ There is another resort of the same kind in Lambeth, which is much frequented. On the 31st December last, when the keen wind was biting through woollen and broad cloth, Johnny was picked up by a city missionary and brought to the Refuge. He had neither shoe nor stocking. His trousers, which were ingeniously tied with twine, were split up as far as his thigh ; but as he wore a very old tattered coat, made originally for a boy fourteen years of age, and which reached down to his knees, this little defect was only partially visible. Notwithstanding this, however, the cold had done its office, and the poor child was so benumbed and stupified by its effects, that for some time he appeared half crazy, and seemed incapable of comprehending anything that was said to him. Such is the history of Johnny B., a child of nine years of age, wandering bare- footed through London streets in the month of December, without a friend in the wide world." * From another publication issued by the same institution I reproduce a case scarcely less dis- tressing than the former : " W. B., aged fourteen ; an orphan. His mother died when he was a child, and his father, who was very kind, and used to take him to church regularly, married again. * First Report (1855) of the Boys' Refuge, Whitechapel. 16 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. Stepmother married again after his father's death, and she and her second husband both became drunkards. They used him very harshly, and ulti- mately deserted him. For about a month he slept under butchers' blocks ; was taken into the em- ployment of a Merry Andrew, but was dismissed because he could not bend his back ; fell into the hands of a band of strolling gipsies, with whom he wandered about for nearly three months ; found his way into Field-lane Refuge, and earned his living by holding horses, etc/'* It is almost impossible to conceive the misery and sufferings of those poor wretches who are thus early thrown upon the world to shift for themselves. "The condition of many of the girls admitted to the Refuge/' says another report, "is of the most pitiable description. Without father and without mother ; without friends and without home; sometimes introduced by the police, but more often by compassionate strangers, prompted by that pity which Christianity is ever ready to bestow upon the unfortunate. Others are the children of neglect ; parents they indeed have, but so debased, as to disentitle them even to the care of their offspring."-!* That children so adversely placed fall into the * Statement of the.Boys' Eefuge for the Prevention of Crime, t Report of the Albert Street Refuge, Spitalfields. PAUPERISM. 17 ways of crime we have abundant testimony as conclusive as it is distressing. Indeed, under such circumstances, it is vain to look for dis- similar results. When Mr. Mayhew visited Pentonville Prison, one of the warders, he informs us, observed to him pointing to a convict lad among the troop, who seemed scarcely fourteen years of age, "'That 's the youngest boy I ever saw in this prison." " ' No wonder we get them here so young,' exclaimed the chief warder, ' for late last evening I saw three boys stuffed in a hole, under the railway, just where the man has a fire in the daytime to roast his nuts and apples, so that the place is a little warm at night for the poor things/"* The following official returns and statements further illustrate the destitute condition of juvenile criminals : Return of the Number of boys in the Middlesex House of Correction at Westminster on the 28th July, 1851, show- ing their nearest existing Kelationsrf Mother only. Father only. Neither Father nor Mother. Mother and Step-father. Father and Step-mother. Father and Mother. 50 30 10 15 16 123 * Great World of London. \ Minutes of Evidence on Criminal and Destitute Children. Appendix No. III. C 18 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. Of these 244 children there have been com- mitted and imprisoned for the 1st time 77 9th til 10th , llth 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th ne 2 2nd . ... 46 2 3rd . 4th . 5th . ... 46 ... 27 . . . . 3 4 I ... . nil. . . nil. . 1 1 6th . . . . . 9 7th . . . . . 8 8th . . 7 The chaplain of Parkhurst Prison remarks, that out of 154 criminal boys, only 62 had both parents alive, and 92 were orphans; while in a previous report he observes that, out of 187 convicts between eight and eighteen years of age, there were 65 without fathers, 48 without mothers, and 18 orphans. Seventy-nine had been led into crime by vicious companions, but the larger number had been idlers in the street and associated with profligate and aban- doned parents. The statement of Mr. Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham, is more startling still; for, on the information furnished to him by the late Mr. Serjeant Adams, out of 278 young persons convicted at the Middlesex Sessions, it was not found possible to remit more than four or five to the care of masters or relations; so few were the instances in which these unhappy children had any connections, or at least any from whom they could be expected to derive PAUPERISM. 19 benefit.* Further, it was found that out of 3,020 juvenile offenders, of the age of nine years and upwards, actually in gaols in Ireland on the 1st of April, 1853, as many as 1,182 were without parents, 830 without fathers, 422 without mothers, 150 were illegitimate, 250 had been abandoned, and 409 had absconded from their friends. Of these, 622 had been imprisoned twice, 364 three times, 246 four times, and 357 five times and upwards. f Again, in Dublin, during the year 1852, there were committed for vagrancy 1,136 juveniles, the majority of whom are described as " wholly desti- tute/^ A similar result is obtained if we take the sum total of convictions during a period of twelve months; for it appears that of 12,238 children, from ten to sixteen years of age, committed to Irish prisons in 1853, no less than 5,225 had no parental care bestowed upon them; while nearly 2,000 were absolute orphans. In proportion as we extend our in- quiry do we obtain concurrent and confirmatory evidence of the fact, that a very large number of illegitimate, orphan, abandoned, and otherwise destitute children are invariably found in gaols. * Juvenile Criminals, &c., by Joseph Adshead. t Thirty-second Report of Inspector-General of Prisons, Ireland. I Appendix to Thirty-first Report, idem. Thirty-second Report, idem. 20 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. Indeed, "it is from this mass/' to quote the language of Colonel Jebb, " that the convicts who fill our prisons are in a great measure recruited/' The very inefficient manner in which poor-law relief is frequently administered, and the miserable accommodation, or, more truly, entire absence of accommodation, for casual paupers, greatly facilitate the commission of crime. It is a heart-rending sight to witness groups of squalid, starving crea- tures, stiff and cold, clustered in their rags and wretchedness, outside the doors of our unions, seeking the temporary relief of a night's lodging and a meal, but seeking it in vain ! Lazarus, we are told, was fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table ; and even dogs seemed to have compassionated his misery. But here are masses of abject creatures allied to us by the triple ties of humanity, country, and religion, as far removed from the range of human sympathies and Christian amenities as though they partook not of our common flesh and blood, and were beyond the pale of all national privileges and Christian hopes. What other resource is left to such destitute objects but one of two alternatives either to steal or to starve ? It is not in human nature quietly to submit to the latter, while the former means of deliverance is within their reach. In any case the clean and comfortable cell of a prison presents far less terrors than the dreariness and PAUPERISM. 21 filthiness of a workhouse casual ward. There, at least, they would be takenrproper care of; if ill, their maladies would meet with prompt attention ; and if they needs must work hard, why they would be fed well. It must be confessed that a narrow, selfish, sordid policy but too generally influences poor-law guardians and parish officers, who, for the sake of a paltry pecuniary saving, suppress all conscientious impulses, evade their duties, and become guilty of the grossest inhumanity. " It is computed," observes the leading morn- ing journal, " that there are 200,000 people in Eng- land alone who are tramps, without any settled habitation ; about the number of the aborigines of New Zealand. The Arabs of the street are a recognized class whom it is held scarcely possible to deal with, and it is said that few of them know where they will get their next meal or their next night's rest."* Admitting even that/ in the majority of instances, these wandering tribes have but themselves to blame for being out- side the system of parish relief, nevertheless that is no valid reason why eleemosynary aid should be stubbornly withheld. Clearly, the law contemplates that no man shall starve, however idle or dis- solute he may be. This provision is as politic as it is merciful; yet how often are both its letter * The Times' Leader, April 14, 1857. IUITI7B&SITI \ /* /,-. 22 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. and its spirit virtually violated, and by the very parties, too, who are responsible for its due adminis- tration ? Let Workhouse magnates apply their rigid tests, and they are stringent enough for all useful purposes, Heaven knows ! but let them not refuse bread to the needy or shelter to the houseless. Let them not have the casual wards several miles apart from their respective Unions, so that the gaunt, hungry, and foot-sore vagrant may be scared away, to qualify himself for the gaol ! In sober earnestness, is the morality of a people, the welfare of a nation, the increase of crime, and the vast expense thereby entailed on the coun- try, of less importance than an extra penny or two in the pound levied on the ratepayers of a parish?* Recently the cases have become very numerous wherein magisterial interference was necessary to make relieving officers perform their duty. Not long since a poor lad, fifteen years of age, and in *It must be admitted that the poor-rates press very heavily and exorbitantly upon some of the metropolitan parishes, while it is scarcely felt in others, and those the most wealthy and best able to sustain the burden. Thus, for instance, while the aristocratic parish of St. George, Hanover-square, paid last year but 7d. in the pound, that of its plebeian namesake in the east was rated as high as 3s. 4d. Surely this anomaly should not exist. An uniform assessment and equalization of the poor rates are peremp- torily needed, as the present system is both unjust and oppressive. PAUPERISM. 23 the lowest stage of destitution, applied at Guildhall Police-office for relief. Sir R. W. Garden having made inquiries into his case, directed him to the West London Union, at the same time giving him a letter to the relieving officer in order that his necessities might be promptly alleviated. A few days afterwards the worthy magistrate was not a little surprised and mortified to find this very boy among the list of criminals for trial, who was considered safely housed at the Union. The poor fellow, however, with the most in- genuous candour, accounted for his unfortunate position. He stated that the relieving officer, upon perusing the magistrate's letter, and ascer- taining that the subject of it had slept at the Asylum for the Homeless the previous night, peremptorily refused the slightest aid, and referred him to the parish of St. Luke, wherein that refuge is situated. Sadly and despairingly he turned from the Union, and, with no better pro- spect than that of starvation before him, he was induced to steal a skittle-ball from a shop in Long lane. Immediately afterwards he gave himself into custody for the offence. Whilst at the police-station he stated that he was without father or mother; and that for a period of six months, since his employer died, who used to ply a barge between Hungerford and Gravesend, he had wandered about the streets day and night, 24 JUVENILE CHIME; ITS CAUSES. save when he got occasional shelter at the asylum in Playhouse-yard. The parochial misde- meanant was summoned before the magistrate, who strongly upbraided him for his breach of duty, and the severity with which he treated the wretched boy. But justly as this public censure was deserved, it could not atone for the evil done. Another recruit had been enlisted, perhaps permanently, in the already redoubtable ranks of our criminal population. Great and grievous as was this dereliction on the part of a parish functionary, it would be well if cases of a like nature were of rare occurrence. The contrary, however, is the fact. Indeed, to such an extent has the disgraceful practice grown of bandying destitute objects about from one parish to another, seeking aid but finding none, that legislative interference is absolutely re- quired before we need anticipate a change for the better. Mr. Pownall, a magistrate, at the late Middlesex Petty Sessions, was forced to remark that ' HI? ?B CO 00 t O 00 CO t~ r-l 0? 0? 0* Xjaojuog i i on 5 . 6 . 7 . Rec Attainments at ep On 31st December, 18 On 31st December, 18 On 31st December, 18 106 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. In the foregoing table we have presented 64 crimi- nal boys, 3 of whom could only read well at the date of their reception into prison, exhibiting extreme dulness of intellect, perhaps excessive perverseness of heart, for at the end of the first year there were but 4 who could read well; of the second year, but 9; and of the third year (the fourth with some of them), but 21.* The moral and religious condition of these juvenile offenders was just on a par with the low state of education which they exhibited. The facts furnished by the chaplain of Park- hurst Prison are moreover strengthened and con- firmed by others equally trustworthy, whose posi- tions have afforded them abundant opportunities for investigation and observation on this particular aspect of criminal science. Mr. Kingsmill, of Pentonville Prison (whose views on another matter I shall presently have occasion to refute), thus writes : " Of the first 1,000 convicts, as they stand on the registry of this prison in order (and the history of subsequent thousands is not materially different), 845 had attended some sort of school as children, for periods averaging about four years. Of these, 347 had received education in schools kept by * At the Senior Wards' School the boys are obliged to attend five hours daily throughout the entire year. IGNORANCE. 107 private persons; 221 in national schools; 20 in grammar-schools; 92 in Sabbath-schools; and 160 i in other kinds. The attainments of these men j were not equal to their opportunities ; more than half could not read with understanding, or write their own letters, and 758 had no knowledge of any rule in arithmetic beyond addition . . . The convicts who could read with intelligence were i readers only of the light and trifling productions of the day; their minds were therefore like an unweeded garden, in which the useless pre- dominated. The less educated had not tried, when at liberty, to improve themselves in edu- cation ; there was no thirst for wholesome know- ledge."* But, according to Mr. Bentley, who made a careful visitation and examination of various prisons and prisoners in this country, even the small ability of being able to read and write is generally associated with extreme ignorance. Speaking of the offenders confined in the gaols of Worcestershire at the period of his visitation, he writes : " Nineteen prisoners out of twenty that I have examined who can read and write are not | a whit the better for these attainments; after reading a few verses they can tell no more about what they have read, and are as perfectly ignorant * Chapters on Prisons and Prisoners, p. 39. 108 of the meaning of what they have read, as they were before reading it."* I shall not stop here to discuss the why and the wherefore of this mental obtuseness ; whether it be occasioned by inaptitude for intellectual pursuits, a labouring condition of life, unusual waywardness of disposition, immorality, or irreligion ; for each and all of these causes have been alleged : it is sufficient for my argument that the above facts be simply produced. In the face of such conclusive and incontrovert- ible evidence as exists to the contrary, it is surprising to find the degree of scepticism which obtains in a few quarters as to the intimate con- nection between ignorance and crime. Indeed, some objectors, not satisfied with merely negativ- ing such an hypothesis, either directly assert, or else unmistakeably imply, that education, so far from counteracting, is favourable to the develop- ment of crime ; as if all individuals were like so many Calibans, upon whom the teachings of a Prospero had not only been worse than thrown away, but applied to evil purposes : Pros. " I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other : when thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes With words that made them known." * Education and Crime, p. 64. IGNORANCE. 1Q9 Gal. " You taught me language ; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse : the red plague rid you For learning me your language ! " Mr. Kingsmill writes, in a brochure lately published :" Increased intellectual power implies no change whatever of character ; and, if it stand alone, only qualifies for a higher degree ofvillany"* And again, in a letter addressed to the TimesJ the same writer observes :" Ignorance marks the lowest order of crime far more than it does the highest. I have studied this aspect of the question for many years painfully from real life and I have no hesitation in affirming that the worst class of criminals (I do not mean the most brutal and savage, but the most injurious to society) have been men of above the average condition of mental powers and educational advantages." The Ordinary of Newgate takes a similar view of the question, for he says : " The want of education does not in my judgment satisfactorily explain the reason why so many of our fellow- creatures become the inmates of criminal prisons. Mere reading and writing, and the ordinary rou- tine of a common education, contribute very little, if anything, to prevent offences. In some painful instances the offence itself may be traced to edu- * The Present Aspect of Serious Crime in England, p. 23. f April 22, 1857. 110 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. cation, as supplying the means to commit the crime." * But the Ordinary of Newgate, like Mr. Kingsmill, materially weakens his own argu- ment by irreconcilable admissions. For instance, in the same report he states, that of the prisoners " many have been several years at school and learnt little or nothing," and that " some bad offenders know nothing of letters at all " | while in describing the swell-mobsmen, or gentlemen pickpockets, he observes, that they "may be easily known by their want of real address and education, although externally they bear the appearance of gentlemen." J The Hon. and Rev. S. G. Osborne (the popular " S. G. O." correspondent of the Times), in a recent communication to that journal, adopts the view of the minority on the subject of ignorance in its relation to crime. Thus he observes : " Compare those who can read, write, and sum but a little, with those who have had the greatest educational privileges, and I believe you would find that in this our day, before God, the former are the purest in life, the most honest, the most tempted, the most loyal, yes, and the most * Newgate Keport for 1846, p. 7. f Ibid. p. 6. I Ibid. p. 13. In Ms report for 1852, p. 11, Mr. Davis recalls his own words, for he says that one " reason for the decrease of great crime springs from the gradual improve- ment among all classes by advances made in education." IGNORANCE. Ill Christian." * Assuredly, then, if ignorance be not simply " bliss/' but a moral coalition of all the virtues, and the evangelical counsels to boot, " 'tis folly to be wise ;" we had better commence our progress backwards, and return to the good old days of William the Norman, or King Alfred, and endeavour to rival the age of Charlemagne, when charters were subscribed with the mark of the cross ; when " contracts were made verbally for want of notaries capable of drawing up charters ;"f when emperors and kings could not read, and nobles could not sign their names; and when, according to an eminent modern historian, " L 1 ig- norance etait alors si prodigieuse, qu'on exigeait des pretres, comme une chose peu commune, qu'ils pussent entendre I'oraison dominicale !" J Lest the opinion of those writers, however, should go forth to the public uncontradicted by at all events authorities of equal weight, learning, and experience, I shall produce testimony of an opposite character, and corresponding with the general scope and drift of this chapter : " Ignorance and want of education," observes Mr. Thomson of Banchory, "are generally found in company with the various sources of crime, and are also in themselves most fertile causes of it." * The Times, July 2nd, 1857. f Hallam's Middle Ages. J Hist, de la France, par L' Abbe Millot. Social Evils, &c., p. 29. 112 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. " We are sure," observes Dr. Hamilton, ' ' all things being equal, that the least tutored mind will be the most addicted to grosser vices. Know- ledge, like every blessing, may be abused to evil ; ignorance can never be turned to good." * " Ignorance and crime," says the Bishop of Bath and Wells, "were almost synonymous terms." f "That bad training and ignorance are powerful causes of crime," remarks Mr. Frederic Hill, late Inspector of Prisons, " none who are at all familiar with the general state and history of criminals can for a moment doubt. Sometimes, certainly, well- instructed and apparently well-trained men are found among criminals, but they stand out as rare exceptions; the great majority of those that have come under my observation have been found to have been either greatly neglected in childhood and to be grossly ignorant, or, at best, to possess merely a quantity of parrot-like and undigested knowledge."^ " That the increase of crime is in no way con- nected with the increase of education," writes the Rev. Henry Worsley, " is evident. The proportion of criminal offenders able to read and write well is * On Popular Education. f Speech at the Anniversary Festival of the Philanthropic, Ked Hill, held at the London Tavern, April 30, 1856. I Crime ; its Amount, Causes, and Remedies, p. 36. IGNORANCE. 113 exceedingly small as compared with the large sum of those who cannot read at all, and of those who read imperfectly. The sum of these two last- mentioned classes yields a proportion of 90' 17 per cent, to the whole number of offenders."* Again, Mr. John Foster, the essayist, defending education from the attacks made upon it as affording greater facilities to crime, observes : f ' The result of special inquiries of extensive com- pass into the wretched history of juvenile repro- bates has fortified the promoters of schools with evidence that it was not from these seminaries that such noxious creatures were to go out, to exemplify that the improvement of intelligence may be the greater aptitude for fraud and mischief. No, it was found to have been in very different places of resort that these wretches had been, almost from their infancy, accomplished for crime. Indeed, as if Providence had designed that the substantial utility should be accompanied with a special circumstance to confound the cavillers, the children and youth of the schools were found to have been more generally preserved from falling into the class of premature delinquents than a moral calculator, keeping in sight the quality of human nature, and the immediate pressure of so much temptation, would have * Prize Essay on Juvenile Depravity, p. 1 7. I 114 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. ventured to anticipate upon the moderate estimate of the efficacy of instruction."* Finally, Jeremy Bentham remarks : " The dissemination of knowledge has not augmented the number of crimes, nor even the faculty of com- mitting them ; it has only diversified the means of their accomplishment. And how has it diversified them ? By gradually substituting those which are lesshurtful."t I now conclude the present chapter; and if I have been too prolix in citing authorities favour- able to my individual views as regards ignorance and crime, it has been with a laudable desire to rebut and refute opinions most unwarrantable, unpopular, and injurious. * Essay on Popular Ignorance, f Works, vol. i. p. 536. CHAPTER V. INTEMPERANCE. " Crime legally considered, and intemperance in its ordi- nary acceptance, are the concomitants of each other." F. G-. NEISON, F.L.S. "It is drunkenness that mainly fills our gaols with young transgressors." REV. F. BISHOP, late Minister to the Poor, Liverpool. "Intemperate parents are great producers of juvenile delinquents. . . Nine-tenths of the poor miserable out- casts of our streets are their children." ALEXANDER THOM- SON, of Banchory. INTEMPERANCE must be classed not so much among the fluctuating and proximate, as the per- manent and remote causes of juvenile delinquency. Here is the fountain-head from which flows the mighty torrent of crime that rolls through our land the great moral plague which scatters more ills about the universe than ever were contained in the fabled box of Pandora, leaving not even Hope behind, but realizing the prophecy of Milton : " Intemperance on the earth shall bring Diseases dire, of which a monstrous crew Before thee shall appear." 116 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. Could but imagination picture to itself the frightful host of crimes and miseries created by this vice, what a horrible and horrent vision would immediately be conjured up before it ! The very thought is painful so painful, indeed, that the mind instinctively recoils from the dreaded and dreadful fancies which it awakens. Whatever differences of opinion may exist with regard to other topics discussed in preceding chapters, I think it will be unanimously admitted that inebriety is a most fruitful source of juvenile crime ; that intemperate parents are the creators of vicious and criminal children ; and that a very large proportion of the prisoners who fill our gaols belong to the drinking and drunken classes. The coincidence between drunkenness and crime is but too clearly apparent from the various statistics that have been prepared with reference to this subject, and the many painful confessions that have been elicited from criminals themselves by prison inspectors and chaplains respecting the causes of their delinquency ; in a great number of instances the admission being " drink," " drink !"* " Intemperance is the history," to quote the lan- guage of Mr. Worsley,f " of far more than half the malefactors who have ended an abandoned * Vide Twelfth Reports of Inspectors-General of Prisons, England and Scotland. f Essay on Juvenile Depravity, p. 146. INTEMPERANCE. 117 course by condign punishment. It is emphatically the curse of the present times and of our own land." The drinking tendency of the lower orders is a well-recognized, though deplorable fact. It is not easy accurately to compute the number of habitual drunkards in the whole kingdom, and their pro- portion to the entire population; nor will the police returns, however valuable the aid they afford in this respect, be all that is required. Dr. Frederick Lees says, " it is certain that two mil- lions of persons are constantly suffering from police-recognized drunkenness alone," * irrespec- tive of the large amount of private and domestic inebriety which prevails. But I think the best and most disinterested authority on this matter is Mr. Neison, who has taken great pains to elaborate his results. According to this eminent actuary, the number of drunkards in England and Wales is as follows : Males, 53,583; females, 11,223; total, 64,806, which gives one drunkard to every 74 of the male population ; one to every 434 of the female population ; and one to every 145 of both sexes above the age of twenty .f A moderate, though not a correct idea of the extent of intemperance in our populous towns may * An Argument for the Legislative Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic, p. 157. f See valuable tables on this subject in " Contributions to Vital Statistics." p. 229, passim. 118 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CAUSES. be formed from the police returns. Thus, there were taken into custody by the metropolitan police, for being drunk, and drunk and disorderly, during the year 1855, 10,499 males and 8,798 females ; making a total of 19,297. During 1856 the number was males, 9,866; females, 8,837; being a total of 18,703, and a decrease of nearly 600 upon the previous year.* In Liverpool, again, a town most notorious for the drinking habits of its population, during the year 1855 there were taken into custody, for being drunk and disorderly, 5,438 males and 3,617 females, altogether 9,055 persons; and for being drunk and incapable, 2,561 males and 1,203 females, or a total of 3,764. During the first nine months of 1856, the number apprehended for being drunk and disorderly was 3,545 males and 3,187 females, making a total of 6,732; and for being drunk and incapable, 1,704 males and 924 females, altogether 2,628.f The proportion of juveniles in this number is very large, for in 1855, according to the head-constable's report, 756 boys under eighteen years of age were charged with being drunk and disorderly, and 12 girls under fifteen years were charged with the same * Compiled from Criminal Eeturns of the Metropolitan Police for 1855-6. f Compiled from the Liverpool Police Reports on the State of Crime for 1855-6. INTEMPERANCE. 119 offence; while from above fifteen years, and not completing eighteen, there were 624 females taken into custody for being drunk and disorderly. "This," observes Major Greig, "will go far to show that females are led into habits of intem- perance at an earlier age than males, as it will be seen that of the entire number of females charged with drunkenness, nearly one-half are under twenty-one years of age." * For the first nine months of 1856 the returns show a similar pro- pensity for drink among the juvenile population, the number of males and females from twelve years and not exceeding twenty-one charged with drunkenness being 3,311. This, assuredly, is an alarming condition of things, the more especially when it is taken into account that the amount and extent of crime are invariably commensurate with the prevalence of this vice. Well may the head- constable reiterate his statement that " drunken- ness gives to the police more than half their work.^f Respecting Liverpool, the Rev. F. Bishop stated, in his evidence before the Par- liamentary Committee, that drunkenness " prevails to such an extent as would scarcely be believed by persons who are not in the habit of going amongst all classes of people ; that nineteen-twentieths of the men get drunk on beer, whilst the women who * Police Report for 1855. f Idem for 1850. 120 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. abandon themselves to intemperance more com- monly drink spirits."* The relative proportion of drunkards to our towns' population is alleged to be as follows : In London, one in 106 ; Liverpool, one in 91 ; Manchester, one in 600; Birmingham, one in 313; Edinburgh, one in 59; Glasgow, one in 22; and Dublin, one in every 21. f Dr. Lees, how- ever, asserts that the ratio in Liverpool is one to every 20 of the population.^ The comparative absence of drunkenness in Manchester is accounted for in consequence of the limited number of its spirit licences. But this city is known to possess 1,312 beerhouses, so that the statement of Mr. Danson is to be received at least with caution, especially as it appears that the police there have instructions not to apprehend intemperate persons, however drunk and incapable they may be. " If every disorderly person found at night," says one witness, " were brought before the magistrate next morning, the police would have very little rest." From statistics furnished to the Parliamentary Committee, chiefly from the police returns, by Messrs. Wire and Danson, we find the following to * Minutes of Evidence, p. 229. t Ibid., Evidence of Mr. H. Danson. ; Argument on the Liquor Traffic, p. 65. Parliamentary Keport, p. 13. INTEMPERANCE. 121 be the computed ratio of police-recognized drunk- enness to the population of three towns in England, Ireland, and Scotland : Towns. Drunken cases brought up. Proportion to population. ENGLAND. Liverpool .... Birmingham .... Sheffield .... SCOTLAND Glasgow- Edinburgh Dundee . . IRELAND Dublin . . . 18,522 867 1,312 14,870 2,793 2,931 18,758 lin 20 1 in 268 1 in 103 lin 22 1 in 57 1 in 26 1 in 14 Cork . . . Belfast . . . 8,158 2,482 1 in 10 I in 38 Imperfect and under-stated as such returns necessarily are, they nevertheless exhibit the humiliating and gloomy fact that intemperance is not only a prevalent, but a deep-rooted vice among the inhabitants of these islands a vice, moreover, from which no condition of life is exempt, and which, like Dalilah of old, cuts off the Samson- lock from the most gifted, as it entangles in its snares the most illiterate of men. Labourer, artisan, poet, philosopher, and priest, all and each in turn bend before the shrine of Bacchus, who has as many devoted worshippers as Christ him- self, and in a professedly Christian land ! Speaking of the prevalence and effects of drinking habits even among the clergy, Dr. Guthrie observes : JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CAUSES. " I have seen ministers of the Gospel charged by fame, dragged to the bar of their church, and degraded before the world as drunkards, whom once I would have as little expected to fall as I expect some of you as you believe it possible that this vice shall yet degrade me from the pulpit, and cause my children to blush at mention of their father's name. Such cases are trumpet-tongued. Their voice sounds the loudest warning. In such a fall we hear the crash of a stately tree. It seems to me as if, disturbed in his grave by the shock of such an event, the old prophet, wrapped like Samuel in his mantle- shroud, had left the dead to cry in the ears of all the living, who regard with indifference the fall of a minister, ' Howl, fir-trees, for the cedar has fallen.' "* It needs no literary Cruikshank to portray the horrors of a drunkard's home, and the miseries which intemperance inflicts upon individuals and nations. The facts are patent, and we require no more vivid illustrations than our workhouses, lunatic asylums, police, and prisons, and the annual revenue it takes to maintain them. Certain it is that the chief proportion of the crime, more espe- cially of the juvenile crime, committed in this and other countries, is either directly or indirectly the result of drinking habits. Truly, * The City ; its Sins and Sorrows. INTEMPERANCE. 123 " The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us." Of the 28,752 prisoners tried at the assizes in England in 1849, "10,000," writes Mr. Kings- mill, " may be put down, without fear of exaggera- tion, as having been brought to their deplorable condition by the public-house ; whilst of the 90,963 summary convictions, 50,000, I fear not to state, were the result of the drinking habits of the individuals themselves or their parents."* And the assistant Chaplain to Edinburgh Prison remarks, that " even the offences of the youngest prisoners are often connected with drink ; for the children have frequently told me that they were sent out to steal to buy whisky for their parents." f This statement is confirmed by Mr. Wright, the prison philanthropist, who stated in his evidence before the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, " that there is a large class who give themselves wholly to drinking who send their children out begging, and from begging to pilfering for them ;" that " all the children in gaols speak of the neglect of their parents ;" and that " he has never found any cause for that neglect but drunkenness/^ One child of this class had been seven times in gaol, and only twelve years old ! * Chapters on Prisons and Prisoners, pp. 68-9. t Report for 1 844. J Minutes of Evidence (2126-40). 124 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. Sir Archibald Alison, sheriff of Lanarkshire, alluding to the records of the Glasgow House of Refuge, observes : " These highly curious annals of crime show, in the clearest manner, the fatal influence of the drinking of whisky upon the lowest classes of the people ; for out of 234 boys who at present are in the institution, it appears from their own account that the drunkenness of their parents stood thus : 72 had drunken fathers, 62 had drunken mothers, and 69 had both fathers and mothers drunken; so that upwards of two- thirds of the whole boys in the institution have been precipitated into crime through the habits of intoxication of one or both of their parents. The boys all state that till they were taken into the house of refuge they lived in the low public- houses in the centre of Glasgow, and that their enjoyments there (for they were all under the age of puberty) were drinking, smoking, and swear- ing." It is a lamentable fact that during the year 1854 the number of persons committed to prisons in England and Wales was 29,359, not taking into account the very large number committed in the petty courts. Now there can be no reason to doubt that if the causes of such an increase of criminality upon several preceding years could be * Principles of Population, vol. ii. p. 537. INTEMPERANCE. 125 ascertained, more than 50 per cent, of the offences would be found to have arisen from intemperance alone. And although the commit- ments for 1855 show a remarkable diminution upon the previous year, being but 25,972 (exclu- sive of 2,476 convicted under the Criminal Justice Act during the last five months of its operation), nevertheless, crimes of the first class, and such as are likely to arise from the excitement of drink, exhibit an increase, in some instances very con- siderable. For example, as regards " offences against the person," in malicious stabbing and wounding there is an increase of 88 per cent. ; in manslaughter an increase of 14 per cent. ; and in the newly-defined offence of assaulting and inflicting bodily harm, an increase is shown of 10 per cent. ; in murder and attempts to murder, a slight increase is also perceptible.* Alluding to serious misdemeanours and their great cause, the Ordinary of Newgate remarks, that " an entirely different kind of crime springs from habits of drinking to excess ; very few cases of cutting and wounding, deadly assaults, and acts of personal violence, are now unconnected with drink ; many offences closely approaching murder in their character may be traced to this cause/ 'f * Vide Tables of Criminal Offenders, &c., for 1855. f Report for 1852. 126 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. Mr. Clay, who has made considerable investiga- tion into the relative bearing of drunkenness and drinking habits on crime, gives the following brief summary of his experience.* It refers to the case of 250 prisoners arraigned upon and convicted of serious charges at the county assizes for Lanca- shire held in March, 1854 : OFFENCES. CAUSES. EEMARKS. Acts of drinking direct cause. Habits of drinking indirect cause. Murder . . . la 2 a Including 4 ale and beer-house cases. Attempts to murder . . 40 2 a Including 1 beer-house Shooting, stab- case. bing, &c. 410 3 a Including 14 ale and beer-house cases. Manslaughter. 150 a Including 8 ale and beer-house cases. Kape . . . 14 Assaults . . 100 a Including 9 ale and beer-house cases. Burglary . . 13 330 a Including 13 burgla- ries, &c., in ale and beer-houses. Eobbery . . 320 1 a Including 12 ale and beer -house cases, and 3 in which prosecutor Kobbery, with was drunk. violence . . 30a 6 a Including 24 in which prosecutor was drunk. Larceny . . 2 2 Other offences. 5 19 173 77 * Thirty-first Report of the Chaplain to the Preston House of Correction for 1855. INTEMPERANCE. 127 The foregoing table of itself, were other and ampler proofs wanting, affords strong evidence of the direct and indissoluble connection between intemperance and criminality. When it is thus proven that the large number of 250 persons in one year and in one county, convicted of the highest class of offences, were induced or insti- gated to such crimes by inebriation, a woful testimony is borne to the extent and consequences of this odious vice. Large indeed is the class of offenders respecting each of whom it may safely be predicated " Cruel is all he does. 'Tis quenchless thirst Of ruinous ebriety, that prompts His every action, and imbrutes the man." * The temperate character of wine-drinking coun- tries has frequently been asserted, and some jour- nalists have even proposed as a remedy for the excessive amount of intoxication which exists in the United Kingdom, that cheap foreign wines should be largely imported, duty-free, as an inducement to the lower classes to forego such seductive but maddening liquors as whisky and gin. Now I do not for one moment dispute the salutary effects likely to follow were a whole- some light wine brought within reach of the * Cowper's Winter Evening. j&5[~$;x** 1 ^ .^O^* 0? THT? rnriyi* 128 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. labouring population, and could they be induced to partake of it in lieu of their accustomed pota- tions. But I apprehend that the grand difficulty would lie here, and that a very long time indeed must elapse before the working man's palate would become reconciled to the innovation. But the generally received impression as to the temperate habits of the denizens of continental cities rests on a very slender foundation. Like many other apocryphal opinions regarding distant people and places, it possesses little weight, and has been contradicted by competent and trust- worthy authorities.* Certain it is, however, that a perceptible proportion of the crime committed in France, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, &c., is mainly attributable to excessive indulgence in the use of what some consider innoxious wines. As regards France the increase of crime considerably exceeds the increase of population; for while the latter was (between 1826 and 1843) at the rate of 7 per cent., the former showed an increased ratio of 37 per cent, in cases of murder and wounding, 74 per cent, in cases of arson, 81 per cent, in cases of * Such as the Hon. Horace Greely and J. Fenimore Cooper, the latter of whom, after a six months' residence in Paris, was disabused of his previous and ill-founded notions respecting the temperate character of its inhabitants. He avers that he saw more drunkenness in the streets of that city than in those of London. INTEMPERANCE. 129 perjury, and even 140 per cent, in cases of rape on children. M. Quetelet, in his eminent work on Man, affirms that "Of 2,927 murders committed in France during the space of four years, 446 have been in consequence of quarrels and contentions in taverns."* Alluding to the social condition of Berne during the summer of 1843, Joseph John Gurney writes : "I have visited the prison, and was kindly favoured with an opportunity of addressing about 480 prisoners. 480 criminals for a canton con- taining 400,000 inhabitants (one in 800) is too large a proportion, and all this in spite of schools, pastors, and catechetical, formal knowledge of reli- gion, which is general even among the moun- taineers. The secret which explains the phe- nomenon is the prevalence of drunkenness. So much for even the Might wines' of the conti- nent !"f Sir Francis Head remarks that during his visit to Paris in 1851, upon entering a cafe on the Place de Roubaix, and calling for a cup of coffee, the waiter " not only brought it to me, but almost before I could look at it, as a sort of codicil to the will I had expressed to him, to my horror he filled * Sur 1'Homme et le Developpement de ses Facultes, 1. iii. c. 3. t Life of J- J. Gumey, vol. ii. p. 472, K 130 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. and left with me a little wine-glass with brandy, and then walked away. This evil custom/' he con- tinues, " has of late years become so general in Paris, that as I walked along the streets, I saw within the cafes almost everybody who had coffee either sipping or about to sip a glass of brandy." * It is true Sir Francis remarks in another place that dur- ing his peregrinations through the streets of this gay city he "did not see a single drunken or even intem- perate-looking man ;" and what is more remarkable still, that all the people "wore clean shirts !" f But a brief residence of three weeks in such a city as Paris, by one who, from his own statement, ab- stained from society, dined by himself, and entered a cafe but once, is not sufficient authority on this matter. As to the unimpeachable character of the linen, the mystery is cleared up by Sir Francis informing us that the day on which he was so agreeably edified happened to be Monday ! Notwithstanding that the vice of drunkenness is common enough in other parts of Scandinavia, the Danes are, unlike the Swedes, remarkable for their general sobriety. This is the more extraor- dinary, for, as followers of the god Odin, they were wont to participate but too freely in an indulgence which their religion taught them would constitute * A Fagot of French Sticks, vol. i. p. 233. t Ibid, p. 393. INTEMPERANCE. 131 their chief fruition in eternity ; nor was it until long after the introduction of Christianity that any diminution of the pernicious practice became per- ceptible. Speaking of Schleswig-Holstein, Mr. C. H. Scott, in his interesting book of travels, while he dissents from the theory of Liebig as to poverty producing intemperance, yet fully concurs as to its inevitable and universal results. He observes that, notwithstanding the existence of abundant agri- cultural employment, numerous schools, and a system of compulsory education, " the duchies are, however, by no means free from the vice of drunkenness," and that te a third of the misde- meanours committed are directly traceable to this cause." * Adverting to Spain, a country now as remark- able for the temperate habits of its peasantry as it formerly was renowned for its spirit of chivalry, the Hon. Dundas Murray alludes to the free use of wine and spirit-)- among two classes, known by the nicknames of arrieros and caleseros, and affirms drunkenness " to be the source of nearly all the brutal crimes committed in that country, the great proportion of which spring from the * The Danes and the Swedes, p. 45. Lond. 1856. f Tin's liquid, which possesses very fiery properties, is called aguardiente anisado. 132 JUVENILE CEIME ; ITS CAUSES. wine-shops, among whose frequenters the navaja is constantly produced to settle disputes, and horrible murders are in this way committed/' * With reference to one portion of Italy, a modern traveller observes : " In regard to tem- perance, I am inclined to think that the inhabit- ants of Southern Italy, and of the wine-growing countries generally, enjoy a reputation somewhat beyond their deserts. It is true that it is very rare to see a man absolutely drunk ; but it is not uncommon to see those who have drunk more than is good for them. But even where excess is avoided, the constant use of wine in considerable quantities is unfavourable both to health and good morals ; to health, from the febrile and inflamma- tory state of the system to which it leads ; and to good morals, from the irritability of temper and quarrelsome spirit which it induces. If the pro- portion of the cases of stabbing brought to the Roman hospitals which occur in or near wine-shops could be known, I have no question that it would furnish a strong fact wherewith to point the exhort- ations of a temperance lecturer." -j- Turning for a moment to New York, and the rural districts of the State, we perceive from offi- * Cities and Wilds of Andalusia, p. 313. f Six Months in Italy, by George Stillman Hilliard, vol. ii. pp. 187-8. INTEMPERANCE. 133 cial documents that the prevalence and increase of crime in these places are greatly, if not mainly, attributable to the intemperance of their inhabit- ants. Thus, of the 36,264 persons committed to the New York City Prison during 1855, there were 32,703 ascertained to be of intemperate habits. Likewise, from the criminal statistics furnished to the Senate by the Secretary-of-State, it appears that of 11,324 convictions for crime in 1856, as many as 10,260 were in the four cities, Albany,* Buffalo, Brooklyn, and New York. The increase of crime over former years is 4,480, or more than two-fifths.f The Hon. Judge Capron, in his charge to the grand jury at the February term (1856) of the Court of General Sessions for New York, stated that of the 368 persons (nearly one-third of whom were under sixteen years of age) arraigned for trial in that court and the Court of Special Ses- sions for the previous month of January, " 102 * " There are in Albany more than 1,500 children grow- ing up in idleness, insubordination, vice, and crime." Beggs on Juvenile Depravity. \ From the same authority we learn, that of the 7,695 pau- pers sustained in the rural poor and work houses of the State^ 5,142 have been brought to their present condition through intemperance. The cost of maintenance at 1 dol. 50c. (after the expense of the county-house is incurred), would amount to 7,713 dols. a week, or 30], 076 dols. a year; and this exclusive of New York. 134 JUVENILE CHIME j ITS CAUSES. of the whole number were confirmed inebriates, and every one was more or less intoxicated when the act was committed for which the complaint was made." It may be necessary to state that the charges comprehended all offences from petty larceny up to the terrible crime of murder.* The learned judge, further commenting upon the cha- racteristics of these cases, observed, that "nearly all of them originated in the night, a large proportion of them after midnight, and the scenes of the catastrophes were laid in fashionable drinking saloons and tippling-houses of less repute." More recently, the late city judge of New York, in a speech delivered on a public occasion, entered more minutely into the subject of intemperance as a cause of crime, and supported his cogent reason- ings by conclusive facts. He declared, from personal investigation, that 15,432 liquor- shops existed in that city, which were open at all hours and almost every day, and computed the quantity consumed at 300,000 barrels annually, at a cost of nine million of dollars; "an expense," he remarked, " larger than the whole expense of this expensively governed city." The learned judge then stated that, as one of the direct results of drinking usages, there were 60,000 arrests in the * About 5,000 other cases of a police character were adju- dicated upon in the four police-courts of New York during the same month. INTEMPERANCE. 135 city, and about 40,000 convictions for crime in the eight police-courts, during the preceding year ; that in the two Courts of General and Special Sessions during the year, nearly 6,000 persons had been arraigned, and 4,200 convictions returned ; while out of the total number of prisoners, there were but 187 cases where the persons had not been habitually intemperate. More than four- fifths of the offences had been committed in grog- shops and saloons where liquor was sold by the dram. Another result of drunkenness, he said, was that there were about 60,000 persons over five and under twenty-one years of age who are never sent to school, and do not know one letter from another, growing up in ignorance and vaga- bondage to be the future marauders of the city.* It is a somewhat curious but interesting incident to the friends of humanity, that, through an act of the legislature of New York, an asylum for inebriates has been recently established in that Transatlantic capital.! Referring to the extent of juvenile intemper- ance and consequent criminality in Boston, the Chaplain of the House of Correction writes : * Speech of the Hon. Judge Capron : Journal of the American Temperance Union, Jan., 1857. t The Salut Public of Lyons announces that a lazaretto for adult and juvenile inebriates is in course of erection on the Plain du Lac in that city. 136 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. " I cannot call to mind one boy I have had with me over fifteen years of age (and I have had thirty such) who had not, to more or less excess, been accustomed to drink ardent spirits, and five-sixths of these may fairly be considered to have been intemperate. I have myself seen boys under fifteen in our Boston House of Correction and common gaol. These lads were sent there for various offences, but a considerable number of them were sent specifically for intemperance ; and it is a matter of notoriety that far the largest num- ber of them, whatever were the offences of which they were convicted, were accustomed to drink ardent spirits whenever they could obtain them. I have known lads in that prison who were decidedly drunkards before they were twelve years old, and who have again and again been there for intemperance before they were fifteen years old." * In Australia the same social disorders, flowing from the devouring and devastating sin of drunk- enness in that colony, are as plainly seen, as keenly felt, and as loudly bewailed as at home. The con- dition of Sydney in 1840 is thus described by an eye-witness ; and there is no reason to believe that much, if any, improvement has taken place during late years : " The vice of drunkenness * Quoted in Juvenile Delinquents, by Mary Carpenter, p. 136. INTEMPEEANCE. 137 stalks abroad at noon-day. It is not rare at any time, but on holidays its prevalence surpasses any- thing I have ever witnessed. Even persons of the fair sex were to be seen staggering along the most public streets, brawling in the houses, or borne off in charge of the police. The facilities for the indulgence of this vice are to be seen everywhere, in the form of low taverns and grog-shops, which attract attention by their gaudy signs." * In a recent number of the Melbourne Argus, its able and talented editor, Mr. Ebenezer Syme, speaking of drunkenness in its relation to crime, thus writes : " We are still unable to report any perceptible diminution of crime in Victoria. Our city was the scene of three executions for murder since the despatch of the last mail ; and there are several persons at present both under sentence of death and awaiting their trial for the same fearful offence. In fact, crimes of the more serious character are rather on the increase than the decline ; and we have still to remark that much of this depravity is directly traceable to that ' curse of the colony' intemperance." From the evidence here adduced little doubt can be entertained as to the calamitous effects of inebriety on a community or a nation, and the affinity between it and crime ; for nothing can be * Wilkes's United States' Exploring Expedition, v. i. p. 211. 138 JUVENILE CRIME J ITS CAUSES. more self-evident than that " drunkenness/' to employ the language of Quetelet, " is a common source of many other vices, and also of crimes, tending to demoralize and deteriorate the species." Sacred and profane history is pregnant with melancholy examples of the crimes induced by Bacchanalianindulgences crimes from which even the good and virtuous in other respects have not been able to refrain when once their moral sense be- came deadened and their dormant passions aroused by this fatal spell. Horace, although occasionally found extolling intoxicating drink, upon which he lavishes a variety of dainty names, such as " racy wine," " Bacchus' boon," " divine liquor," and similar adulations, yet in one of his Odes makes mention of a tragic occurrence consequent upon inebriety, proving the difficulty if not the impos- sibility of reconciling " the feast of reason" with " the flow of "bowl ! " Natis in usum laetitise scyphis Pugnare Thracum est : tollite barbaruin Morem verecundumque Bacchum Sanguineis prohibete rixis. " Vino et lucernis Medus acinaces Immane quantum discrepat. Impium Lenite clamorem, sodales, Et cubito remanete presso." * * Ode xxvii. lib. i. : " With glasses made for gay delight 'Tis Thracian, savage rage to fight. INTEMPERANCE. 139 In the Spectator we read of " a modest young gentleman, who, being invited to an entertain- ment, though he was not used to drink, had not the confidence to refuse his glass in his turn, when on a sudden he grew so flustered that he took all the talk of the table into his own hands, abused every one of the company, and flung a bottle at the gentleman's head who treated him/ 1 * The annals of the last two centuries are replete with accounts of drunken quarrels and the cata- strophes attending them ; thus showing, as De Quincey quaintly observes, that " preparations of intoxicating liquor, even when harmless in their earlier stages, are fitted to be stepping-stones to higher stages that are not harmless." The daily intelligence furnished of our police-courts keeps perpetually before one's mind the frightful alter- cations and barbarous brutalities consequent upon inebriation. Bound by no principle and restrained by no tie, the slave of intemperance neither fears God nor regards man, and will satiate his hellish rage upon the wife whom he promised and is bound to cherish, as on his bitterest enemy. "Maud" but With such intemperate bloody fray Fright not the modest god away. Monstrous to see the dagger shine Amid the cheerful joys of wine !" Trans, by Philip Francis, D.D. Vol. vi. No. 458, On the Effects of Drink on Modesty. 140 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. too truly describes the domestic tragedies of every- day life : " When the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head, Till the filthy hy-lane rings with the yell of the trampled wife."* It might further be shown that any considerable augmentation in the consumption of intoxicating drinks has been almost immediately followed by a proportionate increase of crime, and vice versa. If we revert to the year 1824, when the duty on spirits was as high as 12s. 7d. per imperial gallon, and when, consequently, the consumption in England and Wales was limited to about four million gallons annually, the amount of crime in London, Middlesex, and other drinking cities and counties, was considerably under the ratio of succeeding years, when the consumption had in- creased twofold, consequent upon the impost being reduced to 7s. per gallon. It has even been found that the increase of beer-houses in our manufac- turing towns of late years has had a very percep- tible effect upon the criminal calendars of those places. The following table f will place this in the clearest light : * Scarce is the ink dry with which I write when a report is confirmed of a murder in Camberwell, by a woman of notoriously drunken habits, named Alice Williams. Her victim's name is Elx, rather an aged man. It is asserted that she was under the influence of liquor at the time. f From Parliamentary Report on Public-Houses, 1853 : Rev. J. Clay's evidence. INTEMPERANCE. 141 Towns. Year. Beerhouses Licensed. Committed to Sessions. Summary Convictions. 1848 165 13 58 1849 1850 170 176 9 27 157 191 1851 196 23 198 1848 177 13 51 1849 1850 183 188 20 34 74 105 1851 224 55 116 It may here be observed that there is in Blackburn one ale-house to every twenty-five working men and tradesmen, and in Preston one to every twenty- eight. With reference to Ireland, all who are familiar with its history well know the serious calamities that have been entailed on that country owing to the inordinate indulgence of intemperate habits by its lower orders ; and that a people otherwise renowned for their high religious sentiment, domestic virtues, generous impulses, and noble heroic natures, have by this means been degraded to the level of savages. It is very remarkable also, in the case of Ire- land, that during the periods of 1809-10 and 1812- 13, when the distilleries were legally inhibited, and when whisky rose in consequence from 8s. to 18s. per gallon, the number of agrarian outrages and other grave crimes fell off proportionably ; 142 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CAUSES. while in the intervening and subsequent periods crime had again attained its ordinary ratio. Again, during the years 1841 to 1846, when the late Father Mathew's temperance movement had wrought a moral revolution in the social habits of the labouring classes unhappily but too short- lived the decrease of serious offences had created no small degree of wonderment, and a very large amount of public saving. Some prisons were positively shut up, while others contained not more than one-sixth the usual complement of offenders ; and to these facts Lord Morpeth, the Irish Secre- tary, bore honourable testimony in the House of Commons. If we take the Irish criminal returns for 1854-5, and compare them with the returns of the revenue for the same period, it will at once be obvious that "whatever tends to check the con- sumption of intoxicating drinks will have a most salutary effect upon the morals of a people."* DUTY. Gals, spirits. Cases of Imprisonment. L854 3s 4d uiiil 4s 8 440 734 73 733 1855 4s. 6d. and 6s. 2d. . 6,228,856 54,431 Decrease 2,211,878 19,302 Passing to Scotland, we find here also a very * See Dr. Frederic Lees' Maine-Law Essay, from which the annexed tabular statement is reproduced. INTEMPERANCE. 143 melancholy proof of the pernicious effects of cheap drink and numerous public-houses, in the increased criminality of that country. Since the year 1824, when the duty on whisky became gradually reduced from 7s. to 3s. per gallon/ 4 the criminal offences, especially in Glasgow and Edinburgh, have more than quadrupled ; so that, according to Mr. Thomson, "the sober religious Scotland of other days is now proved, by its consumption of spirits, to be with one exception the most drunken nation in Europe. "f Whether u the sober religious Scotland of other days" had any actual existence, at least so far as sobriety is concerned, admits not of controversy, for the proof is all the other way. History is decidedly against the assumption, except indeed allusion be made to the year 1640 and the few subsequent years, when Scotland reached a high pitch of strong religious enthusiasm amounting to frenzy, and when the clergy of the Kirk Session to a man cried down, as soul-destroying, the use of spirituous liquors. It is true that divers efforts were made from the time of Argadus, in the second, down to the religious reign of James VI. in the early part of the seventeenth century, * The consumption accordingly rose from 2,000,000 in 1821 to 6,000,000 gals, in 1830, and, again, to nearly 7,000,000 gals, in 1846. t Social Evils, &c., p. 17. 144 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. to overcome this unconquered and unconquerable national craving for stimulating drinks, by divers ordinances, punishments, confiscations, expatria- tions, and even death itself,* with the view of either diminishing or suppressing houses for the sale of mead, wine, ale, and similar hurtful beverages. But no enactment was found suffi- cient to restrain the indomitable habits and desires of a people, which the introduction of whisky in the seventeenth century but greatly strengthened and highly aggravated. Immediately after the period of religious excite- ment alluded to had passed away (A.D. 1649), a reaction set in, just as in Ireland upon the decay of the teetotal movement, and ebriety became the rule and not the exception among all classes and conditions, from the peer to the peasant. It is said of Duncan Forbes, of Culloden, a states- man of some renown, that he never was a day sober, save one, and that happened to be the day of his mother's burial ; but even then both himself and his friends had so indulged that they reached the grave before it was discovered that the dead body had been left behind. No opprobrium what- ever was attached to getting drunk ; in fact, it * By a law of Constantine II., A.D. 861, capital punish- ment was inflicted upon all tavern-keepers who refused obedience to the sovereign mandate. INTEMPERANCE. 145 became fashionable, and was rather indicative of good breeding than otherwise. Even the ladies of Edinburgh, and the judicial authorities in open court, set the contagious example, which became but too nearly imitated by the common orders, who are always remarkable for aping the manners and practising the vices of their superiors. Happening to stumble over an old folio, printed in 1699, wherein an English traveller professes to paint the social habits of the Scotch people in that year of grace, I find that so far from making men- tion of the virtue of temperance as constituting one of their leading characteristics, he rather animadverts strongly upon the opposite vice, which he describes as running through all classes without exception : " Their drink," he observes, " is ale made of beer-malt, and tunned up in a small vessel called a cogue; after it has stood a few hours they drink it out of the cogue, yeast and all; the better sort brew it in larger quantities, and drink it in wooden queighs, but it is sorry stuff, yet excellent for preparing bird-lime; but wine is the great drink with the gentry, which they pour in like fishes, as if it were their natural element. The glasses they drink out of are con- siderably large, and they always fill them to the brim, and away with it ; some of them have arrived at the perfection to tope brandy at the same rate. Sure these are a bowl above Bacchus, and of right L 146 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. ought to have a nobler throne than a hogshead." And speaking of the " Edenborough" students, the same writer remarks that " their chief studies are for pulpit preferment, to prate out four or five glasses with as much ease as drink them ; and this they attain to in their stripling, commencing masters of arts (that is meant only masters of this art) before one would judge them fit for college."* Of the 28,360,934 gallons of spirits consumed in the United Kingdom during the year 1846, Scotland absorbed 6,975,091 gallons, being equiva- lent to 2*662 gallons to each person. According to late Parliamentary returns the annual con- sumption of home and foreign spirits in Scotland is 7,000,000 of gallons, and this among a popula- tion of only 2,800,000 ! It is said that 20,000 inhabitants of Glasgow go drunk to bed every Saturday night.f Well may Shakspeare exclaim, " O that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains ! that we should with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform our- selves into beasts."| It is further stated that in the worst localities * A Journey to Scotland ; giving a character of that country, the people, and their manners, by an English Gentleman. London, 1699. f Vide The Drinking Customs of Scotland as contrasted with those of England, by an Excise Official. Glasgow, 1855. I Othello, ii. 3. INTEMPERANCE. 147 of Edinburgh, such as High Street, Canongate, Cowgate, Westport, fee., and the closes and wynds adjoining, where 73 per cent, of the crime is com- mitted, more than 50 per cent, of the spirit licences are held, and about 60 per cent of the drinking houses are situated ; clearly showing that a close relationship obtains between drinking-houses and crime.* The " Forbes-Mackenzie Act" of 1853, however objectionable in its stringency, by reviv- ing an obsolete law, and the more recent equaliza- tion of the spirit duty in both countries, have effected a gratifying result so far ; f but the question is, will it prove abiding ? For my own part, I have little faith in the wisdom or even expediency of harsh measures, believing that the moral sense of a nation is lowered thereby ; and that although some partial benefit may accrue therefrom, in the long-run it will prove more detrimental than otherwise to a people's morals. The act 3rd and 4th Victoria, regulating public houses, and the "Berkeley Beer Bill," which super- seded the unpopular and un-English "Wilson- Patten Act" of 1854, are most mild measures, and yet the amount of drunkenness and the drink- ing tendencies of the population are far below those of the sister country. The influence of physical upon psychical states * Twelfth Report of Inspectors of Prisons for Scotland, t Twenty-first Report, ibid. 148 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CAUSES. is perhaps in no instance more apparent than in the case of drunkards and their miserable progeny. The most eminent medical authorities concur in the opinion that intemperance, having once grown into a habit, becomes a constitutional quality, and therefore as certainly transmissible by inheritance from parent to child, as the gout, pulmonary affec- tions, insanity, and similar diseases which are known to possess an hereditary character. " The influence of both parents," writes Professor Car- penter, "on the constitution of the offspring is strikingly manifested, not merely in the admixture of their characters normally displayed by the latter, but also in the tendency to the hereditary transmission of perverted modes of functional activity which may have been habitual to either. . . . . The predisposition may have been congenital on the part of the parents, or it may have been acquired by themselves ; and in no case is this more obvious than in the influence of alcoholic excesses on the part of one or both parents, in producing idiocy, a predisposition to insanity, or weakness and instability of mind, in the children, this being especially the case where both parents have thus transgressed."* * Principles of Human Physiology, by W. B. Carpenter, M.D., F.E.S., F.G.S., etc., pp. 824-5. See also Physiological, Anatomical, and Pathological Researches, hy John Reid, M.D., Chandos Professor of Anatomy and Medicine in the University of St. Andrews, No. viii. p. 316, passim* INTEMPERANCE. 149 Of the same opinion is Dr. Reid, who observes that " if the infant of an intemperate mother so far escape as to be ushered alive into the world, little physical vigour or intellectual health can be expected from a human being whose constitution has been made to know the influence of alcohol before even it was exposed to that of air."* Another eminent authority states that "the result of his investigation into the cases of forty children, the offspring of drunken parents, was that only six possessed vigorous health."f Dr. Caldwell, whose name is well known as an eminent writer on insanity, even remarks that " in hundreds and thousands of instances, parents having had children born to them while their habits were temperate, have afterwards become intemperate, and had other children subsequently born ; in such cases it is a matter of notoriety that the younger children have become addicted to the practice of intoxication much more frequently than the elder, in the proportion of five to one."J It is an ascertained fact that the amount of insanity and transmitted cerebral disease produced by the vice of intemperance is very great, leaving out of our calculation the enormous number of self-murders annually arising from this cause ; for * Essays on Insanity, Hypochondriasis, etc., by John Reid, M.D., Essay X. Intemperance, pp. 96-7. f Lippich's Grundziige zur Dipsobiostatik. I Treatise on Physical Education. 150 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. ' c if there be anything in the usages of society," says Mr. Neison, " calculated to destroy life, the most powerful is certainly the inordinate use of strong drink."* Now, it has been ascertained that the offspring of drunken parents, whether through weak perceptions or feeble understandings it is not for me to say, are generally more than usually depraved, debased, and criminal. Of this class Dr. Tuckerman, of Boston, observes, that "not unfrequently do these children fall into the service of the lowest of the profligate. They are ready for any guilty service within their power, by which they may earn anything, and they have not an association with wrong but the fear of detection and punishment. What, then, is to be expected from these children ? Is it surprising that very early they become very greatly depraved ?"f Difference of country makes no alteration what- ever in the character of this class. Place and race are both alike to it. The same moral idiosyncrasy and physical peculiarity characterize the drunkard's * Contributions to Vital Statistics, p. 205. According to Mr. Neison, a most trustworthy authority, the mortality of drunkards at the age of from 21 to 30 years, is five times, and from 31 to 50 four times, greater than that of the rest of the community. Lippich, an eminent German physician, computes that one in 120 of the entire population of Laibach die of diseases induced by intemperance. f Report of his Ministry to the Poor, quoted by Miss Carpenter in her excellent work on " Juvenile Delinquents.'' INTEMPERANCE. 151 offspring everywhere. Not only potent, therefore, but almost omnipotent, must those reformatory efforts be that can superinduce a beneficial change in such stubborn material as this. How is the unnatural but constitutional thirst for fiery liquids to be assuaged ? How are the stunted and blunted faculties to be enlarged and edged ? And though last, not least, how is the beauteous m^ral life to be awakened from out the pestiferous grave of corrupt and deadly vices ? Well indeed may we ask, " can such things be ?" Or has the drunken parent's example, words, and demeanour so oper- ated upon his unhappy progeny that all subsequent training is ineffectual ; that on his nature nurture can never more stick ; that the child's mind has been engrained " with a die so deep," to quote the language of Mr. Worsley, " so inwrought into its very texture and substance, that no efforts of good instruction can efface it?"* The following abridged narrative of a convict in the Preston House of Correction, furnished by the Rev. John Clay to the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, will be read with painful interest, inasmuch as it exhibits the career of a drunkard, and the misery which such a character entails upon himself and his family in particular, and on society in general : " The first thing wrong that * Juvenile Depravity, p. 140. 152 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. I learned to do was telling lies, and that I learned from my mother. ... As I began to grow older and bigger, about nine or ten, I began to have companions about my own age; and there used to be stirs and doings about the village, and we used to go to them ; and the other lads used to have money, but I had none. So then I be- thought jae of what I had seen my mother do aforetime, and I did the same, and used to take stuff the same as she did, for I knew where to take it, and they bought it, and they gave me what they had a mind for it ; and then we used, I re- member, to get into the ale-houses, and get agate (to begin) drinking ; and still I was not found out for a long time. I practised this till I was about twelve years old, and the person that bought the stuff from me never checked me. ... I was about twelve when I was bound 'prentice. " Well, I began to get about eighteen or nine- teen years old. We had always plenty of workmen from different parts, and they used to be telling tales about drinking and going to those places, and getting agate with young women, and telling them that they would marry them, and then they used to get money out of them ; so that made me begin a longing to get my time out so that I might carry on the same rigs. At last my time was out. There was a journeyman that was going to leave, and I gave my master notice, and INTEMPERANCE. 153 went with this journeyman to see all this pleasure I had heard them speak of. I was away about five years; sometimes working a month or two here, and sometimes a month or two in another place never settled, but always running into debt wherever I could, and wronging everybody I could. Many a time I have promised marriage to young women, and have got money from them, and have spent it in drink, and then I would not marry them. But to make things short, I have been guilty of crimes of every sort, except murder. . . . I made two of my brothers as bad as myself, and they are now roving about the world somewhere, I can't tell where, but it's all through me. " I got married to the wife I have now, and we have three sons. I brought my wife to grief and shame before I married her. . . . She was born of the lowest degree of parents as could be. Since we began to have children, I began to take the eldest to the public-houses with me. It used to stick hold of my hand, and I used to lead it. And when I had gone a sitting all day (at a public-house) and been drinking there, my wife would have come and begged me to come home ; and when I wouldn't she would have said, ' Well, if thou won't come thou must keep the child with thee.' And then I would have set to and fed the child with rum, and brandy, and all all 154 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CAUSES. sorts of liquors as we had been drinking. This child is now turned five years old, and if I were to say that it has been drunk a hundred times, some- times almost choked with its mouth open, I don't think I should be lying. And the mother would have been so badly frightened she would have sat feeding it with cold water and vinegar to sober it. The second child, thirteen months younger, has been brought up in the same way, only worse. If I had asked either of those children to act the drunken man, they would have done it on the floor; and then I was just suited, just proud to let people see how well they could do it. "Within this last three-quarters of a year I have learned my wife to drink ; when she would have come for me, I would keep pressing drink on her. Now she can drink ; but before, nobody could be more against it. But she was tired out, for many a time she would have come and sat for hours crying, waiting of me to come home, and I wouldn't. I have called for many a glass for her, and as soon as she had got it, she would have whirled it into the fire. Then the landlady would have come and said, 'Oh, thou silly woman ! take it, it will do thee good ; thou hast gotten a great child in thy lap, take it !' At last she would take it. But this is a woeful sight for God to see. Both parents drunk in bed, with their clothes on, in the middle of the day-time ; one throwing up INTEMPERANCE. 155 on one side, and the other on the other side, and this in the presence of three children. The eldest lad would have said, ' Mam, art thou drunk ? Art thou drunk like my dad T And this same child has brought me up many a pot of water in the morning when I have been drunk overnight."* Here indeed we have sketched a vivid but un- exaggerated picture of " the drunkard's progress/' and by an artist, too, who paints faithfully from the very life. It is much to be feared that the dark, dire representation of human nature in its worst aspect, so touchingly depicted, is but one of many copies, some slight degree of colouring and effect constituting the only distinction : in other words, to drop the use of metaphor, that bad example at home is the bane of young minds ; that a course of intemperance almost invariably leads to crime ; and that the inebriate's abode, where the plastic, passive soul of the child becomes moulded as it were to vice, is but too generally a training seminary for the gaol or the hulks. It has been said that " Disposition is builded up by the fashioning of first impressions, ") a truth so axio- matic that it cannot be questioned, and which all criminal records painfully illustrate. * Minutes of Evidence, Appendix B, pp. 430-1. f Proverbial Philosophy, by Martin Tapper. CHAPTER VI. MINOR THEATRES, PENNY GAFFS, DANCING AND SINGING SALOONS, GAMING AND BETTING PRACTICES, AND DEMORALIZING PUBLICATIONS. " Next to the drinking habits of the people, as an obvious source of crime, may be reckoned the different licensed places of amusement. . . . Many who drank deeply of the pleasures of sin in the metropolis, and ended their miserable career in the prison, have given me full descrip- tions of these places and their consequences." REV. JOSEPH KINGSMILL, M.A., Chaplain to Pentonville Prison. " While these places remain unmolested, nay, almost protected by the law and the police, we must have a melan- choly source of juvenile crime in active operation." ALEX- ANDER THOMSON, of Banchory. " So long as we allow the depraving agencies that are so busy in our large towns and cities such immunity, nay, almost encouragement, as they now have, so long we may be sure that juvenile vice and crime will be far ahead of all our efforts to rescue and reform." REV. SYDNEY TURNER. PERHAPS there can be no surer criterion by which to judge of a people's morals than that MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 157 afforded by the character of the amusements to which they are more particularly addicted. These will indicate the mental and moral calibre of a nation as infallibly as the thermometer points out the prevailing degree of atmospheric temperature. Compared with other countries, England cer- tainly stands pre-eminent for the harmless and healthful character of her national amusements and pastimes, although a few sad relics still remain of barbarous times and manners, which, like the obsolete practice of bull-fighting, and that terri- ble old nuisance Greenwich fair, must give way before a more enlightened civilization. National practices, no less than evil habits, are hard to be eradicated; and although we still have prize- fighters and dog-fighters, etc., among us, who amuse the very lowest classes, yet this country is not to be compared, for instance, to Spain, where royalty itself blushes not to patronize the most cruel, wanton, and revolting of sports. I know of no more innocent or instructive amusement than that afforded by theatrical repre- sentations when they serve " to point a moral," which is generally the case. The sanctuary of the stage is but too often assailed by parties who, either totally ignorant of its effects on the mind and heart, or wilfully prejudiced against it, cry it down with all the stubborn pertinacity of malig- nant hatred or rank acerbity of religious fauati- 158 JUVENILE CHIME ; ITS CAUSES. cism. Few could have better or more frequent opportunities of judging as to the beneficial or injurious tendency of the stage than myself; for, owing to my professional duties of journalist and theatrical critic, I have witnessed the per- formance of almost every description of drama over and over again. I can therefore confidently affirm that the English stage, so far from being dissolute and demoralizing, is truly edifying and moral ; nay, more, that the very highest lessons of purity and duty are not unfrequently inculcated therefrom, that touch the heart most keenly, deeply, and effectively by their gentle persuasive- ness and modest eloquence. The English drama has undergone considerable modifications and ameliorations since the days of Beaumont and Fletcher; nor would the expres- sions, allusions, and sentiments regarded as per- fectly unobjectionable in those times be at all tolerated now ; thus showing that the moral tone of society has vastly improved. However justly open to rebuke at a former period of our history, the drama at the present day tends more to elicit our approval than to evoke our censure ; to improve our manners and morals than to corrupt and de- prave them. By proper and judicious manage- ment the stage might be made the vehicle of still greater good, where entertainment and improve- ment would go hand in hand. We may take a MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 159 wise and useful lesson from the Athenians and Romans, whose plays were generally written and got up with such regard to modesty, decorum, and morality, that even Socrates, Cicero, and Cato used to frequent them. " If the English stage/' says the Spectator, with reference to this circum- stance, " were under the same regulations as the Athenian was formerly, it would have the same effect that had in recommending the religion, the government, and public worship of its country. Were our plays subject to proper inspections and limitations, we might not only pass away several of our vacant hours in the highest entertainment, but should always rise from them wiser and better than we sat down to them."* Since Addison's time, however, rapid advances have been made in this direction. Nor are the abandoned and depraved entirely insensible when the loftier feelings of our nature are appealed to by effective dramatic representa- tions. Such characters have been known not only to applaud but actually to shed tears on such occasions ; thereby showing that even evil natures, like the beauteous maiden transformed by Diana's curse into a hideous serpent, need but some Gaul- tier, by some sympathetic action, to again change into their former condition of beauty, guilelessness, * Vol. vi. No. 446, On Vicious English Comedies. 160 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CAUSES. and virtue. On this point the writer of Liverpool Life states: "We observe that whenever the better, the purer, the higher, the holier feelings are appealed to, even amongst what are supposed to be the most abandoned, there is a response, hearty and earnest. In no instance did we ever see it fail. Even those seemingly lost creatures who appear to have given themselves up to that course of life which reflects such scandal on our modern civilization ; or those young men ' whose every breath is an oath/ and whose life is a deep and deepening record of crime ; or those children who never knew a father's voice or felt his love, who never experienced a mother's care or saw her eye watching over them with maternal tenderness even these we have seen moved to tears by the tender pathos, the pure morality, and the lofty and inspiring sentiments of Jerrold's Black-Eyed Susan" With this tentative effort to vindicate the Stage from the gratuitous and scurrilous attacks made against, and the unfounded calumnies heaped upon it, I may say, en passant, of the modern dramatic authors as a class (and I am proud to own the acquaintance and friendship of several), that none are more remarkable for their moral and domestic virtues or private worth, and that the general bearing of their writings is to instruct no less than to amuse. Surely, if any men deserve well of MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 161 society they are those who endeavour to combine instruction with amusement ; and by so doing "direct/ 5 to quote the language of Bentham, " the course of dangerous desires, and the inclina- tion towards those amusements which are most conformable to the public interest."* At the same time that I speak approvingly of the stage, properly so called, and of the moral tendency of dramatic representations generally, I cannot, however, denounce in terms sufficiently strong the evil tendency of such filthy places as minor theatres and penny gaffs, where the drama is vilely caricatured by low actors and actresses reeking of beer and tobacco, who pride themselves in the absence of modesty and decorum ; where the " Harlot-minstrel sings, when the rude sound Tempts you with heavy heels to thump the ground ;"f and where, in fine, all sense of propriety and decency is set aside as well by the audience as by those who administer to their ribald and riotous mirth. Here may be witnessed the rudest acting, the most exciting scenic incidents, the most de- moralizing dramas, and fearfully uproarious plaudits, as ridiculous and foolish on the part of the spectators as those of the citizen of Argos described by Horace : * Works, vol. i. c. iv. f Horace, Epis. xiv. lib. i. ; trans, hy Francis. M 162 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. " Who long imagined that he heard the tone Of deep tragedians on an empty stage, And sat applauding in ecstatic rage."* These are the schools where the young girl and boy have their minds first misdirected, their pas- sions excited, and their morals corrupted; while the grown man and woman, already adepts in vice and villany, have their evil propensities con- firmed and increased. Combined with the lowest character of comedy are highly exciting and un- natural Thespian representations, unmistakeable inuendoes, or lewd obscene jests, which the better they take with the ruffian auditory the more are they indulged in, till the f ' house " becomes one indescribable scene of confusion, disorder, and tumult. The following pithy description of a provincial minor theatre, from the talented pen of the writer of Liverpool Life will be read with interest. The picture here presented is not at all exag- gerated, but faithfully portrays the pernicious character and tendency of those amusements so much in vogue among a large class of the humbler population : "We visited another of our theatres on a Satur- day evening," writes the correspondent of the Epis. ii. lib. ii. ; trans, by Francis. MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 163 Liverpool Mercury * attracted by the announce- ment of e Immense success of the new drama/ e Crowded houses/ etc., etc. The new drama pro- fessed to give a sketch of how we live in this great town. Singularly enough, it was said to be founded on Mayhew's Great World of London. We paid threepence, and made our way to the gallery. On reaching the entrance we found the place crammed, chiefly with boys and young men. We could not get in, but were in a much better position than some of the boys, for by looking over the heads of those about us we did obtain a sight of the stage. Two or three little fellows had climbed up the door, and were ' hanging on ' in a very painful position. Yet they by this means saw the actors moving about the stage, and were apparently satisfied. The heat from this crowded assembly was intolerable, but we had become so firmly wedged that immediate retreat was hopeless. After awhile we were squeezed inside, and there found that by going a little to the side we might obtain comfortable standing-room, and if we could not see all that was done on the stage, we were in a good position for viewing the audience, and noticing the effects of the new drama upon those who witnessed it. There were upwards of four * The letters on " Liverpool Life " originally appeared in the columns of this journal. 164 hundred persons present ; the great majority were boys, dirty, ragged little fellows, capless and shoe- less in many cases. A large bench, forming the top seat in the front of the gallery between the doors, was wholly occupied by a party of ship- wrights' apprentices. Some of them had cleaned themselves up, and appeared in their favourite, well-known costume blue jacket, white trousers, and orange neckerchief. They rendered them- selves very conspicuous by ' catcalls/ filthy nick- names which they applied to each other, and throwing orange-peel and other more offensive matter into the pit. There were several sottish and drunken men present, but few girls or women. The females were of a wretched class, and appeared to be at the mercy of young men, or in some cases lads, who accompanied them. The theatre was very dirty. " The entertainment provided for this assembly was an attempt to show these people how they lived to portray their daily lives and occupations. Had this not been the declared intention on the bills, the appeals made to the audience and the by- play introduced would have proclaimed it. This new drama, that had proved so successful, pan- dered to the worst passions of the people ; showed what adepts in ' cunning dodges ' were the com- pilers ; and held before the audience as a hero, as a true Briton worthy of admiration, a drunken, MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 165 depraved man, a pugilist and a dog-fighter. An American was introduced to see how we live in Liverpool, and for this purpose he was accom- panied by an Englishman, an Irishman, and a Welshman. The first is, of course, the fighting- man. Nothing can stand before him : he swears at everybody, calls the Irishman ' a bark/ the Welshman a ' billygoat/ and gets them to do and say just as he likes. The Irishman dressed the character ; but we should be grieved to say it was a representation of anything that exists in the shape of a true Milesian. His language was too gross even to be indicated, and some of his allu- sions were filthy in the extreme. TLe young fellow who played the Welshman we had noticed in other characters, and anything foolish, far- fetched, or extravagantly ridiculous, seemed to be- come him admirably. In addition to these quali- ties, on this occasion he showed an aptitude in expressing his thoughts in vicious and disgusting language, and in the ' salle de danse ' his conduct was destitute of decency. The three men take the Yankee, in order to see Liverpool life, into Ben Jonson-street ; and if they had shown this street as it is had the picture been carried out and the moral made clear most certainly we ought not to complain. Were it possible to exhibit in all its hideousness and moral impurity this street and its inhabitants, good would surely result. Could we 166 JUVENILE CHIME ; ITS CAUSES. be shown the crimes suggested, concocted, or committed here daily, or witness the dreadful mental struggle of some poor creature who has become immured in one of the dens of depravity that here abound, but who, notwithstanding the threats, intimidation, or temptation held out, feels reluctant to enter upon a course of life the result of which she sees in the character and bearing of all around were we shown vice in its true garb, and not exalted into heroism, or tinselled in such a manner as to render it attractive we might have occasion to rejoice. But this was not done. " The stage was made to represent a large room, containing lounging chairs and sofas covered with yellow damask. This was ' the thieves' ' boosing- ken. Even the Yankee expressed himself surprised at the place. The company here sat down to a small table ; drink is procured ; it is drugged, for the purpose of robbing or murdering, if needs be the Yankee whilst in a state of stupor. He, however, is too 'cute, spills his liquor, neverthe- less feigns sleep. The lights are lowered the villains come in ; they are, of course, disappointed in their booty, and a scuffle is the result. The Irishman and Welshman are both drugged, and are lying on the floor, and now the brave and bold Briton goes to work to show the audience 'how to skin eels/ He, in a very expeditious I MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 167 ner, strips the clothes off one of the stupefied men, and the mode he adopts for getting off the coat excites the loudest plaudits of the audience. After a street row in one of the scenes, the three worthies are lodged in Bridewell. The scene in Bridewell was more severely criticised by the audience than any other, as far as we could learn from the remarks made around us. ' It wasn't a bit like the real thing ;' and many of the lads and young men professed to know the locality and pe- culiar features of the place from personal expe- rience. The Englishman is asked for his character, and replies ( Go to Mr. Mansfield ; * he'll give you my character/ This received several rounds of applause : and many similar allusions, in which was shown a deep knowledge of vice on the part of the performers, were heartily appreciated by the audience. Anything more immoral or un- pleasing, even at a minor theatre, we never saw ; yet this was the source of attraction, and had pro- cured crowded houses. "During the progress of the drama profane swearing was very freely indulged in by the cha- racters, particularly by the English representative man. His expressions were taken up repeatedly by the boys, and we heard them repeat the phrases to themselves to impress them more completely on * The worthy stipendiary magistrate of Liverpool. 168 JUVENILE CE1ME ; ITS CAUSES. their memory. We noticed, also, when we reached the street, that boys and young men were again and again shouting out many of the indecent say- ings that they had heard used on the stage, thus emulating the example of the British hero whose audacious exploits had so far won their admi- ration." Equally, if not more vicious, dissolute, and de- moralizing are the low play-houses known by the unfashionable epithet of (t Penny Gaffs," of which there are several in various districts of the metro- polis. Lately, one Saturday evening, I visited a few of those places situated in the neighbourhood of Blackfriars' -bridge and the New Cut, Lambeth. The exterior of the buildings presented rather a decent appearance, having an array of showy lamps in front, but the interior was filthy, fusty, and odious in every sense of the word. Strange to say, the lowest and worst of these " gaffs " is situated in the most respectable locality, and the habitues of the one would consider it derogatory to frequent the other. Having paid the small charge of one penny, I was suffered to make my way through a long, circuitous passage, off which abutted several unfurnished rooms, one of which was appropriated to the sale of refreshments of no more deleterious character than ginger beer, or "pop/' judging from the shape and description of the bottles which were scattered around. Having MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 169 reached the pit, I found it literally crammed with boys, to the number of several hundred, all dirty and untidy, multitudes of whom had the appear- ance of having just left off work. Amongst the group were a few men and girls of the lowest class, seemingly delighted with the scenes that were being enacted before them. The yelling, hideous screams, and other horrible noises that arose from this part of the house, were truly deafening, which, combined with the close atmosphere, made still more intolerable by the smoke from tobacco-pipes, rendered the place anything but agreeable, or indeed supportable. The evening's entertainment commenced with a series of low tumbling tricks, which a few clumsy ragamuffins, who volunteered for the pur- pose, endeavoured to imitate successively on the stage, to the infinite delight of the rabble audience ; for each ridiculous failure on the part of the former provoked turbulent applause and uproarious laughter from the latter, until the scene became nearly as horrible and intolerable as that de- scribed by an African traveller, who, during his explorations, had his peaceful slumbers one night suddenly disturbed and dissipated by the unearthly, weird-like bellowings of a whole army of predatious wild dogs ! Next followed a comic vocalist, who illustrated, in character, Jack Ray, the crossing-sweeper, by a variety of pose 170 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. plastique antics, some of which were harmless enough, but others had a decided tendency not only to bring sacred historical personages, but even the Holy Book itself, into ridicule. For example, the positions in which Samson was presumed to stand during his conflict with the lion, and when he had the gates of the city of Gaza upon his back, were rudely and impiously travestied, thus making solemn subjects administer to ribald mirth. After very lusty plaudits and a shower of ovations in the shape of pence and halfpence, which the triumphant actor groped up with avidity, seemingly unmindful of the danger to his head or eyes from those friendly missiles, the curtain fell. During the interval, and finding the air pain- fully oppressive, I returned to the street, and, after a little, upon payment of another penny, got a cheque for the boxes. Having ascended a flight of narrow stairs close by the entrance to the pit, I tendered the dirty bit of cardboard I had re- ceived to a middle-aged woman, who stood sen- tinel by a half-door at the summit of the stairs, which was at once opened for my ingress. What are dignified with the name of boxes, are long rows of backless seats at either extremity of the gallery, the centre portion of which is wainscotted off, forming a kind of stalls or reserved seats, the right of entree to which is obtained by payment of MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 171 an extra penny. Here I observed two or three rather decent-looking young women with children, and a gentlemanly young man, who did not re- main long. The boxes were filled entirely with boys somewhat better attired than those below, but still of the lower class. A few were smoking short clay pipes even here, although the very uncommunicative dame who acted as cheque- taker informed me that " Smoking was not per- mitted in that part of the house/' A large open- ing in the ceiling, from which the decayed plaster- ing was falling off, in thick scales, upon the bonnets of the ladies who occupied the stalls, admitted a current of fresh air, which, under the circum- stances, was peculiarly refreshing after having so long endured the pent-up atmosphere of the pit. Leaning my arms upon the back of the reserved boxes, I could command a tolerably good view of the stage, as well as take a survey of the entire building. Directly to the right, and immediately fronting the stage, was a large, partially-faded placard, in party-coloured inks, which announced a " GRAND MONSTER ENTERTAINMENT, ON WEDNES- DAY NEXT, FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR. J N B N." The curtain having now risen, a pan- tomimic play was produced, which, from my very slight acquaintance with the history of that noto- rious robber and highwayman, Jack Sheppard, I knew to be elucidatorv of his life and acts. I 172 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. never witnessed such unrestrained enthusiasm as repeatedly greeted the hero of this piece, who, when called before the curtain, received the same tangible, though more abundant manifestation of satisfaction on the part of the audience as the silly comic actor to whom previous allusion was made. When all was over, the rush from the lower part of the house was tremendous. Several boys, in their eagerness to get out, threw them- selves over the closely-packed groups of people, struggling for the door, and in this manner were literally carried on the heads of their indignant supporters, whose language, as may be conceived, was neither temperate nor discreet. Having got clear outside, I noticed another assemblage of boys awaiting admission, when I was informed, upon inquiry, that there were generally two, and some- times as many as three, performances during the evening. I lost no time in directing my steps to the neighbourhood of the New Cut, Lambeth, where, by the aid of a police-constable, I had little diffi- culty in finding the object of my pursuit. I paid the customary demand of twopence and proceeded to the boxes, meanwhile taking a furtive glance or two at the medley throng who composed the pit audience. The play was just terminating, so I had to wait until the house, to speak in profes- sional phraseology, was " cleared out/' and a fresh MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 173 one had assembled. This place, although neither in appearance nor in name so aristocratic as the other, had certainly a more select and a better conducted audience, but nevertheless entirely composed of the labouring and lower classes. The same practices, including smoking, were indulged in, but not to such excess. I found this building much smaller, more ill-conditioned, and far more oppressive than the other ; so that the sojourn of even an hour and a-half in such a den required some degree of self-denial, and no small exercise of patience. After ten or fifteen minutes had elapsed, the performances recommenced with a ballet ; after which one or two male and female singers, whose unprofessional faces, owing to the glare of the footlights, presented a painfully wan and death-like appearance, endeavoured to enter- tain the company certainly not with "the charm of sweet sounds," except rough, gruff voices, and rude, ricketty music, provokingly " out of tune and harsh," may be said to possess that quality. However, though not in itself effective, it did not lack effect, judging from the reception given to it by the hearers, who applauded the same with as much and even greater ardour than ever M. Jullien received from musical connoisseurs and the fashionable public at his monstre West-end con- certs. One of the comic songs sung on the present occasion (which was of a very improper and 174 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. indelicately suggestive character) was by a lean, lank, cadaverous-looking, shabbily-dressed young man, of most wo-begone aspect, who seemed more in keeping with the tragic muse, and looked the while as though he were acting the Ghost in Hamlet. He seemed indifferent to everything but to the few coppers thrown to him on the stage, which, however great his need, was more than his services merited. I sorrowfully thought what a sad thing it was that the divine arts of music and poetry should be thus outraged and prostituted, and poetry especially be made to pander to low tastes and loose feelings. The principal performance of the evening was here also a pantomimic representation of Jack Sheppard, but illustrating other episodes in his adventurous and daring career. This piece, I was informed, had a long run, and invariably drew crowded houses. The audience seemed to be highly gratified, and strenuously applauded those parti- cular portions of the play where any extraordinary cruelty or adventure on the part of the hero be- came apparent. Nothing, I apprehend, can have a more injurious effect upon the minds and morals of the community than such representations ;* and * I make an exception in the case of Mr. J. B. Buck- stone's drama of Jack Sheppard, underneath the episodes of which he points a powerful moral. The superiority of conscience, even over a had and wretched outlaw, is beauti- MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 175 I think that were the Lord Chamberlain actually aware of their true character and hurtful ten- dency, he would refuse to license such haunts of demoralization. If it be not the duty, it is cer- tainly the interest of the State that " people should be guarded against temptation to unlawful pleasures by furnishing them with the means of innocent ones."* At all events, no wise govern- ment would wilfully sanction amusements known to possess deteriorating and corrupting influences on the minds and hearts of those who witness them. Such a course may not be altogether con- trary to precedent, but it would be obviously a dereliction of duty ; for, as Bentham says on this matter, "the object of direct legislation is to combat pernicious desires by prohibitions and punishments directed against the hurtful acts to which those desires may give birth."f fully illustrated, both by its deterrent principles and the remorse which it induces; proving in the words of our great dramatist, that " Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind ; The thief doth fear each bush an officer." The author makes his hero say, almost at the close of his infamous career, " To-day will end my life my short and wretched life ! For let guilt be as bold and as brave on the outside as it may, all is surely misery , bitter misery, within The poor London lads will, I hope, be warned by my fate, for here is the end of sin !" (Sc. viii.) * Dr. Channing. f Works, vol. i. ch. iv. p. 539. 176 JUVENILE CJIIME j ITS CAUSES. A modern French writer, in his strictures on the popular dramas of Auberge des Adrets and Robert Macaire, thus observes : " There is another class of writers, who, to excite the curiosity of the vulgar by a no less powerful stimulant, have in- troduced malefactors upon the stage, endowed them with a wonderful dexterity in the execution of criminal acts, made them the heroes of the drama, the vehicles of their humour, their sarcasms, and their ridicule against public authority and the officers of justice. They have invested these ruffians with indomitable courage, imperturbable sang froid, fertility of expedient, lively conversa- tion indeed with every quality that can interest or divert. They are made to sport with human life, and their unconcern before and after the per- petration of crime is set off by such an exterior, and with such buffoonery, that indignation is smothered at the very moment it is on the point of breaking out."* That the minor theatres and penny gaffs are frequented by gangs of young thieves, and other criminally-disposed children, is notorious ; and it would appear from the nature of the performances introduced nightly on the boards of such corrupt * Des Classes Dangereuses de la Population dans Grandes Villes, par H. A. Tregier, chef de bureau, a la Prefecture de la Seine. MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 177 and corrupting places, that their respective man- agers are well acquainted with the base cha- racter no less than the depraved tastes (to which they disreputably pander) of their patrons. Ac- cording to the evidence of one criminal (impri- soned at Newgate, and since apprehended), before the Select Committee of the House, bands of juvenile delinquents make it a practice to pre- arrange their plans of depredation, so as to enable them to pass their evenings at the theatre.* Here dispositions are fostered and habits formed of the very worst kind, which become so fixed and in- flexible that it is next to impossible to move their stubbornness and tenacity; for an inveterate habitual state of mind is not only naturally opposed to good in itself, but rises in antagonism to whatever good may be placed in contact with it. The course of human feeling has been beau- tifully compared to a listless stream of water, which, after being dashed into commotion by some massive substance flung into it, relapses, in the progress of a few fathoms and a few moments, into its former sluggishness of current. The following deplorable example of the evil and seductive influences resulting from such low places of amusement as I have been describing is thus tersely related by the Ordinary of Newgate : * Minutes of Evidence, p. 243, 1 78 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. " A poor woman was left a widow with four children, the eldest of which was a boy. Her character was exemplary. By incessant labour and care she brought up these children entirely with- out assistance from the parish. The eldest, how- ever, got a taste for the penny theatre; and in order to be able to go there, he used to steal the halfpence of his mother wherever he could find them. He subsequently went into the service of a tradesman, to which the goodness of his mother's character recommended him ; but before long he stole a shilling. He continued the practice till he was sent to prison. All the circumstances were known to the judge, and he was sentenced to be imprisoned for a week and whipped. The day he was liberated he went home and stole the only half-crown his mother had. The entire of her money was taken by this hard-hearted child. The only return he made for her care in infancy, and the diligence with which she educated him in the duties of religion, as well as in good secular instruction in the national and Sunday schools, was that he robbed her of every penny she had in the world, that he might go to the theatre and enjoy its de- lusive pleasures. For this offence he was tried at the Old Bailey, and had to serve six months in the House of Correction. Afterwards he left his home and took to street-singing a result of the vicious taste in which he indulged ; lodging in the MINOR THEATRES AND PENNY GAFFS. 179 worst part of Westminster, where dishonest people live in large numbers, and where, for threepence a night, lodgings and other conveniences are pro- vided. By the perseverance of his mother he was recovered from the degraded life to which he had betaken himself, and was again placed in service : but the old habit returned. The love of theatricals induced him to rob his master to get the means of going to the play ; and a third time he was tried and convicted from Newgate, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. To make short of this sad story, he was a fourth time convicted, and transported as a sad incorrigible youth, whom no good education nor good example at home could reform ; but who, being often reproved and hardened his neck, was suddenly cut off], and that without remedy."* Numerous examples of a like character could be brought forward, were it necessary, to show the highly demoralizing effects of cheap theatres upon the youthful mind. Numbers of weak, wilful, but unperverted juveniles have, through the impres- sions herein made and the associations herein formed, been seduced from their duty, and urged on a course of crime, who have reaped and are now reaping, in some penal settlement, the wretched harvest which their misdeeds had sown. * A Voice from Newgate, pp. 20, 21. 180 JUVENILE CKIME ; ITS CAUSES. And it is not unfrequently found that the most innocent and hopeful youths, when once contami- nated, are those who run the greatest and swiftest course in a criminal and downward career. So true is it that " The mind growing once corrupt, They turn to vicious forms, ten times more ugly Than ever they were fair." Dancing and singing saloons are another source of mischief, and not only predispose, but in many instances directly lead to juvenile delin- quency. In some instances houses are appro- priated to only one, but frequently both enter- tainments are combined. It is difficult to deter- mine which is the most fraught with evil results, the salle de danse or the concert-room ; but they are both highly demoralizing and injurious. An exceptional example may occasionally be found where some propriety and decorum are observed, and where caution seems to be exercised in the choice of the songs introduced; but while this small improvement is to be commended, there can be no doubt that the generality of those places are vile beyond description ; and what is worse, that those apparently of a more respectable and select character are in reality the lowest and most de- praving. Casinos, or dancing-saloons, are mostly fre- DANCING AND SINGING SALOONS. 181 quented by fashionable, or what is expressively- termed "fast" young men, and "gay" women, who spare no pains on their person, and no ex- pense in their dress, to render themselves objects of attraction to the opposite sex. Excellent music and the best refreshments are provided, which, combined with the magnificence of those lures to virtue, and the character of their habitues, make them almost enchanting to giddy and dissolute youth. Here immodest and immoral habits are first formed that rise and ripen with time ; that grave the furrows of age upon the young man's countenance, and the traces of sin upon his con- stitution. Here, likewise, a reckless extravagance is encouraged, which, when all legitimate re- sources fail to supply it, prompts to the commission of crime. Even where such a result as the viola- tion of the law has not accrued, how many youths are there who have lost caste and character from frequenting such places, and have become con- firmed profligates, and settled down into idle, use- less, and dissolute men ! There are many parents, occupying a respectable and honourable position in life, who can trace the irretrievable ruin of their sons to the demoralizing and seductive influences of the casino. One instance occurs to me of a youth, twenty-one years of age, the son of a pro- fessional gentleman, who ever since he was sixteen 182 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. years old, made it almost a nightly practice to attend a neighbouring haunt of this kind. After the dancing would terminate, he would smoke, drink, and dissipate with his companions until three or four o'clock in the morning. The last I heard of him was, that he had left his home to cohabit with some female whose acquaintance he had here formed, and upon whom he is entirely dependent for support. To what a fearful depth of moral degradation must not that man fall who could reconcile himself to such a course ! Would, however, that this case were but a solitary illus- tration of juvenile depravity arising from the same cause ! Concert-rooms are almost always auxiliaries to hotels, public-houses, or beershops, and are got up in a tawdry, though occasionally in a very elegant and expensive manner, for the purpose of attrac- tion, and a few of them will afford accommodation to as many as one thousand persons. From some, females and children are excluded ; but very many are open to both sexes. The demoralizing prostitution of talent observable in those places (with few honourable exceptions) is truly lament- able, and exhibits a low condition of public virtue, when the vilest sentiments, obscenest witticisms, and grossest allusions, draw forth deafening and prolonged applause. The true pro- vince of song is to comfort, elevate, and inspire, DANCING AND SINGING SALOONS. 183 as Mr. Procter (Barry Cornwall) beautifully says : "Song from baser thoughts shonld win us Song should charm us out of woe Song should stir the heart within us> Like a patriot's friendly blow. " Song should spur the mind to duty Nerve the weak and stir the strong ; Every deed of truth and beauty Should be crowned by starry song." But in the majority of singing saloons the Muse is perverted from her noble mission to serve the basest uses, and gratify prurient and putid tastes and venal purposes. Even where modesty is not outraged by indecent expressions, recourse is had to songs abounding in coarse jests and vulgar jeers, or else some magnificent production of genius is wickedly travestied to excite mirth at the expense of good taste and national virtue. Nothing is too sacred for the puny-minded poetaster the miser- able "hanger-on" of some vocal mountebank or comic singer. He will seize upon some Scripture incident if he thinks it will provoke a laugh, or, as one writer observes, " take up an old ballad, perhaps fall of the pure feeling and quaint sim- plicity so eminently peculiar to such composition, and burlesque it ; change its feelings into filthi- ness and its simplicity into slang, destroying, of course, all respect for the original. Or should any 184 JUVENILE EIME ; ITS CAUSES. work of art or merit be introduced to the world, even though it be the purest exponent of poetic feeling ever written, still the indefatigable writer of ' popular ' songs burlesques it without mercy, and hands it over to the grim, face-making ogres of the comic stage, where its ruin is fairly and fully accomplished. This latter method of proce- dure appears to be the most unrighteous of all ; for if we begin by burlesquing and parodying the sublime productions of man's reason, who can predicate where we shall stop ? For instance, the tragedy of Hmnlet is well known to be the most suggestive of thought which the mind of Shakspeare ever created. Essays have been written about it, lec- tures delivered on it ; it has been quoted in speeches, in sermons, in books, and has attained so high an eminence, that, like to a city which stands on an hill and cannot be hid, even so its excellence is known to all. Now, can it be supposed for a moment, that, listening to a man ludicrously attired in rusty black, with an enormous white tie round his neck, and an equally enormous crape round his hat, drawl out the ' lamentable history of Hamlet, king of Denmark/ will at all improve the hearer's estimate of that noble play, or tempt him to peruse it, that he may render himself wiser and better by meditating on the glorious concep- tions of its author? The answer to this question may easily be anticipated. Is it not, then, shameful DANCING AND SINGING SALOONS. 185 that our noble tongue should be thus prostituted to satisfy the cravings of an artificial and vulgar taste; that the language in which Shakspeare, Milton, Cowper, and Wordsworth conveyed their sublime thoughts to an admiring world, should be used as the vehicle of the most vulgar ribaldry and the most debasing slang ; that the language in which the most glorious appeals to the human mind have been made, and in which the grandest triumphs of liberty have been achieved, should be used as a medium whereby vile, filthy trash should be disseminated ?" * Highly prejudicial and pernicious as are the metropolitan casinos and singing-rooms, those of the provinces far surpass them in open, unblushing effrontery and profligacy. In the locality of Wil- liamson-square, Liverpool, there are no less than twenty of these places, some of which are ex- tremely vile ; in fact, hot-beds of licentiousness and seduction. The Rev. Mr. Bishop, late of Liverpool, in his evidence, gives the result of his visits to fourteen of these houses, and states that "in every instance I marked the presence of aban- doned women. In one of the rooms there were 150 persons a third boys. In another of higher character, 400 persons, a fourth of whom consisted * The Liverpool Magazine, Aug. 1856, Conducted by Samuel Phillips Day. Art. " Popular Ballad Poetry." 186 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. of youths of both sexes. The best conducted of the rooms I fear the most. In some, the songs and singers are too disgusting to be dangerous : but in the better conducted, a thin gauze of pro- priety is thrown over all the scenes. A few are open on a Sunday evening. I lately looked in at one. The audience was small most intoxicated. I heard the Old Hundred Psalm sung, the Halle- lujah Chorus, Bishop Ken's Evening Hymn, and the Jubilate Deo. The organ was a large one. It was a melancholy thing to see and hear this group singing in such a place, and such a company, ' We are his people and the sheep of his pasture/ "* We have further trustworthy testimony in the writer of Liverpool Life, who thus depicts the un- favourable social condition of that great mart of commerce : " At one of these establishments which occupies a prominent position, may nightly be witnessed a scene, that for grossness, immora- lity, or obscenity, stands almost unparalleled. Even what are called the decorations of the room pander to the worst passions of humanity; and vulgarity and lasciviousness are unblushingly pro- claimed. Here are youths, many from the upper classes of society, mixed up with others in more humble positions. Smoking cigars, sipping ale, wine, or brandy, chatting with degraded girls, and * Keport of Select Committee, pp. 228-31. DANCING AND SINGING SALOONS. 187 examining ' the points' of the living tableaux, con- stitute some of the features of the evening's entertainment, and those which would appear to excite most attention. There is singing and much of that class which cannot be described. Between forty and fifty boys (they could be called nothing else) were in this place, and seemed delighted to hear a filthy song called the ' Lively Flea. 3 Now, the obscenity in this consisted more in the action and grimace of the vocalist than in the expres- sions used, although the latter were bad enough ; but a more abominable song, nor one containing viler suggestions, could not be conceived. The girls laughed, the lads roared with delight, and one of them said, ' he would do anything rather than miss such a treat !' " And again, the same writer observes : " Minor theatres, twopenny hops, casinos, and singing saloons, are all spoken of as having a tendency to promote the growth and foster the evils attendant on juvenile delin- quency and public immorality. Without doubt, such is the influence of these places ; but all com- bined sink into absolute nothingness when com- pared with the licensed promenade for prostitutes. Here are children from twelve to sixteen years of age, who are being trained, and have already learned much of the sin and trickery of the aban- doned harlot. It is in vain that you look in any of our provincial towns for a festering source of 188 JUVENILE CRIME J ITS CAUSES. corruption such as we see here. In London there is nothing so vile. In Paris the scene would not be permitted an hour, if it were known. And we are assured by persons who have been in most of the continental cities and towns, that the iniquity here is without a parallel."* But it does not appear as if Liverpool is the only town where such enormities are quietly suffered to exist. From the Report of a Committee in Birmingham, appointed to inquire into the cha- racter and tendency of such places of amusement, we find that similar, if not worse practices are there likewise indulged. Speaking of " wine- rooms," which differ somewhat from ordinary public-houses, the Committee state, that " Music has been heard till between one and two o'clock in the morning; abandoned women are also readily admitted at that hour, dressed in the most extravagant and fascinating style, evidently for no transient visit; and one of the visitors, while conversing with a dissenting minister of the town, had this voluntary statement : ' A person, who would gladly substantiate the truth, had told him that dancing was carried on at these rooms, not unfrequently both sexes being wholly or partially in a state of nudity/ It appeared to your visitors * Liverpool Life, its Pleasures, Practices, and Pastimes, pp. 55-6. DANCING AND SINGING SALOONS. 189 that little is done in these rooms before the closing of the theatre, when the influx of visitors and prostitutes was perfectly astounding. The rooms stand back from the houses themselves, so that in the day-time nothing extraordinary presents itself, and room is left at night for any person to regale himself alone, if he should be unfortunate enough to be pronounced not all right. At each of these places is held a table d'hote, at which many clerks, etc., are to be found, who doubtless are, if ( up to the mark/ regaled with intelligence during the day of the kind of amusement to be met with there."* Being recently in Birmingham, curiosity led me to visit a notorious house of this descrip- tion, situated in the neighbourhood of New-street. Being a stranger, I was not suffered to enter into the penetralia ; but I saw quite enough to con- vince me that this licensed establishment was nothing removed from a common brothel ! How can we then consistently upbraid France for licensing houses of demoralization, when the same privilege is granted in our own country, though under another, and probably a more objectionable form? When the Rev. John Clay, of Preston, was examined as to the effects produced by singing or concert rooms in that town, he stated that they * Quoted in Dr. Lee's Maine Law Essay, p. 180. 190 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. were " most prejudicial/' and that, within the last year, six boys under seventeen years of age were committed on a charge of rape, who told him, that they had all been habitual attendants at such places, where the passions which those youths had given way to were certainly encouraged.* With respect to Leeds, Mr. Symons observes, ' ' I went, accompanied by Inspector Childs, to visit the low places of resort of the working classes. We started soon after nine o' clock, and visited about a score of beer and public-houses. In the beer-houses there were several mere chil- dren ; and in almost all were prostitutes. These places were thronged. In one dancing was going on in a good-sized room upstairs, where I found a dozen couples performing a country dance ; the females were all factory girls and prostitutes. Not one of these dancers, boys or girls, was above twenty-one years of age."f Mr. Corbett, of Birmingham, a reliable autho- rity, states that, " Of all the places of seduction and ruin, the singing- clubs, or free-and-easies, are the most effectual. I could name many young men who, in moments of reflection and penitence, have dated the commencement of their ruin to * Minutes of Evidence, p. 186. f Prison Eeports for 1847. DANCING AND SINGING SALOONS. 191 these infamous sources and houses of amuse- ment."* But it is perfectly needless to adduce further evidence in proof of the seductive and destructive character of these haunts of vice and incen- tives to crime. The wonder is that their odious character has not called forth active measures to abate, if not entirely to suppress, such into- lerable sources of private mischief and public dishonour. Dr. Channing speaks as a philoso- pher and a Christian when he observes, that " People should be guarded against temptation to unlawful pleasures, by furnishing them with the means of innocent ones. In every community there should be pleasures, relaxations, and means of agreeable excitement ; for if innocent ones be not furnished, resort will be had to criminal." Surely, in this wonderful age of inventions and discoveries, some feasible plan may be devised to remedy one great source of social evil, and stop one avenue to crime. Another proximate and fruitful source of juve- nile crime arises from the fatal vice of specula- tion, to which many young men of the middle and * Quoted in Juvenile Depravity, by Thomas Beggs, p. 141. 192 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. upper, no less than of the lower classes, are in- tensely addicted. The distressing revelations that have occasionally been brought to light in our courts of law, show to what terrible lengths a love for gaming will carry its victims, and how, to gra- tify this fell and maddening passion, they will risk fortune, character, liberty, in fact everything that makes existence desirable or delightful, upon a throw of the dice, or a shuffle of the cards ! The sweep-stakes at public-houses and private offices on the winning horses at the Derby, and other races, have had a similar effect on the minds and morals of those who have habituated themselves to such nefarious pleasures. The records of our prisons tell sad tales of the fair fame and bright hopes which by this means have haplessly been for ever destroyed; and numerous desolate homes and broken hearts illustrate the same. This insatiable passion has led not only to dissipation, but to peculation; not merely to the squandering of one's own private resources, but to the appro- priation and embezzlement of the moneys of others. In Liverpool Life we have a brief memoir of a respectable young man whom dissipated habits and the indulgence of gaming had led into crime and misery. Believing that such cases are not uncommon among the same class of individuals, I reproduce it with the hope that it may act as a GAMING AND BETTING PRACTICES. 193 salutary warning to others whose predilections and practices place them in imminent danger of experi- encing a similar fate : ( ' A short time ago a young man, respectably connected, came to Liverpool, and obtained a situation as collector in a large establishment. One of the places of public amusement which he first visited was the f Salle de Dame;' it presented attractions which he could not resist, and his visits were frequent. One day he neglected to hand over to the cashier the amount which he had collected, and in the evening he met with 'a friend/ They entered a publichouse in a back street, and partook of brandy. He recollected nothing further until the middle of the night, when he found himself lying on a sofa in a dark room. He arose and got into the street, but in such a confused state that he could not find after- wards the house he had left, and thus he reeled home. In the morning he found all his money had been taken ll/. of his own and about 14/. belong- ing to his employers. Whilst in great distress of mind consequent upon his loss, he met another 1 friend/ a man who could ' put him in for a good thing/ The turf was shown to be the best and only means of restoring his shattered fortune ; for not only could the amount lost be won, but end- less sums in addition, by the purchase of a ' tip/ which would only cost 21. Unfortunately, the 194 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. advice of this ' friend' was acted on, and the young man took his employer's money to pay for ( the tip/ by which he expected and was assured to win 24(V. The event came off ' crabs/ and instead of winning anything he lost 40Z. Again he had recourse to his employer's money to enable him to maintain his position and ( get round/ but he had gone too far. He is now an inmate of the Borough Gaol."* There is no telling to what fearful lengths in crime the infatuated gamester may be hurried. This vice particularly has a tendency to paralyze the heart against all feeling, and to stifle all com- punctions of conscience, of which the case of the murderer Palmer is a horrible and melancholy example. The " Betting Houses Bill/' introduced by the Attorney- General during the parliamentary session of 1853, and which received the royal assent on the 24th July of the same year, has remedied pre- vious legislative blundering with reference to betting-houses, etc., redeemed the character of English law, and proved of vast national benefit. Although the new Act has not been able wholly to suppress such alluring places, or prevent the vices and crimes to which they infallibly lead, indeed this could scarcely have been expected, * Liverpool Life, its Pleasures, Practices, &c., pp. 35-6. GAMING AND BETTING PRACTICES. 195 nevertheless during the period of its operation the best effects have followed. In London alone there were 109 betting-offices open previous to the passing of this measure, but the entire were closed almost immediately after. Practices,, however, which have been heretofore openly carried on are forced into obscurity at least, and the habitues of the "turf" and the fashionable " hells" of St. James's, with bullet- proof doors and strong iron transverse bars, have been ousted from their favourite resorts, and are driven into public-houses or private dwellings, so as to conceal, if possible, their illegal and horri- ble propensities, and shelter themselves from the power of the law. Here, as before, the merchant has his haunt, the merchant's clerk another, while the less assuming apprentice is not without his suitable resort. Here, also, the game of " win or lose " is desperately engaged in ; an insatiable appetite for gaining money by a throw of the dice or a dexterous shuffle of the cards is engen- dered ; and to supply the lust for gain and keep up the mischievous excitement no means are ne- glected which hold out a possibility of obtaining funds. The merchant sacrifices his property or victimizes a friend ; the clerk abstracts money from his employer's cash-box, or appropriates that with which he is intrusted ; while the apprentice robs his master. The vice of gambling is indeed 196 JUVENILE CRIMEA ITS CAUSES. one of the most crying, obnoxious, and indestruc- tible evils which afflict and pester society. Un- fortunately there are few whose memories will not furnish them with unhappy examples enough of the diabolical workings of this abominable vice, without going to the police reports for infor- mation. The additional facilities given to the police since the passing of the recent measure, and the legal powers with which they are in consequence armed, have caused numerous apprehensions in the metropolis especially. For instance, during the year 1855, as many as 422 persons were appre- hended on the charge of gambling, of whom 214 were either summarily convicted or held to bail. Of these offenders 47 were above ten and under fifteen, and 133 above fifteen and under twenty years of age. In 1856 the number taken into custody, for the same offence, was 603, of whom 294 were either summarily convicted or held to bail. The extreme juvenility of a large proportion of these delinquents is likewise apparent, 57 being between ten and under fifteen, and 201 between fifteen and twenty years old.* In Liverpool the vice of gambling, judging from the police returns, seems to be greatly on the de- * Criminal Returns of the Metropolitan Police for 1855-6. GAMING AND BETTING PRACTICES. 197 cline ; for while, during 1854, 339 persons were apprehended for the offence, only 100 were arrested on this charge in 1855, and but 41 during the first nine months of 1856. Of these of- fenders, 17 were children under ten years old ; 25 from ten to twelve; 94 from twelve to fifteen; 111 from fifteen to eighteen, and 52 from eighteen to twenty-one. Of the 41 delinquents, 12 were from twelve to fifteen, 19 from fifteen to eighteen, and 6 from eighteen to twenty-one ; thus showing how very early the youth of our populous towns become initiated and adepts in vice.* "Tis strange, but true, for truth is always strange Stranger than fiction." Much will rest with the magistrates of our po- lice-courts in giving effect to the spirit and letter of the statute for the suppression of gaming. The late Lord Mayor, however, has set a praiseworthy example, which may be advantageously followed by other magisterial functionaries. In alluding, some time ago, to the case of a man named Merry, a betting-house keeper, who had unsuccessfully ap- pealed to a superior court against a sentence passed upon him at the Mansion House, his lordship, addressing the chief clerk from the bench, thus observed : " I think it right to state here, * From Liverpool Police Eeports for 1854-5-6. 198 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. that the sentence of imprisonment which I re- cently passed upon Merry for keeping a betting- house,, and against which he appealed, was yester- day confirmed by the Central Criminal Court, and I hope this will have the effect of putting an end to the betting-house system, by acting as a warn- ing to others ; for it should be known that in every case of the kind which may come before me, I am determined to deal with the offence by imprison- ment, and not by fine. The effects of the system are pernicious in the extreme, and demand a prompt and effectual remedy. Only yesterday we had a case here of a clerk embezzling the money of his employer, owing to the betting transactions of which these illegal houses are the scene, and I am fully persuaded that a large proportion of the embezzlements which come before me are owing to the same cause. I think it my duty, therefore, to endeavour to put down such a nefarious system with a strong hand, so as to save young men, as much as possible, from an exposure to such tempt- ations." * Notwithstanding the existence of a rigorous legislative enactment, gambling practices are in- dulged in, by certain classes of the community, to a considerable extent, and licensed houses are mostly the places where such disreputable and * Times, July 11, 1857, GAMING AND BETTING PRACTICES. 199 illegal proceedings are carried on. From the low beer-shop the haunt of the common thief up to the apparently respectable and well-conducted public-house, this iniquitous proceeding is either openly permitted or connived at. I once en- tered a house of this description, where in one apartment I was shown a bevy of thieves, and in another a number of decent tradesmen engaged at the card and dice table ; and what is more re- markable still, not a single robbery had been per- petrated on any party frequenting this establish- ment, even when overpowered and rendered insen- sible by drink at least, so I was informed by a detective officer. " The common proverb, ' there is honour among thieves/ as far as I can judge," says the Ordinary of Newgate, " is, generally, not true. I know of no class among whom there is so much treachery, heartlessness, and utter want of sympathy as among those abandoned and pro- fligate persons." * But the fact above stated is not in harmony with this theory; besides, we know that, even among the wild and lawless Arabs, some principles of honour and integrity prevail.f * Newgate Keport for 1852. f Arabs, Bedmvee, or Bedouin. Their sense of right and wrong is not founded on the Decalogue, as may be well imagined ; yet from such principles as they profess they rarely swerve. Though they will freely risk their lives to 200 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. As to the prevalence of gambling in licensed houses, I am fortified by the writer of Liverpool Life, who states that ( ' these are well known to be numerous. The police can point them out by scores. We know one house a beer-house where card-playing is regularly carried on, and men are induced, week after week, to lose much time and all their wages, and bring destitution upon their families in consequence. Their chil- dren, in search of food, are driven upon the streets, meet with temptations which they cannot resist, are led into crime, and go to swell the number of juvenile delinquents. Cases have come tinder our observation, have been inquired into, and the source of the depravity is the card- playing beer-house. Magistrates may enlarge gaols, and continue to build reformatories; all these and more will be required if such infamous houses are allowed thus to deal around social and steal, they will never contravene the wild rule of the desert. If a wayfarer's camel sinks and dies beneath its burden, the owner draws a circle round the animal in the sand, and follows the caravan. No Arab will presume to touch that lading, however tempting. Dr. Robinson mentions that he saw a tent hanging from a tree near Mount Sinai, which his Arabs said had then been there a twelvemonth, and never would be touched until its owner returned in search of it. The Crescent and the Cross, by Eliot War- burton. GAMING AND BETTING PRACTICES. 201 moral destruction. Under the plea of playing for a Christmas goose, we know of one man who lost seven pounds in a beer-house on a Sunday morning ; and there is not a Sunday passes that pounds are not lost and spent in this filthy resort. It is said that men who are fond of such unhealthy excitement, and are so far depraved, would be sure to indulge in it whether these houses were in exist- ence or not. But how do they become fond of excitement what has had most to do with con- firming and gratifying a vicious and depraved taste? The licensed houses. Listen to a voice from the gaol : ' I began going with some lads to a drinking-shop. These lads began playing at dominoes and cards, and I learned, and the man who kept the house put us in a little place by our- selves, so that we could fasten the door if the police came/ We have witnessed during the past few months similar scenes to those described by this convict rooms set apart for boys and young men to play cards; and this is knowingly per- mitted !* Such revelations, however, are not to be won- dered at. No people can be made virtuous by Act of Parliament. The police and legal autho- rities may do much, when thus supported, to arrest * Liverpool Life, its Pleasures, Practices, &c., pp. 53-4. 202 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. the vicious courses of latitant, convivial, innocent- looking fashionables, and others of a lower social grade, who shrink from becoming amenable to justice, and who secretly pursue vicious and cri- minal practices ; but, after all, it is to the influence of public opinion alone we must look to curb such nefarious propensities effectually. There are other places which, although they do not strictly come under the appellation of gaming or betting houses, are not one whit less demora- lizing or pernicious. Of this class are houses in obscure and criminal neighbourhoods, kept by parties who traffic in pigeons. Here upon every successive Saturday night may be seen rooms literally crammed with boys, many of them notori- ous pickpockets, risking their pence in the " wheel of fortune," that they may become the lucky winners of the feathery prize. Bad associations are thus formed, and I am assured by an old police detective that lads frequently perpetrate petty thefts in order to obtain money to risk in this way. So they go on from one felonious act to another, till they are finally apprehended and imprisoned; after which, nothing daunted, they again pursue the same course, which leads them to prison again. Birmingham especially abounds in these pestilent places, and they are all situated in the vilest and most vicious localities. Surely, the DEMORALIZING PUBLICATIONS. 203 local authorities might do something towards remedying, if not abating, this nuisance. The police apparently have no power to interfere, no more than they can touch the midnight marauder, with whose predatory character they are well ac- quainted, who lurks about for the first victim that may chance to fall in his way. A further cause of juvenile delinquency arises from demoralizing publications, the number of which, from the immense circulation they obtain, it is difficult to compute. One thing is certain, that they are fraught with great evil to the com- munity. Under this head may particularly be mentioned the lives of notorious robbers and highwaymen, such as Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin, etc., who have been apotheosized by their injudicious biographers, and ridiculously elevated to the rank of heroes ! Such productions are read with avidity, even by those who peruse nothing else, and consequently cannot fail to prove highly preju- dicial to morals. The young and ardent mind is naturally prone to take pleasure in works of an exciting character ; and the daring exploits, rash adventures, and "hair-breadth 'scapes " recorded of these malefactors, not only gratify the fancies and excite the imagination of youth, but create a sympathy with them, if not a desire to imitate their 204 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. actions.* Hence we find that many of our juve- nile criminals possess little or no education beyond that of being able to read, or being otherwise familiar with those disreputable and demoralizing memoirs. Mr. Clay bears testimony to this fact, for while he speaks of the general ignorance of criminal offenders, he admits that " of prisoners committed for trial (in 1852), 215 out of 271 are, on the other hand, well instructed in the stories of Turpin and Sheppard ! Having made more constant inquiry into this subject, I have found, to an extent which I was altogether unprepared for, even by the results of former inquiries, that almost all the younger offenders, and a consider- able portion of the adults, regard Turpin as a benefactor to the poor ! For their sakes he plun- dered the rich ; and considering ' how much good he did to the poor/ it was by no means ' a right thing to hang him !' "f But the youth of the lower classes of this country are not peculiar in their mental tastes and * Eepeated cases have occurred of late years, in which young house-breakers have avowed that they were led to adopt their course of crime by the perusal of Jack Sheppard, written by a talented but injudicious modern author. Social Evils, &c., by Alexander Thomson, of Banchory, p. 35. f Chaplain's Keport on the Preston House of Correction for 1852. DEMORALIZING PUBLICATIONS. 205 cravings. Of course, even moderately instructed and disciplined minds will turn with disgust from such loathsome trash and vile melodramatic his- tory ; but with the less instructed the case is dif- ferent. Each loves and perhaps needs mental excitement ; but while the one class will seek for it in books of travel and shipwreck, in the Arabian Tales, and similar delightful and innocent fictions, the other class finds it only in the poisonous productions to which I have referred, when, as must naturally be expected, the direst consequences ensue. Mr. Hilliard, alluding to the passion for such dangerous writings among the lower orders of Rome, says : " No books are more eagerly de- voured by the people of Rome and its neigh- bourhood than stories of bandits, outlaws, and robbers. Indeed, the general heart of mankind seems to keep a corner of sympathy for offenders of this class, partly from admiration of their courage, and partly because they are supposed to spare the poor and strip the rich. These books, in general, have little invention or literary merit of any kind ; nor are they relieved by that vein of humour which runs through the exploits of the English Robin Hood. They are, for the most part, made up of horrors and atrocities ; teaching by inference the mischievous doctrine, that a life of crime and violence may be expiated by certain 206 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. formal acts of devotion, especially if crowned by a death-bed repentance."* There is another class of publications, which, although they have not a positively criminal ten- dency, yet greatly weaken public virtue and pri- vate morals, by encouraging and exciting vicious propensities. Cheap and trashy hebdomadal lite- rature, replete with the loosest sentiments, dressed up and cloaked in gaudy verbiage, assuming the form of a novel or a tale, flows unabatedly from the press, and penetrates into every town and hamlet of the empire, where it becomes greedily devoured by tens, nay, hundreds of thousands of admiring readers. A taste having once been formed for, and the mind once addicted to, this vile and vapid stuff, books of a healthy character can never be relished, even should they be pe- rused, which is very seldom the case. Sometimes, indeed, may be found in the same number where the foulest immoralities are exhibited and extolled, a diatribe on morals sadly out of place to be sure, and forcibly reminding one of the saying of Antonio : " An evil soul producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek ; A goodly apple, rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath ! "f * Six Months in Italy, vol. ii. pp. 182-3. t Merchant of Venice, Act i. sc. iii. DEMORALIZING PUBLICATIONS. 207 This description of writings, from the flimsy veil they fling over, and the alluring tints with which they paint vice, become far more dangerous and demoralizing than others of a professedly pro- fligate character. The latter, after all, are confined to a comparatively small portion of the commu- nity, and generally to the most debased and wicked, while the former are extensively circula- ted, and fall into the hands of the innocent and unsuspecting. Propriety and decency alone are powerful preservatives against the one ; but there exist no such antidotes to the other. "A bad example," to quote the words of the celebrated Bishop Porteus, "though it operates fatally, operates comparatively within a small circumfer- ence. It extends only to those who are near enough to observe it, and fall within the reach of the poisonous infection that spreads around it; but the contagion of a licentious publication, especially if it be (as it too frequently is) in a popular and captivating shape, knows no bounds. It flies to the remotest corners of the earth ; it penetrates the obscure and retired habitations of simplicity and innocence ; it makes its way into the cottage of the peasant, into the hut of the shepherd, and the shop of the mechanic ; it falls into the hands of all ages, ranks, and conditions, but it is peculiarly fatal to the unsuspecting and unguarded minds of the youth of both sexes, and 208 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. to them its breath is poison, and its touch is death/" But there are a class of publishers and vendors who pander to the grossest and most corrupt tastes, by issuing alleged biographies of notorious women of disrepute, spurious physiological trea- tises, penny numbers of letter-press obscenely illustrated,f immodest and highly-coloured prints and photographs, numbers of which are imported from France. Although establishments for the sale of such disgusting merchandize are scattered over the metropolis, they are chiefly confined to Holy well and Wych Streets. At one time, as many as fifty-seven of these shops were open simultaneously; but I am happy to find, that through the efforts of the Society for the Sup- pression of Vice, and it is to be hoped other moral, though less coercive agencies, the number has been reduced to eighteen or twenty.J The majority of these shops, however, deal only * Lectures, vol. ii. p. 82. f A few publications of this kind, such as the Women of London, etc., issuing fifteen thousand copies a week, and which were made the vehicle of licentious anecdotes, tales, trials involving scandalous details, and other matters of the most obscene and offensive nature, have been very properly suppressed. It is to be regretted that Paul Pry did not sooner share a similar fate. \ The trade is increasing in the provinces, although de- creasing in the. metropolis. DEMORALIZING PUBLICATIONS. 209 in sealed packets and publications, sold under specious flashy titles, which, when purchased, are found to contain merely some stray leaves of an old book, or simply blocks of wood, shaped so as to represent a duodecimo volume. Although the imposition is glaring, for the sake of morality one is not inclined to regret it. Fast men about town, dissipated dandies, and viciously-inclined young country squires, who seek to regale their prurient imaginations, and feed their fiery passions, most decidedly deserve to be " done" in this manner. Of course, no compensation can be lawfully de- manded ; for both the vendor and the purchaser commit an illegal act. Numerous itinerant hawkers, chiefly unprinci- pled, ill-charactered refugees, are employed, who roam the country, attending markets, fairs, race- courses, and even the universities, and not un- frequently, by false representations, getting access to private houses and public boarding-schools, where they succeed in disposing of their abomi- nable wares.* Even female agents are employed in the disgusting traffic. Considerable mischief is effected in this way, and many young minds, of both sexes, are polluted before the seeds of virtue * At Derby, the pupils attending a large grammar-school were intercepted on their way to and from school by a mis- creant of this class. MS. Report of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for .1856. P 210 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. therein sown have had time to take root or germi- nate. A wise and elegant ancient writer observes, "that to instruct youth well is to perform the most essential service to the State." Assuredly, then, the most flagitious and dangerous enemies of society are the corrupt ors of youthful morals. Such wretches I will not call them men should be avoided just as one would shun the bite of a deadly serpent. Some idea of the stock-in-trade of those dis- reputable publishers and vendors may be formed from the following statistics : Lord Campbell, when lately moving the third reading of the " Sale of Obscene Books' Prevention Bill/' read to the House a letter from Mr. Pritchard, Secre- tary to the Society for the Prevention of Vice, wherein it was stated, that "in the year 1845, from one dealer, who was permitted by the Central Criminal Court to retract his plea of ' Not Guilty,' and plead f Guilty/ were taken no less than 12,346 prints, 393 books, 351 copper-plates, 88 litho- graphic stones, and 33^ cwt. of letter-press ; and from another in the same year 15,000 prints, 162 books, 1 cwt. of letter-press, 96 copper-plates, 21 lithographic stones, and 1141bs. of stereotype; and yet, within two years after, both of these men had again accumulated large stocks." * * Times, July 14, 1857. DEMORALIZING PUBLICATIONS. 211 The number of prosecutions instituted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice during the past fifty-five years of its existence, has been 159, averaging nearly 3 a year. The following list comprises the amount of seizures and the destruc- tion of stock legally effected thereby for the past eighteen years : 126,230 obscene prints and pictures ; 16,073 books, mostly filled with obscene engravings, and upwards of 5 tons of letter-press, in sheets, or ready to be made up into volumes ; large quantities of blasphemous publications; 4,644 sheets of obscene songs ; 5,399 cards, snuff- boxes, and other articles ; 844 copper-plates ; 424 lithographic stones; 95 wood blocks, engraved; 11 printing presses, with all the apparatus for printing; and above 28 cwt. of type, including the stereotype of several entire works, of the gross- ness and impurity of which it would be impossible to convey any adequate idea.* Justly as this horrible traffic is to be deprecated, and ardently as its extinction is to be desired, I could not but regard the Bill introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Campbell as impolitic and unnecessary. The police had previously been armed with too much authority, which the pro- visions of this Bill, even in its modified state, most materially enhance, while the liberty of the * From the unpublished Report of the Society for 1856. 212 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. subject and individual privacy are liable thereby to be subjected to an espionage common and insufferable enough in despotic countries, but decidedly inimical to the feelings and prejudicial to the interests of Englishmen.* Notwithstanding that this semi-inquisitorial measure has been hurried through Parliament and received the royal assent, it is gratifying to find that so far it has not led to any intolerable display of authority or to needlessly vexatious prosecutions, although in the carrying out of its provisions it is con- fessedly difficult to guard against an abuse of power and an undue interference in the affairs * The leading clauses of the original Bill ? previous to its modifications in Committee, were as follow : " 1. It shall he lawful for any justice of the peace, upon complaint made before him upon oath that there is rea- son to suspect that any obscene books, papers, writings, prints, pictures, drawings, or other representations, or any other obscene matters or things, are kept in any house, shop, room, or other place, for the purpose of sale or distri- bution, exhibition, lending upon hire, or being otherwise uttered or published, or for any other similar purpose, or in contemplation of the purposes aforesaid, or any of them, to give authority, by special warrant, to any constable or police officer, into such house, shop, room, or other place to enter, with such assistance as may be necessary, and, if necessary, to use force by breaking open doors or otherwise, and to search for and seize all such books, papers, writings, prints, pictures, drawings, or other representations, matters, or things, as aforesaid, found in such house, shop, room, or other place. DEMORALIZING PUBLICATIONS. 213 of private life ? Who is to define what obscenity is, and what it is not? And to what infallible tribunal is the appellant to refer, who smarts under a grievance to which, perhaps, he has been unjustly subjected? Some of the finest classic authors, nay, the noblest productions of human genius, are not free from occasional indelicacies of expression. Is Parliament, therefore, justified in instituting an English inquisition ; and are we to have a Protestant Index Expurgatorius ? In Ame- rica there exists a law against obscene publications ; but, strange to say, one of the books condemned by it to confiscation and destruction is the Museo Borbonico Napolitano ; a work to be found in the "2. If any superintendent belonging to the Metropolitan Police Force shall report, in writing, to the Commissioners of Police of the Metropolis, that there are good grounds for believing, and that he does believe, that any obscene books, papers, writings, prints, pictures, drawings, or other representations, or any other obscene matters or things, are kept, for the purposes aforesaid, or any of them, in any house, shop, room, or other place within the Metropolitan Police District, it shall be lawful for either of the said com- missioners, by order in writing, to aiithorize the superin- tendent to enter any such house, shop, room, or other place* with such constables as shall be directed by the said com- missioner to accompany him, and, if necessary, to use force, by breaking open doors or otherwise, and to search for, and seize all such books, papers, writings, prints, pictures, drawings, or other representations, matters, and things as aforesaid found in such house, shop, room, or other place." 214 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CAUSES. library of the House of Commons, and far less objectionable than the writings of many popular English authors, against which little fault is found. Why, even Lord Campbell's biographical works are not entirely unexceptionable ; and it was pub- licly intimated in the House that, in the event of his lordship's bill becoming law, those literary pro- ductions might and would be made the subject of criminal prosecutions. Greater difficulty still exists in deciding as to what sort of pictures, paintings, and statuettes are obscene, and what are chaste. The illiterate and unartistic tradesman, elevated to civic dignity, may fancy a beautiful and meritorious work of art to be a most licentious and indecorous picture, and order its destruction accordingly, and all through sheer ignorance, and possibly the predo- minance of animal emotions in the judge or in- former, for " All things seem yellow to a jaundiced eye." It was only the other day that I was invited to view a magnificent painting alleged to be by Titian. The subject was the "Sleeping Venus" a work of art which, it is said, escaped the con- flagration of the Palace of the Pardo, and was presented by Philip IV. to King Charles I. when Prince of Wales, on his visiting Spain. Under the new Act, what guarantee is there that such a masterpiece of excellence may not be forcibly DEMORALIZING PUBLICATIONS. 215 removed and destroyed at the requisition of some cynical or captious person, to the irreparable loss of art, and the injury of a private individual? Our great dramatist tells us that we may find " Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything." And the glorious old Book declares that " to the pure all things are pure." There are a class of persons, however, who seem to find nothing but evil in everything. Why, the " Greek Slave," at the Hyde Park Exhibition, has been highly cen- sured as an indelicate production; whilst the Ordinary of Newgate attributes the origin and idea of garotte robberies in this country to cer- tain models exhibited in the British Museum. He observes : " I have often thought, and still think, that the origin of garotte robberies took place from the exhibition of the way the Thugs in India strangle and plunder passengers, as exhi- bited in the British Museum. However valuable as illustrations of Indian manners such represen- tations may be, I could heartily wish that these models were placed in some more obscure position, and cease to be that which I fear they have been, the means of giving to men addicted to crime and violence, an idea how their evil purposes may be accomplished." * * Newgate Report for 1856. 216 JUVENILE CEIME; ITS CAUSES. Although equally anxious with Lord Campbell " that the time would soon arrive when Holywell- street would become the abode of honest, indus- trious handicraftsmen, and a thoroughfare through which any modest woman might pass/'* I cannot agree with the modus operandi by which so desir- able an object is sought to be effected. To " do evil that good may come," is a principle of Jesuitism, unworthy of the British Senate. I believe with Mr. Roebuck, "that by depending upon the honesty and manly feeling of the people, the legislature would do more than could be accomplished by a thousand inquisitorial and des- potic Acts of Parliament." * Speech in the House of Lords on the third reading of " Sale of Ohscene Books, &c., Prevention Bill." Times, July 14, 1857. CHAPTER VII. WORKHOUSES AND PRISONS. " I can easily credit the assertion of the Government Inspectors of Prisons, that it is from the mass of pauper children that the convicts who fill our gaols are in a great measure recruited." E. CARLETON TUFNELL, one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Parochial Union Schools. " It is not possible to convey to the mind any adequate idea of the extent of corruption in moral feeling and cha- racter, and of the completeness of the education in crime, which go on in the common gaols of the country, especially before trial, when the legal presumption of innocence pre- vents the application of discipline." Rev. JOSEPH KINGS- MILL, M.A., Chaplain of Pentonville Prison. IT is a somewhat remarkable anomaly that our parochial and penal systems should possess exactly opposite tendencies to those for which they were designed ; so that instead of mitigating they have but actually augmented those chronic social dis- orders they were framed to remedy. In fact, the workhouses tend to throng the gaols, and the gaols to replenish themselves. But legislators. 218 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. like other people, are not infallible ; and as we have no Solomons nor Solons among us, we have to gain wisdom by the ordinary but painful routine of experience, and frame new legislative measures according as we grow wiser and better. The pernicious and vicious effects of workhouse association and training upon juvenile paupers cannot well be overrated. Possessed generally of low organizations, flaccid and effete, with little individuality of character and no aspiring senti- ments, these children need for their healthy growth and development an entirely different moral atmosphere and intellectual and physical training to those furnished by union workhouses, or pauper bastiles. If it were intended to make pauperism ineradicable and crime more rampant, no better method could be devised than that now in operation in the 624 unions in England and Wales. Her Majesty's Inspectors of parochial union schools, and indeed all who have written on the subject of workhouses, are unanimous in denounc- ing the system in operation therein as highly demoralizing to the younger portion of their inmates ; and although classification of some sort has in several instances been attempted, yet it has proved either impossible to effect at all, or to preserve it strictly. Mr. Carleton Tufnell, in one of his reports, inserts a letter addressed to him WORKHOUSES. 219 by an intelligent workhouse teacher, with reference to one of the ordinary workhouses of the south of England, but whose internal arrangements no way differ from the usual character of such places. The writer remarks: "It is not indeed to be expected that the people, experiencing much the same treatment, sharing a common feeling, and living under the same roof, can be kept from asso- ciation. There are various ways of communica- tion ; a note, a word, a sign, may breed no small amount of mischief. At any rate, I find that the children know exactly what takes place in every part of the house ; they even know much of what goes on without the establishment. They know that if this able-bodied man discharges himself on Monday, that able-bodied woman leaves the house on Tuesday. They know which of the able-bodied women will be removed from the wash- house to the lying-in room ; they also know who of the able-bodied are in prison, who are out of work, and when this or that man will most likely return, as it were, home. The opinions of the adults appear to spread through the house, and to be as catching as the fever or the small-pox. The able-bodied men have said that the workhouse is worse than a prison ; that they do not wish to screen the parish, and that they do not intend to cross the seas until they are sent, meaning until they are transported. How, then, is it possible 220 JUVENILE CRIME J ITS CAUSES. in workhouses to train children to hate disgrace, to grow self-reliant, and to look forward to emi- gration? A boy in my school was asked some time ago what a prison was. Without hesitation he replied, ' A place where you have to work ' as if the world were not a place where he would have to work. He seems to have got this notion of a prison from the able-bodied men, who, as a matter of course, grumble when set to work."* Of a similar character is the language of Mr. Bowyer, who observes, in speaking of workhouse children "It is impossible for those who have not turned their attention to the condition of the youthful portion of that social class to which the children brought up in workhouses belong, to realize fully the depths of degradation to which, when abandoned to the evil influences that sur- round them, they are capable of falling." And again, in the same report he remarks : " In several workhouses, facts have spontaneously come to light, which reveal a lamentably low state of morals among the children, and suggest a reflec- tion as to the amount of corruption that must exist which is never discovered. In every one of these instances, the cause of the evil was clearly traceable to the influence of the adult inmates, and, * Minutes of Parochial Union Schools, 1852-3, pp. 52-3. WORKHOUSES. 221 I regret to be obliged to add, to that of low and immoral teachers."* Mr. T. B. Browne offers correlative testi- mony. He states that " there are many work- houses in which classification is impossible, which are, therefore, necessarily schools of vice, and which, as I conceive, the legislature would not suffer to continue open year after year, if all that occurs in them were publicly known."f It needs no very great stretch of imagination to conceive the evil consequences which of necessity result to juvenile paupers from the associations and influences inseparable from the workhouse system. Adult paupers, as a class, are notoriously the offscourings of society; many of them pass their lives between the gaol and the union ; most of them are drunken, besotted, idle, dissolute, and degraded in body and soul. From the congrega- tion of such foul and festering elements, how can children mentally weak, ill- developed, and strongly predisposed to like disorders, escape the moral contagion arising therefrom ? The thing is abso- lutely impossible. Hence, they but too frequently 'manifest a disposition to follow the vicious courses of their fathers; and if positive tendencies to * Minutes of Parochial Schools, 1852-3, pp. 52-3. f Minutes, &c., 1855-6. Northern District Par. Union Schools. General Report, p. 104. 222 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. crime be not generally observed in them, this cir- cumstance is owing more to their being immured within the walls of a workhouse, where the facili- ties for depredation are not numerous, and where, consequently, their criminal propensities have little room to play. Pauper children, however, have been known to practise thefts even here, for seve- ral years together, before their delinquencies had not only been discovered, but suspected. "It appears," says one workhouse teacher, speaking of his scholars, " that the boys had for years formed habits of lying, stealing, and destroying property, and that their morals were not merely neglected, but actually corrupted by those who should have fitted them for virtuous and respectable living. I have now under my care some of the boys who carried on a system of burglary for three years, undetected, and who were in the habit of using the vilest language imaginable to their teacher, when reprimanded by him."* The defective or vicious intellectual, and useless or perverse physical training, given to pauper chil- dren, in the generality of workhouse schools, greatly facilitate their demoralization and ultimate crimi- nality. Pauper children are remarkable for their extreme ignorance, viciousness, stupidity, stub- * Quoted by Mr. Carleton Tufnell in his General Report for 1852. WORKHOUSES. 2.23 bornness, and want of animation, when they are not brutified morally and intellectually. This is in a great measure attributable to their physical or- ganization, but not the less owing to the low mediocre or immoral individuals elevated to the rank of instructors by Poor-law guardians. There is, manifestly, considerable difficulty in obtaining, or retaining if obtained, the services of efficient and respectable teachers for workhouse schools. The desagrements are peculiarly mortify- ing. The office, to which little honour is attached at the best, shares the disrepute of the locality in which the workhouse is placed. Besides, the con- trol exercised over the teacher by the governor, who directs and subjects the whole staff, is no easy matter to be borne. In Professor Moseley's Report on Kneller Hall, in 1855, distressing details are quoted from remarks by the Rev. F. Temple, the late Principal of that institution, embodying extracts from several schoolmasters trained therein.* "When I had been here two weeks/' writes one workhouse schoolmaster, " the * Kneller Hall Training College was founded principally with the view of supplying efficient teachers for workhouse schools. Hence the students were hound by a pledge to serve in these places for seven years. This stringent ar- rangement, however, shortly effected the failure of the institution, notwithstanding that superior pecuniary advan- tages were held out to attract the hetter class of students. 224 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CAUSES. governor complained of the dirty condition of the boys' sleeping-rooms and washhouse. I apolo- gized to him, and told him that it was through ignorance of my duty, not from lack of will, that it had been neglected. I promised him nothing of the kind should occur again. Since then, I have taken mop and broom and done that part of the work myself which the lads could not do." Another master writes : " Having found that the able-bodied class of paupers sprang from the school, that many of the boys had been impri- soned, and some transported, I urged the necessity of finding places for the deserving boys. The chair- man, in consequence, is about to get the Board to pledge themselves to put at least four boys in a situation every year. It appears now that my aim has been to injure myself."* " The governor," says another, " wants me to take my turn with the porter and baker in taking charge of the front door." Another writes : " The matron expects me to teach the boys bed-making and scrubbing, and to assist them in these operations." " I have * The injury complained of arises from the fact, that besides the small fixed salary of 30Z., the master receives, provided he possesses a certificate of efficiency, 10s. a head on the average daily attendance for the year. Should he be diligent and fit the boys for service, as is his duty, he but inflicts a severe pecuniary loss on himself. Why should the governor's salary be fixed, and that of the schoolmaster, the more important office of the two, be liable to such fluc- tuations ? WORKHOUSES. 225 to attend all the meals," observes another, " and really there was such an obnoxious smell from the breakfast this morning that it turned me quite sick; and it is the case with all the meals." But these are only a small portion of the objections recorded of the teachers trained in Kneller Hall College. Even Mr. Browne remarks in his recent report, that "the condition of teachers in union schools remains unchanged," which is of such a nature " as frequently to deter competent persons from accepting employment in any schools for pauper children. One school- mistress," he observes, " assured me, in the course of the past year, that the governor had called her a liar in the most insulting manner, and closed his fist in her face, which I take to be an assault in law. Respectable and well-educated persons cannot be expected to subject themselves to the risk of such treatment."* What is the natural result of all this ? Why, that perpetual changes of teachers are occurring, and that persons of inferior abilities and sometimes questionable morals are appointed, who not only are incapable of performing the duties they under- take, but frequently succeed in corrupting the charge committed to their care. Out of sixty- four schools belonging to unions in the western * Minutes, &c., 1856-7, p. 156. Q 226 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. district, 185 changes have been known to take place within the short period of four years, averag- ing three teachers to each school during that time ; while in the south-western district, from the 1st of January, 1855, to the 31st December, 1856, no less than 97 teachers have been changed ; viz., 47 masters and 50 mistresses.* Indeed, so great and growing is the aversion of qualified persons to accept the position and duties of workhouse teachers, that boards of guardians have advertized repeatedly without success, and in some cases have been obliged to re-appoint the very parties whom they had but just previously dismissed for incompetency or ill-conduct. Frequently the teachers are almost unacquainted with spelling, and know nothing of writing or arithmetic. Mr. Bowyer mentions the case of a man, a school- master by profession, who for some years had been in charge of a national school, but who now holds the appointment of master to a union school in the midland district, whose imperfect acquaintance with etymology may be ascertained from the answers afforded to the question : " Ex- plain the meaning and derivation of the following words : " Construction," "A person instructed." "Salubrity," ...... "Foul." " Antichrist," ( Not answered.) * Minutes, &c., 1856-7. Mr. J. Ruddock's General Report, p. 58. WORKHOUSES. 227 "Antecedent," "A noun." " Collateral," (Not answered.) " Innocuous," " Bitter." " Interpose," "To console." "It may appear as strange," remarks Mr. Bowyer, " that such simple questions should be put to a pro- fessed instructor of youth, as that they should have been so imperfectly answered. But I think that most of my colleagues will bear me out in saying that these and similar questions have proved a stumbling-block to not a few individuals of that class."* The following facts will speak for themselves as to the criminal remissness and symptomatic hostility of guardians to education. At Newcastle- upon-Tyne, where schools with a considerable extent of land attached to them have been lately erected, apart from the workhouse, at a cost of 12,000/., the schoolmistress has been selected from the relief list. Strange to say, that although there is now school accommodation for 500 chil- dren, only 150 are in attendance, a smaller number than were present in the old crowded school- rooms in 1855. At Tynemouth, where a large amount of money has been likewise expended for a similar purpose, the schoolmaster is a one-armed pauper. "If no money had been spent," observes the inspector, " no buildings erected in these two cases, the conduct of the * Minutes, &c., 1856-7, pp. 107-8. 228 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. guardians would have been intelligible. The ano- maly consists in their having spent a large sum of money, apparently without an object."* At Carl- ton, in Yorkshire, the children are likewise under the charge of a pauper. At Boston, in Lincoln- shire, an important school is intrusted to an inef- ficient person, formerly a lawyer's clerk. Many more instances of a like nature could be recorded, but those already enumerated must suffice. Under such circumstances, were there no other deterio- rating influences in operation, how can one be surprised at finding the educational and moral stan- dard of workhouse children so wofully low ? When such individuals are intrusted with the onerous and honourable duty of " rearing the tender thought," how can beneficial results be rationally expected ? Surely, those who confer upon block- heads, gate-porters, and paupers, the dignified position of teaching "the young idea," commit, not only an egregious mistake, but a positive moral wrong. Is it to be wondered at, I repeat, that the educational attainments of pauper chil- dren, in the majority of union schools, should be so considerably below mediocrity ? Few can read distinctly, or without spelling ; fewer still under- stand what they read ; and nearly all have been totally unaccustomed and untrained to think. At Pateley-bridge Union, in Yorkshire, none of the * Minutes, &c., 1856-7. Mr. Browne's Gen. Keport, p. 146. , WORKHOUSES. 229 children could tell, upon the inspector's last exami- nation, what country they lived in. At Reeth, in the same county, none of the workhouse children understood the Lord's Prayer, although one girl had been four years at school. At Hemsley Union, Westmoreland, none of the pauper children could say who Jesus Christ was.* In other cases, the Tyne was said to run into the Mediterranean ; butter to be made from buttermilk ; and shoes to be woven from wool, etc., etc. I merely instance these facts as specimens of the gross ignorance of pauper children instructed in union schools. One pauper teacher told the inspector, that " he never asked questions ;" a statement which the condition of his pupils left no room to doubt.f "When I am told," writes Mr. Jelinger Symons, "that the imperfect instruction I find in many of the schools under my inspection is good enough for pauper children, I am tempted to reply : ( Yes, if you wish them to be paupers all their lives, and to perpetuate pauperism. If, on the contrary, you desire to make these children independent labourers, and to lessen pauperism, the way, and the only way, is to teach them well and thoroughly how, both bodily and mentally, with hand and with head, to succeed in earning their own living ?'"* * Minutes, &c., 1856-7. Mr. J. B. Browne's Tabulated Reports, f Ibid. Report for 1852. I Minutes, &c., 1856-7. p. 181 230 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. The physical and industrial training usually afforded to workhouse children is of the most defective and injurious kind. Guardians, as a rule, take very impolitic and contracted views of their duty, and look more to petty economy than to freeing the pauper youth from the bonds and badges of pauperism, and thereby diminishing that and other curses of our civilization.* In order effectually to benefit and elevate this class, service- able hand-labour should be combined with suitable head-work. As the matter stands, however, boys, instead of being made hardy, active, and mus- cular, and taught to handle the tools of an ordinary labourer, or prepared for such manual occupations by which they may reasonably be expected to earn an independent livelihood either at home or in the colonies in after life, are chiefly cooped up in rooms, employed at such enervating and useless work as coarse tailoring, shoemaking, oakum- picking, hook-and-eye making, and even knitting ! for which ridiculous handicraft some guardians evince a strange predilection. -f " In a good many workhouses," writes Mr. Bowyer, " the shoes and clothing of the inmates have always been made in * That social condition of a people which has a tendency to prevent poverty exercises the same influence in checking crime. The Danes and the Swedes, by Chas. H. Scott, vol. i. p. 45. f The Ormskirk guardians appear to consider knitting, I even for the boys, paramount to all other considerations. Minutes, <&c,, 1856-7, p. 146. Mr. Browne's Eeport. j WOEKHOUSES. 231 the house, because it was considered cheaper to do so than to have them made by contract. The person charged with this duty is generally a work- man of very humble pretensions, who would, most probably, be an inmate but for that employ- ment ; and he is assisted by one or two crippled inmates, formerly of the same trade, and a few boys, to whom the easiest part of the work is assigned. In this workshop are made or repaired the coarse clothing and shoes of the inmates, but no article is attempted which would suit the ordi- nary customers of a tailor or shoemaker."* But even where field-work is brought into requisition, it is either so desultory in its nature or irregular in amount, that little practical benefit is effected thereby, so that it has been aptly designated " organized idleness." The consequence is, that when these children leave their respective unions, as most of them do while very young, they are entirely disqualified for industrial pursuits and unfitted for making their way in the world. Hence they readily lapse into crime. Speaking of one workhouse, a teacher writes : " I think the boys in this union will never be dispauperized ; they have to mix with the men, most of whom are ' gaol-birds/ I have found them talking to the boys about the gaol, and of ' bright fellows finding their way to the gaol/ " Another says, " I really * Minutes, &c., 1856-7, p. 104. 232 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. can do nothing of any good in this place; the guardians will not give any land to be cultivated, and the dull, deadening wool-picking goes on, and I have to sit sucking my fingers. What shall I do ? I cannot train the children. It appears to me to be absurd to tell these boys to be industrious, and to cultivate a proper spirit of independence, and then, after they have done schooling, to turn them adrift, with no chance whatever of being able to earn an honest living."* Pauper girls, in like manner, are not, and cannot be, trained in workhouses for agricultural or household ser- vants. The character of the dietary in such places affords little scope for initiation into the cuisine art, or even common kitchen work. Sewing, knitting, scouring, and washing are the branches of industry usually pursued; but the common practice of setting girls to clean wards and wash with pauper women is open to grave objections, and cannot be too strongly condemned, as it invariably results in contamination of morals. A washing apparatus has lately been introduced at Cheltenham, Stroud, Hereford, and a few other schools, for teaching the girls to wash and iron without intermixture with adult paupers. Other unions should adopt this arrangement. Many of the girls are likewise employed in nursing of * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, p. 99. Quoted in Mr. T. B. Browne's General Keport. WORKHOUSES. 233 infants, who thereby become associated with the mothers, generally a very degraded class. " Some boards/' remarks Mr. Jelinger Symons, ' ' oppose industrial training on the odd ground that they desire to get the boys out as fast as possible, though it is obvious to common sense that such training is the way to do it. At the Kington union, for example, the boys chiefly remain who have no such training, and the girls who have it seldom remain."* I very much fear, however, that there is too prevalent a disposition on the part of guardians to get children out of the house, and thus lighten the burden on the ratepayers, and that, in consequence, they are not particular where or with whom they place them. One guardian assured me that it was a common practice for parties to engage boys and girls as servants from parochial unions, as they get their services for nothing, and to send them adrift as soon as their clothes were worn out. The consequences of such atrocity and inhumanity are not difficult to imagine. The number of criminals annually furnished by means of workhouses and workhouse schools, is very considerable ; so much so, indeed, that Colonel Jebb, the Survey or- General of Prisons, complains of and bewails the fact. The system * Minutes, &c., 1855-6 ; Note to p. 135. 234 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CAUSES. usually adopted, instead of depauperizing the children, only qualifies them for the able-bodied men's yards and county prisons. In one union in the south of England a pauper counted 38 besides himself who had gone from the school to the able- bodied class. Of these 39, 2 were transported for ^ 10 years, 4 for 15 years, and 1 for 20 years. Twelve had been imprisoned, and only seven are doing pretty well, most of whom, however, are still permanently chargeable.* . The Rev. J. S. Brewer, for several years Chap- lain to St. Giles's Workhouse, thus speaks of his experience, and fully justifies the general impres- sion as to the evil tendency of such demoralizing institutions : ( e Turn, 5 ' he observes, ( ' to the police reports in our newspapers, or only watch for yourselves the boys and girls who join in the dis- orders of this metropolis and fill our prisons no longer prisons to them and you will see how im- perative it is that something should be done to rescue them. THEY ARE MAINLY THE PRODUCE OF THE WORKHOUSE AND THE WORKHOUSE SCHOOLS. Over them society has no hold, because society has cast them out from all that is humane. They have been taught to feel that they have nothing in common with their fellow-men. Their experience * Vide Minutes, &c., 1852-3, p. 52. Mr. C. Tufnell's Keport. WORKHOUSES. 235 is not of a home, or of parents, but of a work- house and a governor of a prison and a gaoler, as hard and rigid as either." * In order to counteract and combat hereditary pauperism and crime, an entirely different system must be pursued to that hitherto adopted. Children should not be permitted to inhale the pernicious atmosphere of the workhouse, and hold unreserved intercourse with the able-bodied pauper. In order that they might be thoroughly purged of pauperism and criminal tendencies, they need to be placed apart from evil associations in schools of a reformatory as well as an educational character, where their dormant faculties may be aroused, their moral nature acted upon, and where the de- basing and debilitating influence of the union may not counteract the good received. A course of sound intellectual and physical training would decimate pauperism and crime in a very few years, and go far towards their ultimate extinction. The stigma of being workhouse-bred is in itself a last- ing reproach. In after life, those who had never been in a union are less likely to have recourse thereto than others to whom it had, in early days, been familiar. There would be a wholesome re- luctance manifested in the one case to such a mode * Practical Lectures, &c., p. 303. Quoted in Mr. Thomp- son's interesting work on " Punishment and Prevention." 236 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. of relief, whilst only too great readiness would be evinced to return to it in the other. Under the present arrangement pauper children are indu- rated in ignorance, idleness, and vice. Thus are they prepared and disciplined for the criminal ranks. An attempt was made by the legislature to remedy the evils of workhouse association; and hence the Act of 7 & 8 Viet. c. 101, was framed in 1844, which provided for the formation of school districts and district pauper schools. Like subsequent legislative enactments, such as Sir Stafford Northcote's Bill, bearing upon the edu- cation of pauper children, this Act has also nearly proved a dead letter. As Mr. Symons observes, " it fails to establish the schools to which it pro- vides pauper children should be sent. It is precisely this cost of building which besets the threshold, and usually stops all efforts to establish district schools." * The consequence is, that, owing to the difficulty of obtaining the co-opera- tion of Poor-law guardians, only six district schools under that Act have been established in the whole of England. Respecting the inoperative character of this measure, Sir John Walsham states : " Nothing whatever has been done to- wards the establishment of district schools among * the unions under my superintendence ; and I con- * Minutes, &c., 1856-7, p. 183. WORKHOUSES. 237 sider that all attempts to induce the guardians of those unions to promote the formation of school districts will, as heretofore, be perfectly useless, so long as that formation depends exclusively on their consent, and so long as powers analogous to those vested in the Poor-law Commissioners, by the 4th and 5th Will. 4. c. 76, s. 26, for the organization of unions, are not available for the organization of school districts. I sincerely wish that those powers could be obtained from the le- gislature; for until the bulk of the children brought up in workhouse schools can be educated in separate establishments, and removed alto- gether from the debilitating influence of work- house associations, the reports of the ' stagnant dullness of workhouse education ' which annually proceed from Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools must continue to be more and more discourag- ing." * The London boards have set a noble example of almost profuse liberality to those of country districts, by the erection of schools for pauper children, at a cost of nearly 200,000/., to which not a single farthing of the public money has been contributed by government, thereby showing the willingness of the London population to submit to * Keport for 1855, addressed to the Poor-Law Board. 238 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. taxation for so desirable an object. At Stepney school, the same mode of training boys for sailors has been successfully adopted as that pursued in the celebrated Reformatory Institutions of Mettray and Ruysselede. The guardians, with a wise economy, have erected in the playground, at great expense, a properly-equipped ship, of large size, fully rigged, etc. Those boys designed for a seafaring life are made to sleep in hammocks, and are instructed in nautical duties by a qualified master. Of 229 boys who have been sent to ser- vice during the years 1851-5, 183 have gone to sea; forty-six are employed in land service, and doing well; four are returned to the establish- ment ; three are in the workhouse (one through accident) ; four have died -, and two are in refor- matories, having committed crime. Considering that these boys came from the worst districts of London, in a state of almost inconceivable igno- rance, it tells well for the discipline of the school, that less than one per cent, should have been convicted of crime, which, it is important to state, was mainly owing to vicious parents, who pawned their children's outfit as they were about to proceed to sea, and induced them to desert. In order to exhibit the raw mass of material upon which the educator has to work, and the alarm- ingly low mental condition of pauper children, WOEKHOUSES. 239 I subjoin a tabulated statement from Mr. Carleton TufnelPs Report for 1856.* Owing to deficien- cies of registry, the girls of Stepney are set down for only half the year, while those of St. George's- in-the-East are altogether omitted. TABLE showing, out of 2,062 children, not infants, admit- ted into the eight largest pauper schools of London, during the year 1856, the numbers respectively who could not read, who could read a little, and read fairly. Name of School. Could not read. Could read a little. Could read fairly. Total. Boys. Girls. Boys. Girls. Boys. Girls. Central London District School . 156 71 48 47 8 335 North Surrey Dis- trict School . . 86 23 30 6 9 18 172 South Metropolitan District School . 147 84 62 27 49 11 380 St. George's-in-the- East .... 87 __ 36 16 139 Whitechapel . ; 121 90 23 18 7 2 261 Shoreditch, St. Leo- nard's .... 54 32 20 14 2 3 125 Lambeth .... 110 105 37 75 46 17 390 Stepney .... 132 60 16 20 17 15 260 Total . . 893 465 272 207 154 71 2,062 ^i^SF ~~479 225 Thus it appears, that out of 2,062 children, * Minutes, &c., 1856-7, p. 36. 240 JUVENILE CEIMBj ITS CAUSES. 1358, or sixty-five per cent., were totally ignorant ; 479, or twenty-three per cent., could read imper- fectly ; and only 225, or ten per cent., were suffi- ciently instructed to read fairly. The total num- ber of children present in the sixteen union schools of the metropolis on the 1st of January, 1856, was 5,829. As the pauper children form but a very insignificant proportion of the destitute and dangerous juveniles of London, there is a ponder- ous mass of ignorance reeking in the very heart of the greatest city in the world, which comes not within the reach of any ameliorating agency. With reference to industrial schools for pauper children, I am aware that objections have been urged against their extension; and those at Kirkdale and Swinton have been said not to work so successfully as was anticipated. But I appre- hend that the source of objection lies more in the system of management than in the principles upon which these establishments were founded. The best industrial institutions may be rendered not merely ineffectual, but injurious, by the modus operandi of their internal arrangements. The following summary gives the average num- ber of children attending the workhouse school of every union in England and Wales, as well as the number attending district schools, during the half- year ended at Lady-Day, 1856 : WORKHOUSES. 241 Average number of children attending Workhouse Schools 5 during the half-year ended at Lady-Day, 1856 : - -, f Under 10 years of age . . 9,023 (Above 10 years of age . . 8,643 f Under 1 years of age . . 9,735 (Above 10 years of age . . 7,681 17,666 17,416 Average number of children attending district schools during the same period : 781 667 - 1,448 641 643 - 1,284 T, f Under 10 years of age . Doys (Above 10 years of age . P . la (Under 10 years of age . 8 \ Above 10 years of age . Total of Children attending Workhouse \ - Q , A and District Schools ..... f According to a Return made to Parliament during the last session, the number of pauper children receiving instruction at the expense of the Poor-Rates (under 18 and 19 Viet., cap. 34), on the 1st July, 1856, was 3,986.* These consist exclusively of juveniles between three and fifteen years of age, who are not inmates of workhouses or of any schools for pauper children.f From * Vide Ninth Annual Report of the Poor-Law Board 1856. f- For further particulars on pauper children, see Re- turn, &c. JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. the very insignificant number of this class attend- ing school, it will at once be seen that the recent Act is tantamount to a dead letter. Boards of guardians are most reluctant to increase rates, and least of all for educational purposes. Besides, they cheat their consciences into the belief that if they provide for the instruction of children immediately under their charge, they sufficiently fulfil their duty. In order to be productive of real benefit to pauper children, this legislative measure should have been not merely permissive, but compulsory. How can the instruction of three or four thousand dangerous juveniles materially affect a horde of 300,000 indigent, idle, and criminally disposed pauper children, growing up in our midst, unedu- cated and uncared for ? Prisons, conjointly with workhouses, have been, and still are, the nurseries and high schools of crime : for, so far from exercising a salutary deter- rent power, especially upon juvenile offenders, they stimulate them rather to increased delinquency, and render them either callous or indifferent to all punitive correction. Such, at least in the majority of instances, are the chief characteristics of our gaols. It is just about eighty years since the philan- thropist Howard gave to the world his revelations PRISONS. 243 of prison life.* Therein is presented an array of horrors so alarming and atrocious, that one has some difficulty in reconciling one's mind to the facts recorded, as being of such comparatively recent occurrence. Whilst legislators had for cen- turies previously been creating new offences, some of which were entirely factitious, judicial func- tionaries and penal ingenuity were fast annihilating offenders. England carried out her Draconic code with a vengeance. Criminals were put to death by speedy and by lingering tortures. Their joints were racked, and their persons mutilated in a variety of ways. And those who were not hanged and impaled, or sold into slavery, were fortunate indeed if they escaped from the indescribable miseries and deadly distempers which they had to encounter during their incarceration in the dark, dank, noisome prison cell. Here was a new field for philanthropic effort. Humane and earnest men, such as Sir William Blackstone, Lord Auckland, and Governor Ogleby accordingly volunteered for the work of prison reform, and right nobly did they acquit themselves of their self-imposed labours. However, the great object sought to be attained a desirable one, truly was the amelioration of physical suf- fering. In endeavouring to mitigate the corporeal * The State of the Prisons in England and Wales. Lond. 1775. 244 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. hardships to which prisoners were subjected, their moral condition was entirely overlooked ; so that gaols continued places of the most abandoned pro- fligacy, villany, and impiety. Since the passing of the Act 2 and 3 William IV., containing provisions for " the better ordering of prisons/' some benefi- cial results have taken place, but which have been mainly owing to the repeated disclosures of prison inspectors in their periodical reports. Much, very much, however, remains to be effected, if we would not have our correctional and convict pri- sons nurseries of crime, and our criminals incorri- gible offenders. On the subject of prisons and prison discipline, the generality of people know little, and care less ; except now and again when some startling occurrence is brought to light, which arouses public indignation for a time, and affords scope to the novelist for the display of his ingenious powers. It is certainly expedient that the public mind should be correctly and fully informed on a topic of no ordinary importance ; but, excepting through the Reports of the inspectors of prisons, and one or two books written on the subject, no reliable sources of information are obtainable. Indeed, in some instances, a very strong disposi- tion is manifested by gaol committees against affording any clue whatever to the internal man- agement of those places. PRISONS. 245 The chief metropolitan prisons, it would natu- rally be supposed, whatever moral pollution may exist in similar establishments elsewhere, should be models of healthy discipline and good order. It is to be regretted, however, that such is not the fact. In 1777, the unfortunate Dr. Dodd de- scribed, from bitter experience, the antiquated gaol of Newgate as a " School of infamy ! from whence, improved In every hardy villany, returns More hardened, a foe to God and man, The miscreant nursed in its infectious lap ; All covered with its pestilential spots, And breathing death and poison wheresoe'er He talks contagious ;"* a description which applies as faithfully to the present time as to the past. The inspectors of prisons have had repeatedly to condemn, appa- rently without effect, the flagrant evils shamefully suffered to exist in this great penal establishment. Speaking of Newgate even as recently as 1843, they remark : " It has been our painful duty, again and again, to point out attention to the serious evils resulting from gaol association, and consequent necessary contamination in this prison. As the great metropolitan prison for the untried, it is here that those most skilled in crime, of every * Prison Thoughts. 246 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. form, those whom the temptations, the excesses, and the experience of this great city have led through a course of crime, to the highest skill in the arts of depredation, and to the lowest degrada- tion of infamy, meet together with those who are new to such courses, and who are only too ready to learn how they may pursue the career they have just entered upon, with most security from detection and punishment, and with greater suc- cess and indulgence. The numbers committed, nearly 4,000 per annum, which have rapidly increased, and are still increasing, render this a subject of still greater moment.* Of this num- ber about one-fifth are acquitted. Many of these return to their associates, with increased know- ledge and skill in crime, with lost characters, with more hardened dispositions, from their associa- tion here with others worse than themselves, and with their sense of shame and self-respect sadly diminished, if not utterly destroyed, by exposure to others, and by increased gaol acquaint- * Owing to the Metropolitan Police Act, and other sta- tutes, which give summary jurisdiction over offences that by common law had been previously indictable, the number of commitments has subsequently decreased. In 1852, but 3 ,360 prisoners passed through Newgate. For the past few years, the Ordinary has published no returns, as the number of delinquents bears so small a proportion to the whole of the persons brought into custody in the metropo- lis, and lest statistics should therefore prove delusive. PRISONS. 247 ances. We most seriously protest against New- gate, as a great school of crime. Associated together in large numbers, and in utter idleness, frequently moved from ward to ward, and thereby their prison acquaintance much enlarged, we affirm that prisoners must quit this prison worse than they enter it."* That Newgate continues as morally leprous as ever, is unfortunately but too apparent. Speaking of this school of vice so recently as 1850, Mr. Hepworth Dixon observes : " In any of the female wards may be seen, a week before the sessions, a collection of persons of every shade of guilt, and some who are innocent. I remember one case par- ticularly. A servant girl of about sixteen, a fresh- looking, healthy creature, recently up from the country, was charged by her mistress with stealing a brooch. She was in the same room lived all day, slept all night with the most abandoned of her sex. They were left alone ; they had no work to do, no books, except a few tracts, for which they had no taste, to read. The whole day was spent, as is usual in such prisons, in telling stories, the gross and guilty stories of their own lives. There is no form of wickedness, no aspect of vice, with which the poor creature' s mind would not be compelled to grow familiar, in the few weeks * Seventh Report of Inspectors for Home District. 248 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CAUSES. which she passed in Newgate, awaiting trial. When the day came, the evidence against her was found to be utterly lame and weak, and she was at once acquitted. That she entered Newgate innocent, I have no doubt ; but who shall answer for the state in which she left it ?"* The Ordinary of Newgate does not even try to conceal the contaminating influences which prevail in this prison, but boldly and openly reveals their existence. " The great and crying evil," he observes, ' ' in the gaol of Newgate, is the want of sufficient means to separate prisoners who may not be addicted to crime as a habit from those invete- rate offenders whose desire and delight is to lead others deeper and deeper into guilt, and particu- larly those who may not be so thoroughly conta- minated as themselves. It is obviously contrary to all propriety, but there is nothing against the law, to confine in the same ward these persons."f He tells us, moreover, that criminals of the deep- est dye, such as murderers, burglars, practised forgers, " who have lived and grown rich on the plunder of bankers," swell-mobsmen, and receivers of stolen goods, are associated with others, whose offences are of a comparatively trivial character ; that as there is nothing to prevent their commu- * London Prisons, p. 8. t Newgate Eeport for 1855, p. 2. PRISONS. 249 nication, and the wards of Newgate being so con- structed that it is impossible to overhear the con- versation which takes place, the most accomplished villains relate their actual experiences in crime, to the incalculable moral injury of others less de- praved, who are " petrified and astounded with the companions around them ;" that the burglar will suggest how they might escape out of prison;* the swell-mobsman relate his peculiar adventures ; the receiver of stolen goods will say, should he get off without punishment, ' he shall be glad to give them as much as anybody for what they get ;' and finally, that the forger goes through his adventures, and describes the disguises he as- sumes, the dupes he has employed, and the great success his nefarious practices have met with. "The effects," continues Mr. Davis, "produced by these and worse communications for it would be silly to suppose that we ever can get at the worst are lamentable and most disastrous. Hu- manity, justice, and judgment, alike cry aloud for the extermination of such evils. "f Well indeed * More than once has a burglar gone to the chimney at night, and mounted as far as the iron bars would let him : their removal he has attempted in vain, and has been com- pelled to return. The dirt he has made, and the soot he leaves on himself, betray him, and he gets punished for his temerity. Ordinary's Report, 1856. t Ordinary's Keport of the Gaol of Newgate, 1855, pp. 3-4. 250 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. may it be asked,, in the words of Dr. Dodd : " Is this the place Ordained by justice to confine awhile The foe to civil order, and return Keformed and moralized to social life ?"* Surely, such a disgraceful condition of things should not be suffered to exist another year, and in our chief metropolitan prison too ! But so long as Parliament will not interfere and wrest the direction out of the hands of a corporate body, apparently bent on conserving abuses, there seems little prospect of improvement. " We had hoped," says an author who has written on the subject of prison enormities, "that ere long this seminary of vice would be levelled to its founda- tion ; but we have little hope of such a consum- mation whilst we perceive additional buildings being erected, only to perpetuate the deeply moral evils which have for so lengthened a period been permitted to exist within the walls of this prison. -)-" Out of the dozen prisons for felons, misdemean- ants, and transports, scattered over London, there are others, besides Newgate, open to similar charges, where the worst discipline and almost licensed demoralization prevail, of which that of Horsemonger-lane stands pre-eminent. For a very long period, the evils consequent upon * Prison Thoughts. t Prisons and Prisoners, by Joseph Adshead, p. 170. PRISONS. 251 the unrestrained association of criminals in our gaols have been felt, so much so as to have engaged the attention of the legislature at various times. During the reign of George III., an Act was passed, authorizing and enjoining the classi- fication of prisoners into eleven distinct divisions, according to the character of their offences, which act, with one or two others of a similar nature, was amended and consolidated in 1823, in the reign of George IV., and again in 1839, by the statute 2 and 3 Viet., cap. 56. These legislative measures, however, have proved futile in removing or checking the disorders with which they vainly endeavoured to grapple ; in fact, they but tended to aggravate them ; for, as Colonel Jebb wisely observes u If each gaol class respectively be com- posed of burglars, or assault-and-battery-men, or sturdy beggars, they will acquire under it increased proficiency only in picking locks, fighting, or impos- ing on the tender mercies of mankind."* Besides, this foolish attempt at classification brought cri- minals together who, under other circumstances, would never have had fellowship. It was absolutely impossible to separate the incorrigible from the less heinous offender, as they were continually chang- ing places, owing to the altered character of their delinquencies. Referring to the grossly corrupt * Modern Prisons. 252 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. condition of Coldbath-fields Prison in 1829, the former Governor states: "During my nightly rounds, I overheard a young man of really honest principles arguing with two hardened scoundrels. He was in prison for theft, but declared that had it not been for severe illness which had utterly reduced him, he would never have stolen. His companions laughed at his scruples, and advocated general spoliation. In a tone of indignant remon- strance, the young man said, ' Surely, you would not rob a poor countryman, who had arrived in town with only a few shillings in his pocket?' Whereupon one of his companions, turning lazily in his crib, and yawning as he did so, exclaimed in answer: 'By God Almighty, I would rob my own father, if I could get a shilling out of him P "* In America, the classification experiment has been also tried, but with no better success. Speak- ing of the futility of the scheme, Messrs. De Beaumont and Tocqueville, the eminent continen- tal jurists, observe : " For a long time it was believed that, in order to remedy the evil caused by the intercourse of prisoners with each other, it would be sufficient to establish in the prison a certain number of classifications. But, after having tried this plan, its insufficiency has been acknow- * Peace, War, and Adventure, vol. ii. p. 247 ; a work to which the reader is referred for valuable revelations of prison life. PRISONS. 253 ledged. There are similar punishments and crimes called by the same name, but there are no two beings equal in regard to their morals ; and every time that convicts are put together, there exists, necessarily, a fatal influence of some upon others, because, in the association of the wicked, it is not the less guilty who act upon the more criminal, but the more depraved who influence those who are less so."* In order to remedy the odious practices and lax discipline of the demoralizing associative and clas- sification systems, a few experiments have been tried during the past twenty years. The new penal arrangements which, in some isolated in- stances, have been brought into requisition, con- sist of three kinds, and are respectively designated the silent, the separate or cellular ', and the mixed systems. The first has been in full operation at Coldbath-fields Prison since December, 1834 ; the second is practised at Pentonville ; and the last sys- tem is in force at Millbank Penitentiary. A few country prisons are now conducted on one or the other of these principles ; but almost every one of the 200 gaols throughout England and Wales has an internal economy of its own ; and owing to the great variety of opinion which prevails on * The Penitentiary System of the United States. Trans by Professor Lieber. See also Lieber on the Evils of Clas- sification, in his "Essay on Penal Law." 254 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. the subject of penology, we are not to be surprised at this result. Each of the three systems just named is, how- ever, open to objections more or less grave. The " silent associated system," adopted at the exten- sive prison of Coldbath-fields,* has failed to effect the desired end, viz., the suppression of communication between criminals. Indeed, the system savours somewhat of absurdity no less than unnatural severity ; for it is preposterous to place several hundreds of criminals in association, and yet expect them not to communicate by words or signs. No matter how numerous and assiduous the staff employed, the intercommunication of prisoners cannot be prevented. The usual com- plement of warders at Coldbath-fields is 100, besides a dozen other officials, to 1,388 criminals, the daily average, or one officer to every thirteen persons ; and yet even conversation is repeatedly and unobservedly carried on. "The posture of stooping," observes Mr. Kingsmill, " in which the prisoners work at picking oakum, gives ample opportunity of carrying on a lengthened conversa- tion, without much chance of discovery ; so that the rule of silence is a dead letter to many. At * This system is partially pursued at the House of Cor- rection for juvenile delinquents, Tothill-fields. Only con- victed prisoners, however, are subjected to it. PRISONS. 255 meals, also, in spite of the strictness with which the prisoners are watched, the order is constantly infringed. The time of exercise, again, affords an almost unlimited power of communicating with each other; for the closeness of their position, and the noise of their feet, render inter-communi- cation a very easy matter."* But there are moral as well as physical evils in- separable from this system. The minds of the prisoners subjected to a regime at once harsh and unnatural, instead of being occupied with re- flections calculated to exert a wholesome reforma- tory action, are either painfully on the fret, or else devising an infinity of stratagems whereby to defeat the vigilance of the warders ; and no small degree of ingenuity is displayed in this particular. Irrespective of the number and variety of sig- nals invented for the purpose of intercourse when open conversation would be hazardous, it is found that the old hands have contrived to speak with- out a movement of their lips. The daily attend- ance at chapel, however, affords the grand oppor- tunity for unlimited communication. This Mr. Kingsmill terms " the golden period of the day to most of them ; for it is here," he remarks, "by holding their books up to their faces, and pretending to read with the chaplain, that they * Chapters on Prisons and Prisoners, &c., pp. 111-12. 256 JUVENILE CEIME ; ITS CAUSES. carry on the most uninterrupted conversation." * Thus the periods set apart for religious purposes, instead of being made subsidiary to the prisoners' reformation, only furnish opportunities for prac- tising systematic hypocrisy. In order to restrain intercourse, by word, sign, or gesture, between the culprits, arbitrary punish- ments are employed, which, notwithstanding their frequency and severity, fail to gain the end pro- posed. During the year ending Michaelmas, 1855, no less than 2,308 criminals in Coldbath-fields were subjected to painful inflictions such as whipping, hand-cuffing, solitary confinement in dark cells, and short diet for purely gaol offences ; being a proportion of 25 per cent, on the gross prison population a decided improvement upon former years. The ratio of punishments, how- ever, is 98 per cent., or 9,023 to a prison popu- lation of 9,180 ! a result scarcely compatible with a proper system of penal discipline. In 1843, the punishments amounted in one year to 16,918.f Respecting this punitive scheme, Mr. Henry Mayhew thus forcibly writer : " The silent system springs from that love of extremes that belongs to the extravagant rather than the rational form of * Chapters on Prisons and Prisoners, &c., p. 112. f Eighth Report, Inspectors of Prisons, Home District. PRISONS. 257 mind. Because the liberty of speech has been found to be productive of evil among criminals, wiseacres have thought fit to declare that hence- forth prisoners shall not speak at all, even though it be only by intercommunion that the wisest and best of us have become a whit wiser and better than brutes.* Such an injunction is about upon a par in wisdom with that of the old lady who asserted, that, because there was danger in bathing, her son should not enter the water until he could swim. But are there no other faculties that pri- soners apply to bad purpose besides speech ? Is not sight as much an instrument of evil among them as even the voice itself? Yet who would be bold enough to propose as Eugene Sue has with the murderer that because the faculty of seeing renders criminals more expert and danger- ous to society, therefore they should be deprived of sight altogether ? Surely dumbness is not cal- culated to have a more moral effect upon men's hearts than blindness ; and if the object be to decrease the power of doing evil among criminal?, we must all feel satisfied that a blind bad man is * The most noble and profitable invention of all others was that of speech, whereby men declare their thoughts, one to another, for mutual utility and conversation, with- out which there had been amongst men neither common- wealth nor society, no more than amongst lions, bears, and wolves. Cuvier. 258 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. more impotent for harm than a dumb one. But the main object of all forms of prison discipline should be not merely to prevent men from be- coming more corrupt in gaol, but to render them more righteous ; not merely to check bad thoughts, but to implant good ones. Yet what can mere silence teach especially silence in the midst of a multitude that is calculated to distract self-com- munion rather than to induce it ?" * Apologies, however, may with justice be made for such a system, provided it was found to work well, and to exercise a deterrent influence over those prisoners subjected to its discipline. In both of these particulars it has egregiously been want- ing in the latter especially; for the ordinary ratio of recommitments to Coldbath-fields is 33 per cent., and never less than 32 per cent. During the year 1854-5, out of 7,743 persons confined in this prison, 2,517 had been committed there previously, viz., 1,579 once before, 584 twice, 153 thrice, and 201 four times or oftener. The silent system, consequently, seems to create crime, not to repress or prevent it. With regard to the silent system, great dif- ference of opinion exists ; but the amount of oppo- sition arrayed against it is less formidable than formerly. Some jurists, of various countries, laud * The Great World of London, p. 334. PRISONS. 259 the system to the skies, and regard the experiment as a sovereign and almost infallible specific for crime. M. M. De Metz, the French reformatist, thus speaks of its operation upon the young delinquent : " Without having been an eye- witness of its effects, one cannot form a correct idea of the happy influence which it can produce in the moral character. A complete change is wrought in the individual subjected to it. As he finds there neither allurement nor distraction, there is nothing to make him lose sight of the exhorta- tions and advice which he receives. Reflection brings continually before his eyes the picture of his past life. In solitude pride and self-conceit are no more. The boy is obliged to turn in upon himself, and he is no longer ashamed to give way to the suggestions of his conscience, which has been rightly called the voice of God. By degrees he becomes accessible to religious feelings. Labour is first an occupation, then a pleasure ; he applies himself to it with eagerness, and that which he had before considered as a painful task becomes a relief, and so necessary that the greatest punish- ment that can be inflicted on him is to deprive him of all employment." * The cellular system, however, is reasonably opposed on various grounds. First, because of its * Mettray Report of 1855. 260 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. unnecessary expensiveness ; secondly, its futility and impolicy ; thirdly, its inequality and injus- tice ; and lastly, its vicious and even dangerous tendency. I. In the erection of prisons to carry out this punitive scheme, wholly or in part, vast, indeed almost incredible, sums of money have been un- sparingly lavished. Thus the "Model" Prison of Pentonville, which was opened on the 21st December, 1842, for the reception of male convicts between the ages of 18 and 35, under sentences of transportation not exceeding 15 years, cost 85,000/. ; the cells alone, of which there are 400, cost upon an average 150/. each.* The Peniten- tiary at Millbank, built in 1812, and containing but 550 cells, cost, exclusive of land, about half a million ! The gaol palace, at Reading cost nearly 50,000/., although the daily average of prisoners does not exceed 140. In order to extend the separate system throughout the country, several millions sterling would be required for suitable buildings alone ; and simply to carry out a scheme which at the best is still but experimental, and * This prison, besides being constructed on the most im- proved principles of modern science, has artesian wells for supplying water, and a gas-factory for lighting the building. The cost per annum of juvenile convicts is 50Z. a sum that would maintain a gentleman's son at a boarding- school. PRISONS. 261 may at any time be changed for a newer and still more luxurious and ruinous fashion. Already the expense of our criminals exceeds 500,000. a-year, independent of the extravagant cost of gaols, besides another half-million expended by Government to sustain penal establishments for convicts in England and the Colonies. Why should the industrious and uncriminal portion of the community be unduly taxed to support in idleness and effeminacy a criminal class, who, when released from prison, are for the most part sure to find their way back to it again perhaps the very next day after their liberation ? * II. This experiment, like all other punitive attempts to reform criminals, has signally failed, judging from the gross number of recommittals in England and Wales, which exhibits an increase of 0-8 per cent, from 1842 to 1849 ; while the ratio of recommittals to the Glasgow prison, on the separate system, amounts to fifty per cent. In fact, modern ingenuity has left nothing undone, in order to make prisons as comfortable, cozy, and therefore as inviting as possible. Not only are the cells fitted up, aired, and heated upon improved scientific principles, but ingenious contrivances * It is not uncommon for children discharged from gaol in the morning to be returned thereto the next. Report of Captain Williams, Inspector of Prisons. 262 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. are resorted to for the purpose of preserving an equability of temperature during all seasons, such as is not maintained in Buckingham Palace. At Reading Gaol, a register of the daily temperature is kept ; and it appears that, while during twelve days the variation in the external temperature varied thirty-one degrees of the thermometer, viz., from 21 to 52, that of the atmosphere of the cells indicated merely a difference of four degrees, viz. from 52 to 56.* The cuisine department, also, is arranged according to the most improved inventions, " the most delicate researches of mo- dern chemistry," to cite Mr. Thompson's words, (C being called in to regulate the dietary on scien- tific principles, so that nothing requisite to the nourishment of every part of the human frame shall be amissing in the daily food."f Formerly, the chief idea associated in our minds with penal establishments was, that they were places of hard labour and scanty fare, more deterrent than invi- ting in their external appearance and internal ar- rangements. Modern philanthropy, however, has rebelled against the old regime ; and now we have palace-prisons, some, as at Reading, in the Tudor, or castellated- gothic style, of most imposing aspect and collegiate appearaace, where prisoners # Tenth Eeport of the Inspectors of Prisons, Home District, p. 39. f Punishment and Prevention, p. 145. PRISONS. 263 need not work, except for the purpose of recreation and healthful exercise they choose to exert their bodies at such light employments as pumping, oakum -picking, and knitting. "We have no treadwheel," observes one of the Visiting Justices of Reading Gaol, "nor anything approaching to hard labour, except a pump worked by ten men, for which two would suffice."* Criminals are now carried through a curriculum of study, which, however, at this prison, they are only "recom- mended but not compelled " to pursue.f Ten hours out of the twenty-four are allowed for sleep, three for meals, two for bodily exercise or recreation, while the others are whiled away in mopish indo- lence and moody abstraction. The dietary, too, is both excellent in quality, and profuse in quantity. "Many of our juvenile culprits," says the Chaplain, " have never feasted upon such luxurious abundance before they entered the prison. They become gross, and instead of giving proof of that moral activity which distinguishes other prisoners, they receive instruction with a sleepy indifference, and com- monly disregard advice.":): One of the magistrates quaintly remarked, that the prisoners ate till they were " ready to burst." * Quoted in Prison Discipline, by Rev. J. Field, M.A., vol. i. p. 163. f Ibid. vol. i. p. 156. 264 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. Mr. Mayhew tells us that, on presenting a piece of the unleavened bread, or cake, used at the Model Prison, Pentonville, to a German servant, he grew amazed at English prodigality, and ex- claimed, " Wunderschon !" remarking that the " Konig von Preussen hardly ate better stuff." ' ' It struck us as strange evidence of the ' civili- zation ' of our time," continues Mr. Mayhew, ' ' that a person must, in these days of ' lye-tea/ and chicory-mocha, and alumed-bread, and brain- thickened milk, and watered butter, really go to prison to live upon unadulterated food. . . . The most genuine cocoa we ever sipped was at this same Model Prison ; for not only was it made of the unsophisticated berries, but with the very purest water too water, not of the slushy Thames, but which had been raised from an artesian well several hundred feet below the surface, expressly for the use of these same convicts." * A large proportion of recommittals is the in- evitable result of such over-indulgence ; for, to quote the language of Colonel Jebb : " When a man, on his discharge from prison, passes through the wicket, giving utterance to his feelings, 'I won't have no more of that/ he is much more likely to make a resolution never to incur such a penalty again, and to adhere to it, than another * Great World of London, p. 130. PEISONS. 265 whose recollections of the past may be that ' he was treated like a gentleman/ " * But this is not the worst feature in the case. Such treatment likewise tends to recruit our gaols with that large class who are always but in the winter season especially vacillating between pauperism and crime, and who naturally enough prefer the ease, elegance, and enjoyments of the prison, to the dreariness, discomfort, and diet of the workhouse. In fact, the inmates of workhouses frequently evince signs of insubordination and refractoriness for the purpose of being transferred to the neigh- bouring gaol the most agreeable prison of the two. It does not require a more than ordinary degree of perception to ascertain how it is that pauperism is so fast maturing into crime, and why crime itself is growing so enormous, so vested, and so highly favoured an interest. Not without reason has an eminent transatlantic writer re- cently taunted England for her anomalies. There, he remarks, " the pauper lives better than the free labourer ; the thief better than the pauper ; and the transported felon better than the one under imprisonment." f At the separate prisons of Pentonville, Leicester, and Wakefield, convicts are compelled to perform * Report on Convict Prisons, &c., for 1851, p. 105 f English Traits, by B. W. Emerson. 266 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. a certain amount of work; not as at Reading Gaol, where the moral reformation and spiritual conversion of the prisoners are apparently the only objects sought.* But this labour is of a very un- productive kind. So far from proving beneficial to the criminal by forming industrial habits, it rather tends to incapacitate him, physically, for future useful employment, and, on his liberation, throws him back upon society with all the rust of idle- ness upon him, and with less appetence and aptitude than ever for arduous occupation. Surely, a nine months' course of instruction in tailoring, shoe- making, or weaving, can produce no tangible good to the wretched criminal, or qualify him for com- peting in the labour-market with skilled workmen or hardy labourers, whose minds and bodies are not enervated and incapacitated for endurance by separate confinement, a warm temperature, and a regular, generous diet. " The instruction in such trades," writes Mr. Mayhew, " so far from ele- vating a man into the dignity of a skilled labourer, degrades him to the level of the slop-worker ; and we have known many such who, on leaving gaol, served only to swell the ranks of those rude and inexperienced work-people who become the prey * The annual cost of each prisoner is upwards of 30?., while his productive labour only amounts to 2s. 8d. for the entire year's industry. PRISONS. 267 of the cheap Jew manufacturers, and who, con- sequently, are made the means of dragging down the earnings of the better-class workmen, while they themselves do not get even scavengers' wages at the labour. Again, some convicts learn in prison only just sufficient of carpenter's or smith's work to render them adepts in the art of housebreaking, though mere bunglers in the fashioning of wood or metal into useful forms ; and we know one ' cracksman ' who learnt his trade as a burglar at the Government works at Bermuda." * Alluding to the evil tendencies of such employ- ments as weaving, shoemaking, etc., upon the mental and physical constitution of prisoners, like- wise showing their pecuniary ruinous results, Dr. Given, Physician to the State Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, remarks: "As I have before de- clared, nearly a third of our prisoners are entirely idle, or engaged at that detestable wool and oakum picking, or analogous employments. This class is composed of those who enter the institu- tion in imperfect bodily health, or with minds so dull or otherwise imperfect as to render their in- struction in any mechanic art too tedious or un- profitable ; and by those who, having been received in good bodily and mental health, have had either * The Great World of London, p. 154. 268 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. the one or the other impaired while engaged at weaving or shoemaking. Now, it is evident that in every respect this is the very worst provision that could be made for these individuals. In a pecu- niary sense it is ruinous, and to the health of both mind and body it cannot fail to prove inimical."* On this subject Mr. Charles Pearson, the City Solicitor, in a speech delivered by him in the House of Commons when M.P. for Lambeth, tritely remarked, when moving for a committee to inquire into his system of prison discipline : "The annals of the Mansion House and other police courts often showed, that by attempting to make thieves into tailors you only succeeded in making tailors into thieves ; for it was impossible for the most industrious to live honestly by work- ing at prices so ruinously low as the prisons turned out their work. But, if the fact were the reverse of what it actually was, and if, by instruction in a gaol for a few months, or a year or two, a cri- minal labourer could be elevated, by learning at the public expense, into an accomplished artisan, it would be most unjust to reward crime by raising its perpetrator from the power to earn eighteenpence or two shillings and sixpence a- day, and placing him in the social scale upon a footing with the honest workman, whose early years as Report of 1850. PRISONS. 269 an apprentice had been sacrificed in acquiring the skill requisite to earn double the amount." * III. The separate system, as a punitive measure, is likewise both unequal and unjust. True, no system of penal discipline yet devised is free from these objections ; but the cellular in particular is pre-eminently defective. The punitive effects of separate confinement upon prisoners vary much, according to their individual organization and peculiar temperaments. Among the better class of convicts, where the affections are active, the ties of kindred strong, and the moral sense not entirely paralyzed, separation becomes far more galling than among those of a lower character, where the brain is sluggish, the affections languid or callous, and the morals depraved. In the former case, the severity of the discipline grows unendurable ; while in the latter, it but tends to render the criminal more hardened, and his reclamation more hopeless than before. Besides, as it is admitted by Mr. Burt, the present excellent Chaplain of Birmingham Gaol, that the disturbing influences of separate confinement are greatest " during the earlier period of imprisonment,"! it follows, as a matter of course, that the incipient offender, con- demned to some three or four months of this pro- * Hansard's Debates, vol. cv. p. 532. f Eesults of Separate Confinement at Pentonville, p. 131. 270 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. bationary discipline, suffers more acutely than the old gaol-bird, who becomes, as it were, acclimatized to it. Again, the graver criminal, sentenced to the longest probationary course, has better and more ample regimen than another of a milder type, whose period of imprisonment is the shortest. IV. It has been alleged, also, of the separate system that it possesses a vicious tendency. The Visiting Physician of Millbank Prison, whose tes- timony carries great weight, in alluding to the various morbid influences acting on the mind through the body instances, as one cause of this general physical disturbance, the exhaustion of nervous power induced by the " solitary vice;" "this last cause," he observes, "operating espe- cially on young persons, and generally after some months' imprisonment."* The predisposition to this odious vice may be kept in check by other and hardier courses of prison discipline ; but the abundance of food, superabundance of rest, seden- tariness, solitariness, idleness, and artificial warmth which becomes necessary to support nature under the depressing influences of the separate regime encourage rather than repress it. " It evinced but a slight knowledge of the human heart," observes Mr. Pearson, "to assume that * Keport of 1852 on the Effects of Separate Confinement, by Dr. Baly. PRISONS. 271 stone walls with bolts and bars could shut out sinful thoughts, which in the mind of a depraved and profligate prison population would be found struggling for the ascendancy if accompanied with luxurious indolence and the hours of dreamy sleep, with the other creature comforts with which the prison abounded. Solitude had its vices as well as society; and no medical work upon prisons could be consulted, but referred to prisons as the hotbed of vices which could be read in the coun- tenance and appearance of the victims of the solitary system."* Hence one active cause of mental aberration to which this system peculiarly gives rise. Irrespective of the sophistry by which some advocates of the cellular system disingenuously endeavour to cloak or distort the fact, this mo- dern punitive scheme cannot be carried out to any considerable extent without incurring imminent risk to the reason of the prisoner. Since its first introduction at Pentonville Prison, various altera- tions and modifications have been deemed abso- lutely necessary, owing to the frequent cases of insanity that occurred. Thus, from the 22nd of December, 1842, to the 31st December, 1850, out of an aggregate of 3,546 convicts, or an annual mean of 443 persons, there were twenty-two * Hansard's Debates, vol. cv. p. 534. 272 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES attacked with insanity, exactly ten times the number furnished by other forms of prison disci- pline, in the same proportion of prisoners, being at the rate of 62'0 instead of 5 -8, the annual mean of criminal lunatics in every 10,000 prison- ers.* Indeed, it was found necessary to abridge the period of probation, first from eighteen to twelve months, and again to nine months; and even this remarkable change did not produce the desired effect. " The recent outbreak (1852) of mental affections," says the Surveyor-General of Prisons, in a letter to Captain O'Brien, the Visit- ing Director, " notwithstanding the ameliorations that have been introduced, appears to indicate that some defects still exist."f Accordingly, he suggests the adoption of further palliatives, such as the removal of prisoners whose intellects are dull, and therefore more liable to succumb, from separation, into association ; the imparting of additional vigour to the industrial pursuits of the convicts ; brisker exercise in association ; abolition of the masks, etc. etc. ; some of which humane suggestions have since been acted upon with bene- ficial results. Although the limits of safety have * Fifteenth Eeport of Inspectors of Prisons, Home Dis- trict, p. 34. f Lieut.-Col. Jebb's Prison Report for 1851. Appendix, p. 122. PRISONS. 273 not been reached, the ratio of insanity has been reduced from 6*0 to I/O per thousand prisoners.* Instances of insanity are found most frequent during the early periods of the probationary course. Mr. Burt, the late Assistant-Chaplain of Pentonville Prison, gives the following tabulated account of the cases of mental aberration that occurred therein during eight years, viz., from the opening of the Prison on the 22nd of Decem- ber, 1842, to the 31st December, 1850 :f Description of Mental Affection. Six Months and under. From Six to Twelve Months. From twelve to Eighteen Months. From Eight- een Months to Two Yrs. Total. Insanity Delusions . Suicides 14 13 2 5 9 1 3 2 2 22 26 3 Total . 29 15 5 2 51 And yet, despite the large number of insane cases produced by the separate system, Mr. Burt stands * The total number withdrawn from separation in the year 1854, was sixty-six, and twenty-three of these were put to work in association on mental grounds, consisting of cases in which men of low intellect began, under separate confinement, to exhibit mental excitement, depression, or irritability, whilst twelve more were removed to public works before the expiration of their term of separate con- finement, because they were, in the words of the medical officer, " likely to be injuriously affected by the discipline of the prison." Note in the Great World of London, p. 116. f Results of Separate Confinement at Pentonville Prison, p. 134. 274 JUVENILE CJRIME ; ITS CAUSES. forward warmly in its defence ; although how one of his kind and humane nature can reconcile himself to the advocacy of such an unnatural prison regime puzzles us much. Not very long since, I was perfectly horrified upon Mr. Burt introducing me into a cell in the Birmingham Gaol, where a mere girl of ten or eleven years of age was undergoing the separate discipline. It was truly a pitiable sight to witness. Dr. Baly, the Visiting Physician of Millbank, shows that, during the years 1844-51 inclusive, 65 cases of insanity occurred at this prison among an aggregate of 7,393 convicts, being an annual ratio of 8'75 to every 1,000 prisoners. It is but right to observe, however, that of these 65 cases only 21 were of perfectly sound mind when re- ceived. "During the former four years of the period above referred to/' writes Dr. Baly, "the average duration of the imprisonment of the male convicts was only three months and seven days ; and the number of cases of insanity amongst them was 11, or 3'28 per 1,000 prisoners, annually. During the latter four years (1848 to 1851 inclu- sive) the average duration of their imprisonment was five months and six days, and the number of cases of insanity was 19, giving an annual ratio of 4-70 per 1,000 prisoners."* * Eeport (1852) on Separate Confinement. PRISONS. 275 The subjoined table, however, is more satisfac- tory in showing the increased risk to mental health that attends the protraction of imprisonment through the first twelve months : Approximative Number of Annual ratio Number of Cases of In- per 1,000 of Periods of Imprisonment. Prisoners who sanity occur- Cases of In- passed through ring in each sanity for each each Period. Period. Period. First Three Months . 16,000 9 2-25 Second Three Months 8,400 9 4-28 Third Three Months 4,200 8 7-61 Fourth Three Months, or later . . *. . | 1,200 4 Thus it will be seen that, of 30 male prisoners who became insane at Millbank Prison in the course of 8 years, only 9 were attacked during the first three months of their separation, 9 in the course of the second three months, 8 in the course of the third three months, and 4 at later periods ; while 16,000 prisoners passed through a single three months' imprisonment, only 8,400 through a second three months', 2,400 through a third three months', and 1,200 through a fourth three months' imprisonment ; so that the ratio of cases of insanity has been almost twice as high in the second three months of imprisonment as in the first three months, and in the third three months more than three times as high as in the first. "The above-mentioned facts do, however, show incontestably the great danger that attends the T2 276 JUVENILE CE1ME ; ITS CAUSES. confinement of prisoners of weak minds in sepa- rate cells. It might, I think, almost be affirmed that men of any considerable degree of imbecility or great dulness of intellect, will with certainty be rendered actually insane or idiotic by a few months' separate confinement; and the multiplication of cases of insanity at Millbank Prison, where so many men of impaired or deficient mind are re- ceived, has been prevented only by the precaution of placing in association all such prisoners as soon as their infirmity of mind became known to the medical officer."* Under the separate regime the withdrawal of occupation is one of the greatest punishments in- flicted for breach of discipline, and one which the delinquents feel most acutely. When Mr. Jelinger Symons, her Majesty's Inspector of Reformatory Schools, interrogated some of the boys at Park- hurst on the subject of separate punishment, one of them remarked, that " the cell confine- ment was t not so bad/ if they could get anything to occupy themselves with, even such as a bit of stick !"t It becomes a very serious and solemn question whether the system of separate confinement should * Report (1852) on Separate Confinement. t Minutes, &c., 1856-7, p 233. PRISONS. 277 be persisted in as a corrective agent for crime. However just may be the province of society to make laws for its own preservation, and to punish those who violate them, it assuredly has no right, either in nature or justice, to tamper with a cul- prit's reason, and peril that mysterious organi- zation with which the Divine Creator has wonder- fully endowed the meanest and wickedest of his erring creatures. To my mind it is a criminal assumption of a prerogative which should be left in the hands of Deity alone. Human authority may punish if it will, and reform if it can, but it certainly should not derange nor destroy the minds of those who, by transgression, become subjected to its power ; and yet, under this system, according to the joint testimony of Sir Benjamin Brodie and Dr. Ferguson, " tne utmost watchful- ness and discretion on the part of the governor, chaplain, and medical attendants, would be requisite in order to administer, with safety, this species of punishment." " The evils of solitude," remarks Mr. Adshead, a strenuous advocate of the system, " instruction and religion can mitigate, and cheerful industry remove." * But the facts already cited do not correspond with this opinion. * Prisons and Prisoners, Introduction, p. x. 278 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CAUSES. The fact is, that modern penal experiments aim at too much. The study of mental religion and theoretical virtue, as taught in these prisons, never did, and never will, diminish the number of our criminal population; whilst as regards secular instruction, I believe that under the separate sys- tem it is found necessary to impart it with caution, lest the criminal's mind should suffer in conse- quence. The depressing influences of separate confinement upon criminals, doubtless, often cause zealous and sanguine prison chaplains to regard mere physical and psychical phenomena as exhi- bitions of the workings of religion in the soul, and also so delude prisoners themselves as to make them "Think they're pious when they are only hilious." Mr. Chesterton, who has had great experience as a gaol governor, and is, consequently, aware of the " shams " adopted by felons, observes : ' ' In vain may the prisoners become imbued with a shallow devotion, and pronounce the study of the Bible a pleasure. It may be that they seize upon these resources because none others are available ; and such ebullitions of piety, resulting, in most cases, from morbid sensibility, vanish on the first serious trial of their vitality/'* Indeed, * Revelations of Prison Life, vol. ii. pp. 26-7. PRISONS. 279 prisoners have been known to fall upon their knees in their cells upon hearing the sound of the chap- lain' s foot approaching, who, no doubt, regarded their penitence not as affected, but sincere. Hy- pocrisy, a fit of the megrims, and even incipient insanity, are sometimes taken for religious con- version; then the cellular system is extolled for the reforming power it has exercised on the crimi- nal's nature, respecting whom may be employed the language of Damasippus in Horace : " Horace. I knew your illness, and amaz'd, beheld Your sudden cure. " Damasippus. A new disease expell'd My old distemper : as when changing pains Fly to the stomach from the head and reins. Thus the lethargic, starting from fris bed In boxing frenzy, broke his doctor's head." * I should be sorry to infer, however, that no permanent change in the moral character of cri- minals is ever wrought by the pious instructions of prison chaplains. All I contend for is, that it is vain to attempt making lasting impressions upon the inconstant natures of the gross mass of prisoners, in whom not only the religious but the moral sentiment is wofully deficient. To make arrant rogues honest men is advisable ; but the endeavour to transform them into saints is ridi- culous. * Satire III. book ii. Trans, by Francis. 280 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CAUSES. Speaking of the penitence of prisoners, the Or- dinary of Newgate observes : " How far the penitence of a criminal is to be considered the work of Heaven, must be taken in connection with the well-known fact that many of the worst offenders at large are the best behaved men in custody. The discipline of a criminal prison, and the hope that good conduct may produce a favour- able impression on the authorities, has a large share in bringing about exemplary behaviour. I feel it the safest course to state the facts, and, while hoping for the best, to let time, the great discloser of secrets, determine whether the peni- tence is pure or pretended." * I apprehend, from the facts herein narrated, that the reader will perceive how ineffectual are all our systems of prison discipline hitherto devised ; that where they do not utterly demoralize, they posi- tively offer premiums to crime; and that the reformation of criminal offenders is about as hopeless an effort as to attempt to discover the philosopher's stone. In this view I am borne out by an eminent clerical author, who observes : " In the reformation of prisoners, little has ever been effected, and little, I fear, is practicable. From every species of punishment that has * Report of the Gaol of Newgate for 1856. PRISONS. 281 hitherto been devised, from imprisonment and exile, from pain and infamy, malefactors return more hardened in their crimes, and more in- structed/'* * Christian Politics, by the Rev. Henry Christmas, M.A., F.R.S., &c.,p.21l. CHAPTER VIII. INCREASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. " We must allow, and we do so with regret, that crimes, and particularly juvenile delinquencies, have increased of late to a very alarming degree." DK. LAW, BISHOP OF BATH AND WELLS. Discourse delivered in 1827. " It is of little avail to hlind our eyes to the real facts of the case, that there is a criminal population dispersed throughout the length and breadth of the land, a caste apart, which daily and hourly recruits its ranks from all that is most idle, dissolute, and unprincipled among us. The hands of this Bedouin horde are against every man, though the hand of every man is not against them." The Times. " Little are the community aware of the deplorable extent of juvenile depravity." JOSEPH ADSHEAD. " YOUTH is the great season of crime," observes Mr. Redgrave, the Criminal Registrar ;* and, un- happily, experience proves this remark to be pain- fully true. * Judicial Statistics, (Part I.), 1857, p. 19. INCREASE AND EXTENT OP CRIME. 283 Since 1773, when the benevolent Howard (then high- sheriff of Bedfordshire) first evinced concern for juvenile delinquents, successive parliamentary inquiries have been instituted, committees ap- pointed, reformatory prisons erected, and various legislative enactments framed for their better treatment and reclamation. The result of all these legalized and desultory efforts and measures, however, has been far from satisfactory; but, viewed as repressive elements of juvenile derelic- tion, most signally unavailing. Still, as before, the cry is, " What can be done with those young offenders?" Vain are all our protean plans and puerile expedients. Our " silent" and " separate" systems, and state penitentiaries, will prove of little avail in suppressing the army of juvenile depredators, so long as the causes which recruit its ranks remain in active operation. It has held, and now holds, the Vantage-ground. The police- man, the judge, and the gaoler, in the name and with the strong arm of the law, may make a sortie upon the enemy now and again ; but without any apparent diminution of his numbers, for his suc- cedaneous power is remarkable, and only equalled by his indestructibility, peccableness, and persist- ence. The question has been controverted, whether juvenile crime is on the increase in this country. Mr Plint, for one, furnishes tabulated accounts of 284 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CHARACTER. the gross number of offences committed during the years 1836 and 1845 in the various counties of England, and shows their ratio to population, and to all crime; at the same time drawing conclu- sions, which, if perfectly deducible, and the premises sound, do not materially affect the mat- ter at issue. He observes, arguing from his own data, that " the decrease in juvenile crime is not accidental, but indicates the constant and steady action of some ameliorating process, acting upon the rising generation; for it must be especially noticed, that the ratio of the total crime of each section was nearly alike for all England and for the manufacturing and agricultural sections of the counties at the two periods ; and, therefore, as the proportion of juvenile offences was less in 1845 than in 1836, the proportion of adult crime must have been greater. The decrease in the one class simul- taneously with an increase in the other, indicates the specific action of some moral influence on the juvenile population ; and whatever that influence may be, the fact that, after all the deteriorating and demoralizing process of suffering betwixt 1839 and 1843, juvenile crime in 1845 was less by thirteen per cent, than in 1836, implies that the influence is one of great power, and is as permanent as it is powerful."* * Crime in England, &c., by Thomas Flint, pp. 168-9. INCREASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. 285 Admitting, however, the soundness of the super- structure upon which Mr. Plint builds his logic, it by no means follows that the diminution of juve- nile crime in one year, as compared with another some nine years previous, is of much weight ; for every person who has paid the least attention to cri- minal statistics must be aware that crime is liable to considerable fluctuations j and that the comparison of no one year with another will furnish a correct idea of either its actual increase or diminution. A very valuable tabular statement, referring to the annual increase of juvenile criminals, was prepared by the eminent actuary, Mr. Neison, and laid before a Committee of the House of Commons, during the session of 1850. Having deducted the recommittals from the annual regis- ters of prisoners tried at sessions and assizes, and summarily convicted, he gives the following as the yearly average for all prisoners, in the nine years ending 1847 : 12 years of age 683 12 years and under 14 . . 1,181 14 years and under 17 , . 4,352 The above, it will be perceived, does not include confirmed or inchoate criminals under twelve years of age, of which 1,990 have been committed during 1856. From Mr. Neison's figures, it appears that nearly 7,000 youths are annually added to the 286 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CHARACTER. criminal class, who, of course, ultimately recruit the number of adult offenders. According to statistics given by Howard in his work on the State of Prisons, it appears that the actual number of prisoners, inclusive of 672 debtors, confined at one time in the gaols of fifty- one counties during 1777, was but 1846; while at the taking of the last Census, 23,768 prisoners, including debtors, were confined in the entire prisons of England and Wales. Mr. Charles Pearson, the City Solicitor, had taken great pains to discover the relative proportions of ascertained crime between the period to which Howard refers and the year 1848, previous to his obtaining a Committee of the House, to inquire into his system of prison discipline. From compilations made from the Prison Inspectors' Reports, Mr. Pearson found that the daily average number of prisoners confined in the gaols of the several counties enumerated by Howard, was 14,202, inclusive of 780 debtors, which diminished the criminal proportion of the gaol inmates to 13,422.* Now, assuming the entire population of England and Wales to be, in 1777, about 7,500,000, the most correct result that can be obtained, and taking that of 1848 to be, according to authorita- * Hansard's Debates, vol. cv. INCREASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. 287 tive sources, 17,500,000, it follows, that while population has increased, during little less than three-quarters of a century, only 130 per cent., our prison population should, in the same compara- tively brief period, have augmented upwards of 1,000 per cent. If it be asked from whence this large mass of criminals has been obtained, the only satisfactory answer that can be given is, from our juvenile outcast population, who might truly be regarded as the prolific seed-plats of crime. But there are an incredulous few who look upon this increase of crime, and especially juvenile crime, among us during the past century as merely a mythical fancy " The baseless fabric of a vision" or a species of reprehensible romancing, having no foundation in fact, and being altogether desti- tute of proof. I am only surprised that such a talented writer and philosophical observer as Mr. M'Culloch should have fallen into this error. " Much of that extraordinary increase of crime/' he remarks, " that is said to have taken place in Great Britain within the last twenty years, is, there is good reason to think, apparent only, and is mainly occasioned by the bringing of more crimes to light through the superior organization of the police and the more rigid enforcements of the 288 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CHARACTER. law."* But, if the police agency be so successful as is alleged in the discovery of crime, and the law so powerful in suppressing it, these very circum- stances must naturally urge criminals to adopt other and subtler modes of escape than they would otherwise have recourse to ; for " necessity is the mother of invention," and the criminal mind, however undeveloped and uneducated in the aggre- gate, is at least remarkable for low cunning and ready contrivance. But the five-fold increase of criminal commitments that has taken place dur- ing the past century in England and Wales, while the population has not doubled, is not found to have occurred in those counties or cities where the police has been most improved and vigilant.-)* And as respects the "rigid enforcements of the law," to cite Mr. M'Culloclr's words, acting as a deterrent to criminals, this is nothing less than gratuitously and unwarrantably awarding to penal justice a power which it never possessed, even when least tempered with mercy; for, to cite the language of an eminent foreign jurist, " In pro- portion as punishments become more cruel, the minds of men, as a fluid rises to the same height as that which surrounds it, grow hardened and insensible ; and the force of the passions still * Statistics of the British Empire, vol. ii. p. 481 f Vide Minutes on Education (1846), p. 265. INCREASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. 289 continuing, in the space of a hundred years, the wheel terrifies no more than formerly the prison"* a sentiment more naively expressed by the Chief- Warder of Coldbath-fields Prison, when conversing with Mr. Mayhew on the subject of " deterrents " : " Deter !" exclaimed he ; " if you were to go out into the streets with a gallows following you, sir, and hang up every thief and rogue you met by the way, you would not deter one out of his evil courses."f The false reasoning of Mr. M'Culloch is rebutted and refuted by a writer of considerable power and ability, the Rev. Henry Worsley, who remarks : " It is plain, that even if the enlargement of our police body be an explanation of the great increase of crime generally, it will not at all ex- plain the extraordinary increase of juvenile crime, not only in itself absolutely, but relatively to the whole mass ; unless it be supposed that our police system is a fine-spun cobweb which catches the small offenders, but is of too slender texture to entangle in its net-work the bulkier criminals/^ The criminal returns are valuable so far that they enable us to judge of the extent of recognized crime ; but they afford no information whatever as to the amount of actual crime, which necessarily must be * Beccaria del Delitti e delle Pene, cap. xxvii. f The Great World of London, p. 392. I Juvenile Depravity, pp. 24-5. U 290 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CHARACTER. considerably above that recorded. On this point the bare statistics of committals, as indices of crime, are of little avail; for there is frequently more criminality in those districts and counties returned as least criminal than in others set down as containing a larger proportion of derelict persons. Indeed, it often happens that offenders carry on their predatory calling with impunity for years together before they are detected in the com- mission of any offence a circumstance readily accounted for by the numerous means of escape and concealment furnished by large and populous cities. On this subject the learned Recorder of Bir- mingham writes: "By far the greater number of offences which are found in our calendars are offences against property. This alone, if other evidence were wanting, would prove, what indeed is notorious, the existence of a class of persons who pursue crime as a calling, and are not led astray by casual temptation, or by temporary indulgence of the passions. The number of this class it is impossible to assign with accuracy. From the best information I am able to obtain, I cannot place it much lower for England and Wales than a hundred thousand. The greater number of these unhappy persons are engaged in petty thefts. Those who are best acquainted with their habits and who know how small a part of the value of INCEEASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. 291 what they steal they are able to retain for them- selves, are of opinion that each one must, on the average, commit several offences per day to be maintained in the manner in which they are known to live. It is also found that, before the thief is finally withdrawn from society by transportation or death, his course of depredation extends over several years. These general facts, which are well ascertained, show how great must be the number of offences which are never detected, or, at all events, never prosecuted, as compared with those which find their way into the calendars, and are treated in most of our statistical tables as if they com- prised the total amount of offences committed. How fallacious it must be to confound the number of convictions with the number of offences com- mitted, has been established by a valuable docu- ment published in the Report of the Commissioners for inquiring as to the best means of forming an efficient constabulary force. The paper to which I refer is a table showing the number of forged notes presented at the Bank of England, and the number of convictions for the forgery of bank- notes, between the years 1805 and 1837; and I find the proportion of convictions, compared with that of offences, was as 1 to 164. Now, when it is recollected that the uttering of forged notes is the most difficult of all offences to commit with impunity, inasmuch as it cannot be done in secret, 292 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CHARACTER. and behind the back of the injured party, it will be felt that if the proportion of forgeries com- mitted with impunity is so large, that of thefts which escape detection must be much larger. It is equally clear that while these proportions re- main unchanged, it is vain to hope that the terrors of the law will avail to prevent those who follow depredation as a calling from being a numerous, and, in one sense, a nourishing class of the com- munity." * The total committals in 1856, of all ages and both sexes, inclusive of those under civil process, want of sureties, remanded and discharged, and the Mutiny Act, amounted to 132,699; which gives an increase of 3,819, or 2-9 per cent., on a comparison with the previous year. However, upon analyzing the commitments, a more favourable re- sult is obtained ; for the strictly criminal propor- tion of the aggregate number that is, those com- mitted for trial and summarily convicted was but 96,990, being a decrease of 1,326 upon the year 1855; while the commitments for trial at the assizes and sessions for 1856 were only 19,437, a decrease of 6,535 persons, or 25 % 1 per cent, upon the former year. This great decrease of the trials at assizes and sessions is entirely attributable to the Criminal * Suggestions for the Repression of Crime, by Matthew Davenport Hill, p. 78. London, 1857. INCREASE AND EXTENT OP CRIME. 293 Justice Act, which extends the powers of ma- gistrates and justices to deal summarily with cases involving only the lesser offences,, and which has been in operation for nearly two years. Owing to this enactment, the trials of 1856, compared with those of 1855, were 23-6 per cent, less at the County Sessions; 15'9 per cent, at the Middlesex Sessions ; 44'3 per cent, at the Borough Sessions; 16*1 per cent, at the Assize Court; and 12*4 per cent, at the Central Criminal Court. The small number of commitments for want of sureties remained stationary (viz., 2,794-6) for the past two years, while the number of suspected persons remanded pending judicial investigation, and subsequently discharged upon no conclusive proof of guilt being offered, exhibits a large in- crease, now amounting to 1 in 14 of the commit- ments. Since 1850, this class of commitments has shown a constant periodical augmentation; having increased in seven years from 9,354 to 13,952. This return affords an example of the impunity with which offenders can perpetrate crimes, and pursue a life of criminality. It is somewhat remarkable that in the number of strictly criminal commitments for 1856, com- pared with 1855, the males should have decreased by 2,940, or 4*0 per cent., while the females should, on the contrary, have increased by 1,614 per- sons, or 6'1 per cent. For several years past the 294 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CHARACTER. gradually augmenting ratio of female to male com- mitments has attracted some attention, although I am not aware that any specific or satisfactory cause has been as-signed for so lamentable a circumstance. Thus, in 1827 this proportion did not reach 20 in the 100, while in 1855 it reached the maximum and exceeded 30 in the 100. It must likewise be observed that, in crimes of the gravest magnitude as well as in those of a com- paratively trivial character, females bear a leading part. For example, in 1856, of 82 persons charged with murder, 42 were females ; of 41 per- sons charged with attempts to murder, accompanied in the majority of instances with dangerous bodily injuries, 11 were females; of 282 persons charged with shooting at, stabbing, wounding, administering poison, etc., 45 were females. In arson also, where revenge is generally the prominent motive, of 107 persons charged with this crime, 21 were females. During 1856, of 69 malefactors sentenced to death 8 were females; while of 2,431 convicts sentenced to transportation and penal servitude, 255 were of the female sex.* Mr. Redgrave, of the Home Office, furnishes the following comparison of the male and female commitments in 1839, with the similar commitments for the year 1856, which exhibits a very unfavourable result : *' Judicial Statistics (Part I.), 1857. Table, p. 67. INCREASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. 295 1839 : Females to 100 males. 1856: Females to 100 males. Offences against the person . . Violent offences against property Simple offences against property Malicious offences against pro- perty . 11-2 6-2 26-9 10-5 18-1 8-2 30-8 13'3 Forgery, coining, and uttering . Offences not included in the above classes 32-5 10-6 29-8 22'5 Further, the strictly criminal committals for 1856, that is, those for trial and summary conviction, amounted to 96,990, or 7 in every 180 of the en- tire population, as furnished by the Census of 1851. " This calculation, however," says Mr. Redgrave, " refers to the number of commitments, and one person may have been committed several times in the year ; but taking into account the short periods of detention of the great proportion of the com- mitments arising from the large numbers com- mitted only on remand, those discharged after each sessions on acquittal, the prompt removal to the Government prisons of those sentenced to long detention, and the short average duration of the imprisonment on the summary convictions, there is proof of the very fluctuating state of the prison population, and of the considerable number of offenders at large ; by which, under these consider- ations, a daily average of 17,754 would be main- 296 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CHARACTER. tained within the prisons."* As regards the extent of crime in the metropolis alone, it has been com- puted that 1 in every 9 of the population belongs to the criminal class, and that there are nearly 17,000 criminals who are known to the police. The successive prison population of London for any one year is about 125,000, while the simultaneous prison population for any particular period may be computed at 6,000. The total population of all London prisons and lock-ups in the year 1854-5 was 124,935. The number of convicts in the metro- polis alone exceeds 3,000, exactly one-third of the entire convict population of England and Wales, which is annually increased by some 3,000 fresh subjects from the immense army of marauders that infest and prey upon society. The juvenile criminal population of London nearly trebles that of the whole kingdom. It has been computed that the total number of persons under 17 years of age throughout England and Wales is 7,056,699; while in the metropolis the number amounts to 839,057. Now, the entire juvenile criminal class in this country is taken at 11,739, or 166 in every 10,000; while in London the delinquents under 17 amount to 3,496, or 416 in each 10,000.f From the Metropolitan Police Returns it appears * Judicial Statistics (Part I.), 1857, pp. xvii., xviii. f Great World of London, p. 379. INCREASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. 297 that last year 29,781 young offenders were appre- hended whose ages ranged from above 9 to under 15 years. Of these, 9,492 were summarily disposed of or held to bail, and 702 tried and convicted. Our criminal classes have been considerably aug- mented since the passing of the Act for abolish- ing short terms of transportation, in 1853, and by what some people regard as the questionable leniency of the Government in granting tickets- of-leave. The number of transports removed to the Colonies had decreased from 2,345 in 1852, to 700 in 1853, to 280 in 1854, to 1,312 in 1855, and to 1,220 in 1856; while the number of pardons, which was but 125 in 1852, increased to 560 in 1853, to 1,826 in 1854, to 2,491 in 1855, and to 2,701 in 1856. Of these convicts no less than 276 were liberated during the last six months of 1853; 1,801 in 1854; 2,459 in 1855; and 2,897 (besides 18 others, from county and borough prisons) in 1856.* I should regret invidiously to impugn the wis- dom of an arrangement which has forced itself upon the Executive, by becoming an almost inevi- table necessity. Although the experiment may be as politic as it is merciful, and ultimately prove as successful as its most sanguine supporters predict * Reports of the Directors of Convict Prisons, &c., for 1852-6. 298 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CHARACTER. or desire, still one thing is certain, that, during the few years of its operation, it has but inspissated the already thick mass of crime which has grown feculent and fecund among us. On the subject of ticket-of-leave holders, Mr. Redgrave observes : " There are no means of tracing the career of these prisoners when liberated ; but the Commissioner of Police made a detailed report upon those known to his officers, who were at large in the metropo- litan police district on the 30th December, 1856. This report stated the names of 126 ticket-of- leave holders, where and when they were tried, their offences and sentences, with remarks as to their means and way of supporting themselves. They had, with nine exceptions only, been tried within the police district, and were, no doubt, nearly all London thieves. The Commissioner of Police made a second report upon what was known of each of these individuals, on the 17th February, 1857; and it appeared that in the seven weeks which had intervened, four had been convicted of offences, committed while at large ; five were con- victed, and known to be in prison ; fifteen were living with thieves and prostitutes; one was not employed, but not known to have associated with bad characters ; one had entered a workhouse ; forty-two had changed their dwelling-places, and were lost sight of by the police ; and fifty- INCREASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. 299 eight were believed to be gaining their living honestly/'* Of the 113,726 persons subjected to prison discipline in England and Wales during 1856, no less than 38,849 were under twenty-one years of age ; 13,981 were under sixteen years of age; and 1,990 were mere children under twelve ; so that the juvenile delinquents exceed one-third of the entire number of criminals committed ; the propor- tions of all ages being: Under 21 years of age . . . 34- 2 per cent. 21 years and under 30 years . 49 '4 30 years and above .... 36'4 The annexed statistics, abridged from Mr. Red- grave's elaborate tables, furnish the number of young offenders committed annually during the last ten years. Despite of occasional fluctuations, they exhibit an unmistakeable and continual ten- dency in this class to increase its proportions : Year. Under 12 years of age. 12 and under 21 years. 1856 1,990 36,859 1855 .1,630 31,344 1854 1,763 33,311 1853 1,496 31,818 1852 1,314 34,007 1851 1,387 36,570 1850 1,273 34,610 1849 1,431 39,974 1848 1,547 39,881 1847 1,274 34,566 Judicial Statistics (Part I.), 1857, p. xxx. 300 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CHARACTER. In Scotland the number of persons charged with offences during the year 1856 exhibits an in- crease of 83, as compared with 1855, or 2'2863 per cent. The proportion of convictions to com- mittals was 74*3873 per cent., compared with 75*152 per cent, in 1855 ; whilst the proportion of acquittals to committals was 25 '627 per cent. ; the ratio in 1855 being 24*848 per cent. The principal increase consists in offences against the person and property, while forging and offences against the currency show a considerable diminu- tion.* According to Sir Archibald Alison no mean authority crime has increased more rapidly in Scotland than in any other part of the British dominions during the last thirty years; for the historian remarks : " While crime in England has increased threefold in twenty-four years from 1813 to 1837 during the same period in Scot- land crime increased more than thirtyfold." f The criminal statistics of Ireland for the year 1856 evince, on the whole, a great moral and social improvement. Felony and vagrancy have wonderfully declined, although among females misdemeanours and drunkenness have increased. The committals of 1856 were less than those of 1855 by 4,733, or 9*769 per cent. The total * Returns of Criminal Offenders, Scotland, 1856. f History of Europe. INCREASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. 301 number of prisoners confined in 1856 in the various gaols was 48,060, against 54,531 in 1855 equiva- lent to a decrease of 6,471, or 11 '87 per cent. Statistics show how far more prone females are to relapse into crime, or to recur to the gaols, than the men ; a phenomenon which, it is hinted, may be in a great measure attributed to the want of de- terrent and reformatory action in the female por- tion of the prisons, which are, generally speaking, lamentably defective. Of 48,446 culprits committed during the year 1856 534 were 10 years old and under. 6,554 were between 11 and 16 7,148 17 and 20 18,907 21 and 30 7,703 31 and 40 7,500 ,, 41 and upwards.* It is impossible absolutely to compute the ex- act number of prisoners committed annually for the first time, as no tables are furnished by the Home Office on this subject. This deficiency may, however, be in some measure atoned for by de- ducting the number of recommitments during any given year from the total commitments. For ex- ample : Of the commitments in 1856, 36,604 were recommitments; which number being sub- tracted from the sum total, would leave the large * Thirty-fifth Eeport of Inspector-General, Irish Prisons, for 1850. 302 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CHARACTER. proportion of 84,679 as first committals. Although this result strictly represents the prison popu- lation, and not individual prisoners, nevertheless it is painfully illustrative of the large accession yearly made to the criminal ranks in this country. Of those committed during 1856, the large pro- portion of 23,448 males, and 13,156 females, or 1 in every 13 '6, are returned as having been pre- viously committed. Another remarkable fact is, that the proportion of females increases with each recommittal, until, in the highest number of com- mitments, the females exceed the males by 57 per cent. This is accounted for in two ways : first, owing to the greater difficulty female delinquents have in preserving their incognito and changing their abode; and, secondly, because of the more stubborn obstacles which present themselves in the way of retrieving their character and obtaining honest means of support. But the fact is, that little means exist by which the career of profes- ' sional offenders can be ascertained. Of the total commitments in 1856, 15,824 had been commit- ted once before; 6,696 twice; 3,718 thrice; 2,992 four times; 2,117 five times; and 5,257 six and more times, making a proportion of 1000 per cent. ;* thus proving what little effect penal disci- pline exercises on a culprit, viewed either as a * Judicial Statistics (Part I.), 1857, p. xix. INCREASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. 303 deterrent or a reforming power. Of a truth, Fielding was right in observing that, " there is no one circumstance in which the distempers of the mind bear a more exact analogy to those which are called bodily, than in that aptness which both have to a relapse." The following table gives the number, ages, and sexes of juvenile offenders committed, on indict- ment and summary convictions, to Reformatory and Industrial Schools, in the year ended the 29th September, 1856, under the Statutes 17 and 18 and 19 and 20 Viet., cap. 109 : Males. Females. Total. 10 years and under . 20 6 26 11 years and above 10 34 11 45 12 years and above 11 53 13 66 13 years and above 12 92 19 101 14 years and above 13 107 15 122 15 years and above 14 80 10 90 Under 16 and above 15 71 3 74 457 77 534 Of these 534 youthful offenders, 160 were committed on indictment, and 374 on summary conviction.* The foregoing statistics are of the most melan- choly character, and must deeply impress the thoughtful mind with the lamentable state of our social system, and the gigantic evils which lurk * Judicial Statistics (Part I.), 1857. Table, p. 202. 304 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CHARACTER. therein. But such facts and figures throw only a very dim light upon the dark and dangerous mass of criminality which literally exists, though partially concealed from view, and which statistics can never reach nor reveal. On this subject Mr. Worsley eloquently and truly observes: "The statistics of crime cannot develope in half or in a quarter of its fearful extent the general state of depravity among the lower classes in the great metropolis, or one of our manufacturing towns; can never trace the monster roots of vice, how widely they spread and diverge themselves, or how deep they penetrate in the congenial soil. Even the imagination is overtasked when called upon to exert her powers, so as to produce a picture of demoralized humanity that shall be adequate to the truth. The real condition of many parts of such localities is not merely barbarism and hea- thenism, but can only be fitly designated by some term which includes those, and yet more of degra- dation ; it is, what is worse, civilization uncivilized ; humanity with its external opportunities of action enlarged to be the more imbruted; a scene in which the knowledge of religion is only proved by blasphemy ; and the resources of an enlightened and emancipated age are perverted to sin."* The following tables, based on the Home Office Returns for 1856, give the relative criminality of * Juvenile Depravity, pp. 119-20. INCREASE AND EXTENT OF CRIME. 305 five groups of counties in England and Wales, and the ratio of criminal offenders to population, according to the Census of 1851. The tables are so arranged, that the reader may obtain these interesting results with the greatest facility : Six MANUFACTURING COUNTIES. COUNTIES. Number of Commitments. Population (Census 1851.) Proportion to Population. Chester . . 2,485 455,725 1 in 183 Lancaster . . . 17,204 2,031,236 118 Leicester .\ . . 850 230,308 271 Stafford .' . . 3,527 608,716 173 Warwick . . . 2,837 475,013 167 York .... 6,986 1,797,995 257 TWENTY-TWO AGRICULTURAL COUNTIES. COUNTIES. Number of Commitments. Population (Census 1851.) Proportion to Population. Bedford . . . 541 124,478 1 in 248 Berks .... 768 170,065 221 Bucks .... 613 163,723 267 Cambridge . . 594 185,405 312 Devon .... 2,226 567,098 255 Dorset .... 620 184,207 297 Essex .... 1,559 369,318 236 Hereford . . . 449 115,489 257 Hertford . . . 823 167,298 203 Huntingdon . . 260 64,183 246 Kent .... 3,442 615,766 179 Lincoln .... 1,137 407,222 358 Northampton . . 835 212,380 254 Norfolk. . . . 1,426 442,714 380 Oxford .... 764 170,439 223 Rutland . . . 57 22,983 403 Salop .... 890 229,341 257 Somerset . . . 1,760 443,916 252 Southampton . . 2,171 405,370 186 Suffolk .... 1,072 337,215 314 Sussex . . x . . 1,252 336,844 269 Wilts .... 911 254,221 279 306 JUVENILE CRIME ITS CHARACTER. THREE MINING COUNTIES. COUNTIES. Number of Commitments. Population (Census 1851). Proportion to Population. Cornwall . . . Durham .... Monmouth . . . 568 2,194 788 355,558 390,997 157,418 1 in 626 178 197 NlNE OTHEK, INCLUDING THE METROPOLITAN COUNTIES. COUNTIES. Number of Commitments. Population (Census 1851). Proportion to Population. Cumberland . . 417 195,492 1 in 469 Derby .... 940 296,084 315 Gloucester . . . 2,121 458,805 216 Middlesex . . . 19,158 1,866,576 98 Northumberland . 1,785 303,568 170 Notts. . . .' , 'J 1,060 270,427 255 Surrey . . . '..'. . '. 5,784 683,082 118 Westmoreland ; . 211 58,287 276 Worcester . . . ' 1,332 276,926 208 COUNTIES OF WALES. COUNTIES. Number of Commitments. Population (Census 1851). Proportion to Population. Anglesey . . . Brecon .... Cardigan . . . Carmarthen . . Carnarvon . . . Denbigh , . . Flint 79 132 74 167 118 230 102 57,327 61,474 70,796 110,632 87,870 92,583 68 156 lin 725 465 956 662 744 402 668 Glamorgan . . Merioneth . . . Montgomery . . Pembroke . . . Radnor .... 1,311 21 134 162 64 231,849 38,843 67,335 94,140 24,716 176 1,849 502 581 386 CHAPTER IX. NATURE AND COST OF CRIME. " Crimes are only to be measured by the injury done to society. Some crimes are immediately destructive of society or its representative ; others attack the private security of the life, property, or honour of individuals; and a third class consists of such actions as are contrary to the laws which relate to the general good of the community." BECCARIA. " I am convinced that the cost of juvenile criminals in and out of prison amounts annually to some millions." REV. EDWIN CHAPMAN, Hon. Sec. to the Bristol Ragged School. THE nature of the various offences periodically committed is quite as fluctuating as their number. Not only so, but particular classes of crime seem to follow some serial law, and to prevail at certain times and in fixed localities, with the regularity and fury of an epidemic. This uniform recurrence of particular descriptions of offences is as curious as it is true, and may well give rise to deep thought and philosophical surmisings. According to the Home Office arrangements which, however, possess not the advantages of the 308 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CHARACTER. French tables all crimes are placed under and embraced in six divisions, viz. : Class I. Offences against the person. II. Offences against property, with violence. III. Offences against property, with- out violence. IV. Malicious offences against pro- perty. V. Forgery and offences against the currency. VI. Miscellaneous offences. On comparing the quinquennial period 1851-55 with the previous five years, 1846-50, a small increase is observable in the first class of offences ; the chief increase, of 21*7 per cent., appearing in manslaughter ; concealing the birth of infants, about 26 per cent.; rape and assaults to ravish, 8*1 per cent. ; all other offences under this head being stationary. In the second class there ap- pears a decrease on the total of 2*7 per cent, which had arisen in burglary and housebreaking ; the robberies having increased 21 '2 per cent. In the third class there is a decrease of T4 per cent. In simple larceny, 7*9 per cent. The increase has arisen upon larceny from the dwelling-house, 30*3 per cent., and from the person, 9'3 per cent. In the fourth class there is an increase of 14 - 3 per cent. In the fifth class the increase amounts to NATURE AND COST OF CRIME. 309 49' 1 per cent. ; forging and uttering Bank of England notes has been from year to year increas- ing, and this increase amounts to 20*6 per cent. ; but in other cases of forgery, the commitments appear stationary. The great increase, however, is in uttering false coin, and this offence amounts to 75*2 per cent. In the sixth class there is a decrease of 22*6 per cent. Of all the offences embraced in this class, the only increase is in per- jury, and that is 19*1 per cent. ; the commitments having doubled since the passing of the Act 14 and 15 Viet. cap. 99.* Although the commitments for trial in 1856 show a considerable decrease, viz., 6,535 persons, or 25 '1 per cent., following the large decrease of 3,387 persons, or 11 '5 per cent, in 1855, the decrease in the two years amounting to 9,922 per- sons, or 33*8 per cent., the nature of the offences, unhappily, present a very different result. The operation of the Criminal Justice Act, to which the decrease alluded to is chiefly attributable, affecting only cases of simple larceny, sufficiently accounts for this circumstance. During 1856 offences against the person show an increase of less than TO per cent, upon murder and attempts to murder, etc. In offences against property * Tables of Criminal Offenders, England and Wales, 1856, p. v. 310 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CHARACTER. with violence, an extraordinary increase appears, amounting to 23' 7 per cent., chiefly on burglary, house-breaking, and shop-breaking. In offences against property without violence, a marked de- crease is observed, reaching 33*7 per cent. Upon simple larceny it is as high as 43'6 per cent., and larceny by servants 44' 7 per cent. In malicious offences against property, there is a decrease of 24*0 per cent., including every offence in Class TV. In forgery and offences against the currency, there appears a decrease of barely 2'0 per cent. The mis- cellaneous offences exhibit a decrease of lO'O per cent., which is most marked in perjury ; -while the offences against the game laws and breaches of ; the peace show an increase.* The commitments under each of the six classes of crime in the last five years, I have abridged and rearranged from the Home Office Returns, as follow : CLASS. 1856. 1855. 1854. 1853. 1852. First ... ],919 1,903 1,849 2,100 2,241 Second. 2,258 1,728 1,770 1,696 1,975 Third... 13,670 20,619 23,917 21,545 21,309 Fourth. 180 237 243 219 271 Fifth... 893 911 963 850 899 Sixth... 517 574 617 647 815 Total 19,437 25,972 29,359 27,057 27,510 Although crime in the aggregate evinces symp- Judicial Statistics (Part I.), 1857, pp. viii.-ix. NATURE AND COST OF CRIME. 311 toms of decrease, still the higher class of offences, such as murder, exhibits a contrary tendency. "This," says Mr. Kingsmill, "is sufficiently alarming. But if society has more in the present day to apprehend from the educated villain, it has more than commensurate security in the advan- cing power of science, to grapple with it in its detection and punishment. The appliances of steam, of electricity, and of chemistry, for in- stance, have become so many agents of police, and a world-read newspaper, the Hue and Cry, to track the murderer wherever he goes."* It is but a few months since modern civilization was outraged, and the public mind appalled, upon the discovery of mutilated human remains concealed in a carpet- bag on one of the abutments of Waterloo-bridge. It was evidently intended that the receding tide should have conveyed the mangled body to the ocean, in whose dark depths all knowledge of the barbarous murder would be hidden until that great day when it should yield up its dead. But Providence has so far pursued the perpetrator of this diabolical act, by frustrating his iniquitous plans; and I, for one, should not be surprised if the assassin would be ultimately in the hands of justice. Indeed, it would be a disgrace to our civilization, and a blot upon our police system, could not such a sanguinary mystery as this be fairly unravelled, * Present Aspect of Serious Crime in England, p. 4. 312 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CHARACTER. and could a human creature be slaughtered with impunity in the metropolis of the British empire. The revival of another Greenacre murder is cal- culated to fill the mind with horror and alarm. There is scarcely a crime in the calendar which our youngest juvenile delinquents do not some- times commit. In Liverpool, not many months since, two lads under ten years of age were taken into custody on a charge of murder, they having destroyed their companion, and afterwards flung his body into the canal. There is in Newgate, the very moment I write, a youth ten years old, who is shortly to take his trial for the murder of another lad, at the Central Criminal Court. The young delinquent, during a squabble with his companion, inflicted a stab with a pen -knife, when the blade of the instrument entered the heart of the deceased, and he expired imme- diately. At the Middlesex Sessions, January 2, 1857, a boy, only seven years of age, was tried for stabbing another boy. These lads lived with their parents at Islington, and one day, while playing at marbles, they quarrelled, and the prisoner stabbed the other in the breast with a pocket-knife. Had the knife been sharp and firm in the handle, the wound would have been fatal. The culprit was found guilty, but recommended to mercy. The time of life to which the greatest amount of crime falls, is between fifteen and twenty years of age. The sum of crime committed at that period NATURE AND COST OF CRIME. 3l3 to the sum total, is as 6,236 to 25,107, being a pro- portion nearly equal to one-fourth of the whole. The juveniles, "aged fifteen and under twenty," form not quite one-tenth of the population, and yet they are guilty of almost one-fourth of its crime. The following are the number of juvenile offend- ers below ten and under twenty, and the character of the offences for which they were summarily convicted in the metropolis, during 1856 :* OFFENCES. NUMBER OF OFFENDERS. Class I. Against the person 961 III. Against property, without violence . 4,072 IV. Malicious offences 493 VI. Miscellaneous 3,966 Total . . 9,492 The police returns of Liverpool for the nine months ending 30th September, 1856, give the annexed number of apprehensions of juveniles " under ten and not exceeding twenty-one years," with the classes of offences under which they were charged :| OFFENCES. NUMBER OF OFFENDERS. Class I. Against the person 404 ,, II. Against property, with violence . . 41 ,, III. Against property, without violence . 1,977 VI. Miscellaneous 4,405 Total . . 6,827 * Computed from the Criminal Returns, Metropolitan Police, 1856. f Computed and arranged from Report on State of Crime Liverpool, 1857. 314 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CHARACTER. The subjoined table, computed from the autho- rized Returns for 1856, gives the nature and number of the offences committed by 534 juve- nile offenders, who were tried on indictment, summarily convicted, and sentenced to imprison- ment and subsequent detention in Reformatory and Industrial Schools, with the ages of the delin- quents :* A *e. OFFENCES. Committed. Under 10 to 14 Years. 14 years to above 15. Larceny and petty thefts . 234 108 126 ,, of fixtures . 17 9 8 by servant . . . 25 10 15 from person . . 45 14 31 in dwelling-house 84 42 42 Attempt to steal .... 13 6 7 Unlawful possession of goods Eeceiving stolen goods . . Fraudulent offences . . . 5 3 26 3 1 19 2 2 7 Embezzlement .... 2 1 1 Horse-stealing . . '."/' Sheep- stealing . . . i.; ;jj; 1 1 1 1 Housebreaking, shop-break- ing, etc. . . 18 9 9 Burglary 12 3 9 Attempts to break into houses, etc. . . . 1 1 Arson and wilful burning . 6 2 4 Other malicious offences . 9 4 5 Assault 1 1 Assault with intent to ravish 2 __ 2 Vagrancy . . . . '. ". 19 9 10 Other offences 10 6 4 Total . . . 534 247 287 * ^Judicial Statistics (Part I.), Table, p. 102. NATURE AND COST OF CRIME. 315 The habitual thief is a species of biped from which no country is exempt ; indeed, he seems as indigenous as any natural product of the soil. Thus, the Kaffirs have their " Fingoes," the Hottentots their " Sonques," Italy its " Lazzarones," and England its "Cracksman/' " Mobsman," " Sneaks- man/' and " Shofulman." The Neapolitan " prigs," however, are said to be possessed of high principles of honour. " A Neapolitan lazza- rone," says Mr. Billiard, " will scrupulously ac- count for the money which is entrusted to him, from a sense of honour ; but will not hesitate to pick a pocket when under no such restraint. Pocket-picking is a very common accomplishment here, and handkerchiefs, especially, are apt to take to themselves wings and fly away. Young lads show a great deal of dexterity in this form of abstraction, though they act probably quite as much from the love of mischief as from confirmed dishonesty/'* The Neapolitan gendarmes have a novel but ingenious mode of ascertaining whether a lad accused of stealing be really guilty or not. The police seize the boy's hand and place it in an out- stretched position on a table. Should it happen that the forefinger and middle finger be of a similar size, the accused is immediately set down * Six Months in Italy, vol. ii. p. 143. 316 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CHARACTER. ^.s guilty, and judgment is passed accordingly. The reason is obvious. In the exercise of their predatory calling, the two digits alluded to are employed in the same manner as a forceps, and from constant practice become of an equal length. Be- sides which, the young ragamuffins in the streets are accustomed to lengthen the forefinger by con- stantly pulling at it, so as to render their thievish efforts all the more sure and secret. There is a very large class of abandoned girls who pursue theft in addition to a vicious course of life. <( The relation of prostitutes in London to thieves," observes Leon Faucher, "is a general fact, with few exceptions. They are met with by hundreds, established in the kitchens of lodging- houses, or in public-houses, playing at cards and dice. These women have the secret of the adven- ture ; they sometimes share the danger, always the profit. There is not a brothel of the lower and more numerous class in London, Manchester, Liverpool, or Glasgow, which is not also a den of robbers. Here is the plan usually followed. One of these low women, whose very appearance offends all the senses, proceeds to find a dupe. When she imagines that she has found one, as the unfortu- nate man would never have the courage to follow such a person to such a place, she conducts him first to some gin-shop, and contrives to intoxicate him with spirituous liquors. Having thus lost his NATURE AND COST OF CRIME. 317 reason, the dupe becomes more tractable ; he is led through a number of tortuous alleys to the bottom of some court, and thence into some frightful cut- throat quarter, from whence he only escapes after being beaten and robbed ; he is often left for dead, and afterwards thrown into the street. Very recently, the Criminal Court of London condemned to transportation four pro- stitutes, all about seventeen years of age, who had figured as actors or accomplices in an affair of this sort. But it is not always easy to trace the guilty through the labyrinths of St. Giles's, where the alleys all resemble each other, and where the houses are not numbered."* With reference to depredations by this class of women in Birmingham, the Recorder of that town remarks : " Mr. Stephens, the superintendent of police, keeps a register of all complaints which are brought to his knowledge, of the loss of money or goods by robbery or theft. I have inspected this document, and have been grieved to observe what a large amount of depredation is committed by prostitutes."-)- There is every reason to believe that a consider- able number of the graver offences against the * Etudes sur I'Angleterre. Cited in " The Greatest of our Social Evils," by a Physician. London : Bailliere, 1857. See " Prostitution in London," by Dr. Ryan, pp. 175-6. f Repression of Crime, by M. D. Hill, p. 74. 318 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CHARACTER. person, as well as thefts, are perpetrated by women of loose character, the penal consequences of which they manage successfully to elude. And it is well known that these persons have their "fancy men," who are in general thieves, and sometimes assassins. Indeed, the criminal aspect of prostitution is peculiar to this country, and is often the cause of just surprise to foreigners, who find nothing approximating thereto at home. In the British metropolis, said to contain at least from 8,000 to 10,000 women of known loose cha- racter,* 4,303 were taken into custody during 1856, of which number 2,643 were either sum- marily convicted or held to bail.f Within what are termed the City boundaries, 54 arrests of fallen females occurred during the same period, 12 of whom were between fifteen and twenty years of age.J In Liverpool, again, during the first nine months of 1856, 1,105 of these wretched creatures were apprehended, of which number 902 were summarily convicted, giving an increase on the previous year's returns of 122 apprehen- sions and 121 convictions. All of these prisoners had been previously in custody, some as many as * The Great Sin of Great Cities, p. 63 ; see also Faucher's " Etudes sur VAngleterre" \ Criminal Returns, Metropolitan Police, 1856. Table, No. 6. J City Police Criminal Returns, 1856. NATURE AND COST OF CRIME. 319 twelve times. The number of undisguised abject women in Liverpool is returned by the police at 2,318.* Now, it is well known that the English law does not authorize the apprehension of prosti- tutes, simply as such ; consequently, the arrests alluded to must have been occasioned through criminal offences committed by this abandoned class of persons. In the metropolis, the amount of larcenies perpetrated by derelict women in 1856, exceeded 3,200/. According to Dr. Ryan, a very reliable authority, the majority of the low class houses of ill-fame are refuges for thieves; that from thence they spread to carry on their depredations ; that here they take shelter from the pursuit of the police ; and that in case of arrest, the proprietors of those houses furnish the neces- sary means to embarrass justice, and aid in obtain- ing an acquittal. f An intelligent writer ob- serves : " Robberies of a daring character are being almost daily committed through the instru- mentality of prostitutes; and it seems all but certain, that the plunder of dwelling-houses is chiefly effected, by the connivance of servants or domestics; women, whose conduct would in any other country but England have placed them on the list of ' the suspected/ " J * State of Crime, 1856, Table. No. 15. f Prostitution in London, pp. 126-92, passim. I The Greatest of our Social Evils, p. 2. 320 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CHARACTER. Alluding to crime and criminals, the leading journal has the following pert remarks : "There is now no doubt," says the Times, " that crime is, like any other trade, regularly taught and learnt, and systematically practised as a means of liveli- hood; and that not only does such a profession exist, but that by far the greater number of serious offences are perpetrated by its members as a matter of ordinary business, without excitement, without hesitation, and without remorse. The swindler goes forth to swindle, and the pickpocket to thieve, with the same method and regularity with which the carpenter goes to his bench, or the blacksmith to his anvil. It is their trade, and they know and wish for no other. The penalties of the law are regarded as blanks in the profes- sional lottery things not agreeable, but to be encountered in the way of business, just as sailors brave shipwreck, or soldiers death and mutilation. There has never been any difficulty in finding sol- diers to fight for a paltry pittance in any quarrel, or sailors to venture on any voyage. The risk incident to these occupations has never rendered them unpopular, and has, doubtless, given them a peculiar charm to many a daring spirit. So also with the professional criminal; the occasional penalties with which the law visits them when de- tected, serve only to give excitement and interest to their business, and to throw a dash of the romantic NATURE AND COST OP CRIME. 321 into the dull details of roguery. Viewed in this light, we cannot see that punishment is more Likely to put down crime than the casualties of war the profession of a soldier. Every occupation must have its drawbacks, and every thief as well as every recruit hopes to escape them by his dex- terity and good fortune." * Having previously treated of the increase and ex- tent, and, in the present chapter, of the nature of crime, I now proceed to inquire into its cost. This will be found a very serious item in the national ex- penditure, as well as a heavy drain upon social in- dustry. The amount annually abstracted from the community cannot, of course, be ascertained ; but it must, nevertheless, be truly enormous. According to the lowest computation, about 105,000 actual criminals are alleged to be in the country,f 20,000 of whom are constantly in prison^ leaving the re- maining 85,000 felons at large, who manage to live and maintain numerous dependents upon the pro- ceeds of their depredations. Now, supposing that the average gains of these 85,000 thieves amount to 5s. per day each, or II. 15s. per week, assuredly not a high or unreasonable estimate, it would give the alarming sum of 21,250/. a day ; 148,750/. a * October 22, 1851. t Other calculations make the number of criminals 150,000. 322 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CHARACTER. week; or 7,735,000/. a year, as the tax either stealthily or forcibly levied by the ill-disposed upon the well-disposed portion of the community. But many professional thieves realize handsomeincomes. Mr. Clay narrates cases of expert thieves, who, to his knowledge, made a regular income of from 200/. to 500/. per annum, extending in some instances over twenty years. One .woman whom he mentions, realized in this manner 1,550/. in two years and a-half, or 620/. a year.* The estimated annual loss to the public by felony, provided the computation as to the number of thieves at large be correct, would be exactly doubled, according to Mr. Clay's calculation. He observes : " Having investigated to a consider- able extent the rates of income derived by thieves from their practices, and having obtained esti- mates of the same thing from intelligent and experienced convicts themselves, I believe myself to be within the real truth when I assume such income to be more than 100/. a year, for each thief. Well, then, allowing only two years' full practice to one of the dangerous class, previous to his sentence of transportation, I do not know how the conclusion can be escaped, that, in one way or another, the public the easy, indifferent, callous * Chaplain's Keport of the Preston House of Correction, 1850, pp. 45-6. NATURE AND COST OP CRIME. 323 public has been, and is, mulcted to the amount of more than a million sterling, by, and on account of, its criminals annually transported. But its cri- minals who are not transported, still living on their dishonest gains, or in our costly prisons we must not forget them in our calculations of the cost of crime, though it will be sufficient for my present purpose merely to refer to them, and to say, that their cost to the community in and out of prison amounts annually to some millions ! This assertion may be somewhat startling ; I will only state one fact in support of it. Some years ago, a committee of inquiry into the annual depre- dations of the Liverpool thieves stated the amount of those depredations at seven hundred thousand Mr. Thompson, in his late interesting and valua- ble volume, alluding to the foregoing statement of Mr. Clay, observes : " Reckoning the inhabitants of Liverpool in round numbers at 350,000, this is equal to 21. for each inhabitant. It is understood that crime in Liverpool is not much greater than in other large towns, such as Bristol, Manchester, or Glasgow ; and the above statement has no refe- rence to the number of criminals, but only to the money-value of their plunder. It has been stated that the number of criminals in Liverpool is * Report of Birmingham Conference, (1851,) p. 56. 324 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CHARACTER. about 5,000, and if so, this immense sum would only yield 140. to each ; an amount far below the earnings of Mr. Clay's prisoners. It is only won- derful how insensible the public often is to its own interests/'* The author just cited, assumes as the lowest calculation, 105,000 criminals to be at large, and estimates the amount of their annual plunder, at 50/. a year each, to be 2,250,0007. He, however, admits the lowness of his estimate. - OJ 00 OS CO CO t* oo T# r- 1 CO O CO O Oi , 1 || o: Ci < i CD" of c\j o* oo rji co co Ci i 1 lx i-T CM rf 3.l O 00 OS *> O? CD O O* CO CO . 1 CO o o co 10 t o CO **l O r-> rH co 10 C^ "^ CO CD "^ CO t^ (M CO O O* CO 00 OJ | rH 00 CO id 00 CO iH O Q d 2 <^ o" co" oo o of x ao ot o rH CO O T^ > lO O O? O o co OJ IS co i cT t^" co" of cT of r-T O5 ^ CO -^ r-i O? O O* O CO 8 CJ cc g O CO CG : : o o c ; O a 1 3 2 2 * ^ S 5 1 1 -4 f O2 'O n3 s o P^ o r <% >H : ft *J* ^ a _ K C*H K i i ft fl S -g * it Ijll 1 ^ 5- la-1 M OH O w 3 PQ o I 2 o wj tS ^ 2 ^ 02 "^ ~ti W Ciu Cd p. . ^ CO "^ '"^ "" rn o g ^ rrants for il 11 s 'il f ^ bo 3 o H 111! : I Q pq PH cc ^ 1 o O Voluntaryism has not done much to further the extension of knowledge among the poorer classes. Nor indeed is it to be expected that it should. The right of education is undeniably A A 2 356 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CURE. the duty of the State to bestow ; for it naturally occupies the position with reference to the people of a locum parentis. The Census on Religious Worship can pretty accurately guide us in forming an estimate of what denominational parties are doing in the edu- cational way. At the time of the Census, there were in the schools connected with the entire churches and chapels of England and Wales, merely 1,800,000 children out of a gross total of nearly 5,000,000, the estimated number of juveniles in both countries. And yet we have thirty- six rival sects in Great Britain, most of them indi- genous, and nearly all " striving for the mastery " as to who shall teach and what shall be taught the people. Sectarian wranglers would do well to withdraw their angry opposition, and suffer the Government to devise such an educational scheme as will meet the wants of the nation, and be best calculated to raise the character of its intelligence. But " secular education is akin to infidelity," say some; yet really what can be worse than the immorality and practical heathenism which every- where abound, especially in our large cities ? Are not errors in life more to be deprecated than errors in doctrine; and is not vice with " orthodoxy" more detestable than virtue without it ? Denomi- nationalists have made some efforts to inform the young and reform the adult population; and CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CEIME. 357 what has been the result ? Alas ! it is too well known to require repetition. Dr. Chalmers tells of an attempt to establish religious services for the lower classes in districts contiguous to Glasgow. The population numbered 29,000, and the only provision made for religious purposes was one chapel of ease. A place of worship was erected and accommodation procured for 1,500 people, who were induced to attend the public services by the offer of sittings from 6d. to Is. 6d. a year. And what was the upshot of this experiment? "Why, by the greatest exertions, only fifty persons unaccustomed to religious ministrations could be induced to rent seats. Consequently, the scheme, after having moved on " heavily and languidly " for a time, was finally abandoned before the expi- ration of six months. (C But/' to use Dr. Chal- mers's own words, "it is greatly easier to make war against the physical resistance of a people, than to make war against the resistance of an established and moral habit." I certainly hesi- tate not to say, that had the population of Calton and Bridgeton but received a proper secular edu- cation, the author of Christian and Economic Polity would have been saved the trouble and the sorrow of the above narration ; for the im- possibility of teaching religious truth intelligibly to an ill-educated mind is sufficiently obvious. Now, however disposed one may feel towards a 358 JUVENILE CIIIME ; ITS CUKE. denominational system of education, it would not be consistent with a due regard to the public welfare to commit the teaching of the youth of this country to an agency not only so inefficient in itself for the onerous task, but absolutely unable to fulfil its more immediate and primary obliga- tions. Weak and imperfect in its own sphere, how could it be strong and energetic in a wider, and, perhaps, an equally important field of exer- tion ? It is not when the directors and heads of religious bodies publicly lament the dead or dying condition of the churches, and when solemn ser- vices are held for a like object it is not when public and gifted writers breathe doleful notes of lamentation, and bitterly bewail the total want of energy and ability amongst the various denomina- tions, that we would be found committing the youth of the nation to voluntary exertions for the right of education a right which we reason- ably ask, and which the country is in justice bound to concede. However, lest I should be accused of making statements without authority, as some of my readers may prove captious or critical, I shall cite the language of Mr. Edward Miall. This writer observes: "Wonderful, most wonderful, is the dearth of genius, of talent, of peculiar aptitude, of striking character, of plodding industry, of almost everything indicative of mind on the alert, in connection with the spiritual action of the un- CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 359 official bulk of evangelical churches. In no equally extensive area of human interest, perhaps, can such a level uniformity of unproductiveness be discovered. How is this, we ask? What will account for it?"* Yet, in the face of such start- ling facts and thrilling assertions as I have adduced, people will rail and quail because of the cry of " secular education for the masses \" as if so desirable and admirable a boon were to upset all morality and entail ruin upon the nation ! The educational agency at present employed is merely a temporary expedient to meet a crying emer- gency. It has been fitly compared to the work- ing of a pump to get the water from out a sinking vessel. But the water gains, and the ship founders. I do not, nor can any right-minded man, object to a religious education for the young, which, in the wide sense of the word, according to Dr. Arnold, " is the teaching our understandings to know the highest truth, the teaching our affections to love the highest good." Indeed, the cultiva- tion of the intellect may be almost regarded in the light of a directly religious exercise. But, however desirous that the leading principles of religion should be taught in schools, I feel that any National system of education which would * The British Churches in Eelation to the British People. Lond. 1850. 360 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CURE. include instruction in religious truth, could not be practically carried out, owing to the theological differences of opinion that exist among Christians. Hence, it seems the more desirable, and indeed the only available plan, to reject religious teaching alto- gether from the school-room, leaving that duty to those presumedly most qualified to perform it, and for a day divinely set apart for the express purpose. On this subject Mr. George Cruikshank observes, in his recently published brochure : " It appears to me that if all the poor helpless children of the land were schooled in the common elements of reading, writing, etc., for five days in the week, and the clergy and ministers of all denominations were compelled to instruct these children one day in the six, in the religion of the class to which they belong (independent of the Sunday), that then all parties might be satisfied, and every objection done away with as to the great general system here proposed for secular instruction and moral and religious training." * The scheme herein proposed is admirable in itself, but I fear that too many difficulties would stand in the way of its becoming entirely practicable. It is quite possible that, if some earnest and well- meaning people had their own way in the direction * A Slice of Bread and Butter. Cut by George Cruik- shank, p. 12. London : Tweedie. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 361 of public education, their zeal not being according to knowledge, they would produce a revulsion of feeling towards religion in the young, by forcing it upon mental soil scarcely prepared to receive it. It is said of Sweden that, while nearly every individual in that country receives the Sacrament, crime, when compared with the amount of population, exceeds that of any other European nation. The cause of this singular anomaly an intelligent writer attributes to " the low tone of morals prevailing amongst the Swedish people, in some measure to the system of forcing them to observe the most sacred ordinances of religion, whatever may be their state of feeling." * Considerable countenance has been given to the statement that in Sweden education is as exten- sive as depravity is excessive. Dr. Poulding, a Roman Catholic bishop, first gave currency to this notion ; and so far as the alleged prevalence of edu- cation in that country is concerned, Lord Brougham reiterated the opinion. But statistical documents throw a different light upon- this subject; in fact, give irrefragable evidence of the very contrary. For instance, in the diocese of Lund there were, in 1843, 3,991 untaught children; and in the diocese of Hernosand, out of 147 Swedish parishes, * The Danes and the Swedes, by Charles Henry Scott, vol. i. pp. 314-15. 362 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CUKE. only 23 contained schools ; while a still greater deficiency existed in the Finnish parishes, even in 1847.* Although domestic instruction is more attended to in Sweden than in England, never- theless the state of education is far from being so advanced as has been erroneously asserted. True, instruction is afforded 'by the State; but official returns prove that a very small proportion of the labouring classes, or indeed the bulk of the nation, take advantage of the boon; besides, precisely the same difficulty presents itself with regard to retaining children at school. During the year 1843, only 4,235 children of the lower classes attended schools, out of a peasant popu- lation of nearly three millions and a quarter. Consequently, those who gratuitously attribute the extraordinary prevalence of criminality in Sweden to the spread of education among the people, are most egregiously mistaken, and must look deeper and in a different quarter for the cause of such phenomenon. The grand aim of a National system of education should be to make an intelligent, industrious, and virtuous people. The State and the public should rest satisfied with this. Once succeed in making a people virtuous, and you go a great way towards making them religious. On the other hand, begin * Report on General Education in Sweden, 1847. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 363 by trying to make them religious, and the chances are that you fail in making them anything. An ignorant mind is liable to run into the grossest absurdities should it ever take a religious bias. The spread of revolting Mormonite principles among our population is a lamentable evidence of this fact. * There are several remarkable instances on record of the wonderful and almost miraculous effects produced on individuals by merely casual reading. Every one knows how Ignatius Loyola, from a gay cavalier and brilliant soldier, became transformed into a religious zealot and the founder of a mission- ary Order of priests renowned in history. Benjamin Franklin is another, although less remarkable, example. He says, in an epistle to his friend, Samuel Mather, " When I was a boy, I met with a book entitled Essays to do Good, which I think was written by your father, Cotton Mather. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor, * It is recorded of the moss-troopers of the Borders (so long a terror to Scotland) that they never told their beads with such fervency of devotion as previous to setting out on a plundering expedition. Commenting upon agrarian and other murderous outrages in Ireland, Baron Richards once observed : " Very many of the cases that have come before me were committed on the return of those concerned from the house of God; and that murderous habit I cannot reconcile with the moral and religious instruction that ought to be unceasingly impressed upon the people." 364 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CUB.E. that several leaves of it were torn out, but tlie remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than on any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book." * In order by plain, palpable facts, to show the imperative necessity that exists for a compulsory system of National education, I shall cite evidence of a conclusive nature, from the last " General Reports " of each of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools in Great Britain. Such testimony I deem all the more important, as I am convinced the public have but a very imperfect idea of the nature and extent to which national ignorance prevails, or of the chief barrier which opposes the spread of education. The importance of the subjoined testimony will, I trust, make amends for its unavoidable prolixity. The Rev. F. C. Cook, alluding to the state of education in the counties of Middlesex, Hertford, Bedford, and Buckingham, observes : f " I repeat the statement which I have made so frequently, and in which all my colleagues concur, that the children of agricultural labourers are universally * Works, vol. x. p. 83 (Spark's edition), f Minutes, &c., 1855-6, p. 314. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CEIME. 365 withdrawn from school before they are eleven years old, and the children of working men in town very rarely remain till they are twelve years old. This fact is the more striking when con- trasted with the agricultural and manufacturing districts in Switzerland and Germany. Laws pass'ed, with full consent of free communities, compel the attendance of each child until fourteen years of age, excepting when the plea of poverty, implying such destitution as would apply only to ragged- school children, is admitted. In that case, the expense of teaching is defrayed by the State, and regular attendance during a part of the day is enforced until twelve years of age. The im- provements in education draw many boys and girls into our National schools who were formerly in private schools. But they have little, perhaps not any, appreciable effect in retaining the children of mechanics and labourers, who are removed, simply because their labour is remunerative, at an early age, and in towns especially more remunerative in exact proportion to that improvement in their personal habits, intelligence, ability, and moral principles, which is the result of good education." Again, on comparing the tables for the last three years, which state the per-centage of children who have remained in the same school for different periods, I find the following result : 366 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CURE, Less than One Two Three Four Five and One Year. Year. Years. Years. Years. over. 1853 38-58 25-34 15-56 10-32 5-36 4-84 1854 33-23 40-95 11-25 7-04 3-94 3-69 1855 46-55 22-6 13-33 8-39 4-87 4-26 The Rev. H. W. Bellairs, referring to elementary education in the counties of Gloucester, Oxford, Warwick, Worcester, Hereford, and Monmouth, gives similar painful testimony, and even goes so far as to imply the necessity for legislative interfe- rence. He remarks : " The age at which children leave school, and their irregularity of attendance, are still the great obstacles to success. For the first, I feel constrained to admit that I see no remedy but legislative enactment. The demand for juvenile labour is so great and so searching, pervading as it does all kinds of occupation, needle-making, pin, button, ribbon, nail-making, mining, apple-picking, potato-gathering, crow ' tenting/ plough- driving, boot, shoe, and knife- cleaning, erranding, nursing, etc., that the diffi- culty of legislating upon it is doubtless very great ; commerce, agriculture, the domestic comfort of persons with small incomes resident in towns, the provision of the necessaries of life to the poor, home supply, foreign competition, poor rates, etc., are all involved in the question. In this district alone, as was stated in my report two years ago, CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CHIME. 367 the probable earnings of children under fourteen years of age amounted to 500,000/. per annum. Nevertheless, if the welfare of a nation is really dependent upon the due moral and intellectual culture of its inhabitants, if criminal statistics and skilful production be more or less affected by the proper training and teaching of the young, it must be admitted that the present state of things, where the young are removed from school almost in their childhood, is so unsatisfactory as to call for a remedy even at some considerable cost." * Per-centage of 32,134 Children in 318 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 39'57 27-45 14-12 9-09 5-03 474 The Rev. F. Watkins, in his report of the schools in Yorkshire, reveals a deplorable condition of things, which loudly demands some stringent legislative measure to remedy the evil: "Let it, then, be borne in mind/' he remarks, "that nearly 79 per cent, of the children in Yorkshire schools are under ten years of age, and that not five in a hundred are turned thirteen. From this last * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 324-5. ' Q9 TH1 368 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. circumstance maybe imagined some of the difficulty of obtaining school apprentices, who are required to be of the age of thirteen years. In addition to this low age, consider the short stay in school. I find that in schools which have come under my inspection during the year, where accurate returns have been made, 19,006 children have been ad- mitted in twelve months, and 16,851 have left in the same time ; that is, nearly 88 out of every 100 have gone away ! About a dozen remain to cheer the master in his almost hopeless labour, always heaving the stone up the hill, to behold it rolling down again to his feet ; always attempting to fill the sieve which cannot, from its nature, hold the water. " One other point must also be noticed, that is, the intellectual state of these young children birds of passage, save in the regularity of their departure and certainty of return when they enter a school. I take the following report from the worthy and painstaking master of St. George's School, Sheffield; a parish which perhaps as fully as any in England exhibits the difficulties with which the teachers and managers of schools have to do battle : "'The following table is drawn up from the Admission Book or .Register, and shows the state of education, or rather the ignorance, of the chil- dren admitted into the St. George's Boys' Na- CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 369 tional School between 1st August, 1854, and 1st August, 1855. 369 were admitted and readmitted during the above period : Number who had never been in an infants' school . 226 Who could read words of two or three syllables . . 61* Who could read monosyllables by spelling them . 99+ Who could only tell their letters 70+ Who could not tell their letters .139 Who could write their names 97 Who could not write their names or letters . . . 272 Who had never learnt any arithmetic . . . . . 291 Who do simple addition 5 Who could do simple subtraction 1 Who could do simple multiplication 1 Who could do simple division 1 Who could do addition and subtraction 16 Who could do addition, subtraction, & multiplication 12 Who could do the whole of the first four simple rules (5 Who could do compound addition 3 Who could do compound subtraction ...... 3 Who could do compound multiplication ..... 2 Who could do compound division ...... 1 Who could do reduction ............... 3 Who could do rule of three 9 Who could do practice, etc. . nil (Signed) * J. BIGGS, Master.' " What a state of ignorance and carelessness/' continues Mr. Watkins, "does this table dis- close ! For it must be remembered that the school here spoken of is not an infants', but a so-called juvenile school, into which 139 children enter in the course of one year, not knowing their * This includes eight boys who had previously been in the School, but on leaving work were readmitted. f This includes nine who were readmitted. I This includes six who were readmitted. B B 370 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CURE. letters. Besides these, there are 70 others who know them only as it were by sight, but are not intimately acquainted with them. In this same school I observe that, Boys .... Girls .... Infants .... Total . . . Admitted in Twelve Mouths. Left in Twelve Months. 369 242 226 360 258 272 837 890 "In the previous official year in these schools (boys' and girls' departments), 682 admitted - 770 left. " It would not be difficult to multiply instances of schools where the yearly loss is equal to, or greater than, the number of admissions, and those admissions, for the most part, of very young and very ignorant children. I need not enlarge on this topic; the evil is sufficiently glaring, and some of the social mischief arising from it is begin- ning to be painfully evident/' * Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools further in- forms us, that in Yorkshire the number of children who never enter a school is very considerable. Per-centage of 43,592 Children in 372 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Tear. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 46-07 22-94 13-51 8-48 5- 4' * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 347349. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 371 The Rev. E. Douglas Tinling remarks, with reference to the condition of education in the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall, that " there are a large number of children who are altogether without education ;" and that " the early removal from school will continue as long as the employer of child-labour is permitted to make use of little children of any age for the period of an entire day. To repeat the words of my report, (1854-55,) { If by any legislative measure, children under a certain specified age could be withheld from day-labour, either for half the day, or for . half the week, it would most materially assist to remedy this evil;' and I am confident that the feeling, which I recorded last year, ' as existing in my district/ viz., 'that some enactment of a similar character to the act for factories, would be a legitimate means of enabling us to give a sound and useful education to the children of the poor/ is increasing day by day, and taking a deeper hold on the minds of those who enter fully into the educational question. But, as our schools exist at present, it is not the only evil that the children leave at the age of ten, eleven, and twelve years ; for, even at an early age, and during the time that they are considered to be at school, they are so irregular in their attendance, that it is impossible to have any real and lasting hold upon them by school teaching." * * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 373375. 372 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. Per-centage of 26,731 Children in 264 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 37-2 1 21'2 16-55 11-46 7'44 6-14 The Rev. M. Mitchell, speaking of education in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, remarks : " In addition to the testimony afforded by the letters of the clergy, many extracts from my diaries would show that the edu- cation in agricultural villages is of a most inferior character. My colleague, Mr. Campbell, in dis- cussing this subject with me, has frequently ex- pressed a hope that some means may be found for aiding managers to make their schools efficient, as well as less burdensome; 'for/ he writes, 'the destitution is uniform and general/ Nor is this destitution confined to the Eastern district. I have inspected the same class of school in almost every county of England, and I have met every- where the same defects, everywhere the like com- plaints, inefficiency of schools ; poverty of funds; irregularity of attendance ; indifference of parents ; anxiety and discouragement of trustees and man- agers ; together with a general indisposition on the part of owners of property to aid in the support of schools to any efficient purpose. The reports of my colleagues confirm these statements. Such CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 373 being the present position of the case, which, there can be no doubt, has a tendency to grow worse rather than better, it becomes a question to ascertain what steps are necessary to be taken, and what means are actually available, to improve the education of the country." * Per-centage of 26,235 Children in 313 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years Four Years. Five Years and over. 33-95 22-41 17-42 11-45 7-7 7-07 The Rev. J. J. Blandford, in alluding to the con- dition of education in the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Rutland, and Northampton, does not speak on the whole very encouragingly. With reference to the fifty-two schools under inspection in Northamptonshire, he remarks : " I cannot report favourably, with some exceptions, of the schools in this county, where there are no trained teachers or apprentices ; they are ill-supplied with the necessary apparatus, and the teaching is of an inferior description ; the con- sequence is, that few have been able to avail them- selves of the capitation grant even for the first year. In one parish, where there is a population of 1,000, I found an average attendance of forty- six children, no reading-books save a few torn * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 375-7. 374 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CUKE. Bibles and primers, a master totally unfit for his post, not even resident in the place, but living at a town between three and four miles from the school, to which he had to walk every morning. There is an endowment, and the school premises are comfortable and in good repair. I called upon the clergyman previously to visiting the school, but he declined to accompany me, stating that he had nothing to do with the management. In another place, with a population of 550, I found a man who had been a common labourer (whose respectability was his single qualification), pro- moted by the clergyman to the office of school- master.* In a third, where there is also a consider- able population, upon arriving at the school a short time before nine o'clock, I found the doors closed and no fire lighted, the thermometer being some degrees below freezing point, and snow upon the , ground." Of the forty-one schools under inspection in Nottinghamshire, Mr. Blandford writes: "I cannot speak favourably of the progress of educa- tion in Nottinghamshire, and I must express my regret that more systematic and vigorous efforts have not been made for its promotion ; there are a few honourable exceptions, but greater apathy has been shown in this county than in any of the * 700 Schoolmasters in. England cannot sign their names. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 375 other counties of which my district is composed." Again, he remarks : " At Basford, a large manu- facturing village close to Nottingham, there is ample accommodation for boys and girls ; but the schools are not half filled." He further states, that, " from the early age at which the children leave school, great difficulty has been experienced in supplying the places of the pupil teachers, whose apprenticeship has terminated."* At Mid- dleton, in Derbyshire, the school had been closed, owing to a difference of opinion among the trus- tees as to the teaching of the Church Catechism. Per-centage of 28,250 children in 394 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 42*07 22-97 15-65 9-76 5-4 4-15 The Rev. W. H. Brookfield, referring to the state of education in the counties of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, exposes a lamentable but, unhappily, prevalent and peculiar kind of ignorance, viz., that defective apprehension amongst the scholars which catches the sound of what is taught, but utterly ignores the sense. Mr. Brookfield, by way of illus- tration, instances two children of eleven years of age, * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 416420. 376 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CURE. of average intelligence, " who/' he observes, " did their arithmetic and reading tolerably well, who wrote something pretty legible, intelligible, and sensible, about an omnibus and about a steam- boat," and who, "after the irksome, (and what irksomeness it must have been ! ) the weary, the reiterated drilling of four or five years, half an hour a day, in day-school and Sunday-school, pro- duced such answers as the following to the two questions ' What is thy duty towards God ?' and ' What is thy duty towards thy neighbour ?' The answers are copied verbatim from the two children's slates. " The first answer is : ' My duty toads God is to bleed in him to fering and to loaf withold your arts withold my mine withold my sold and with my sernth to whirchp and to give thinks to put my old trast in him to call upon him to onner his old name a^id his world and to save him truly all the days of my lifes end.' " The second is : ' My dooty tords my Nabers to love him as thyself and to do to all men as I wed thou shall do and to me to love onner and suke my farther and Mother to onner and to bay the queen and all that are pet in a forty under her to smit myself to all my gooness teaches sportial pastures and marsters to oughten mysilf lordly and every to all my betters to hut no body by would nor deed to be trew in jest in all my deelins to CHIEF PEEVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 377 beer no mails nor ated in your arts to kep my ands from pecken and steel my turn from evil speak and lawing and slanders not to civet nor desar othermans good but to learn laber trewly to git my own leaving and to do my dooty in that state if life and to each it his please God to call men.' " I will add another/' continues the Inspector, "less illiterate, but indicating precisely the same class of error copied from the slate of an intelligent boy, in a good school, under a very able master, in the parish of an active clergyman. It is in answer to the question, 'What did your god- fathers and godmothers then for you ?' ' They did promise and voal three things in my name first that I should pernounce of the devel and all his walks pumps and valities of this wicked wold and all the sinful larsts of the flesh/ " etc. Mr. Brookfield further states : " It is not many days since I was in a school of average quality, consisting of 230 children. The children spent half an hour of every day, excepting Saturdays, in learning the Church Catechism. Three-fourths of them professed to repeat it. But throughout the school not one either could tell or knew (for knowing and being able to tell do not always go together) what was the meaning of ( succour,' 'slander/ 'inheritor/ or ' spiritual pastors/ "* * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 443445. 378 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. Per-centage of 38,426 Children in the 296 Schools under inspection, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Yeai-s. Five Years and over. 40-34 22-91 15-49 10-28 6-14 4-84 Again, the Rev. W. J. Kennedy, in his report of schools under inspection in the county of Lan- caster and the Isle of Man, while pointing out many defects in the present system of education, observes : " I confess I think there is truth in the statement that those who leave our National schools deteriorate intellectually rather than improve ; and I do not think this is satisfactorily accounted for merely by the early age at which they leave." Then, with reference to the non- attendance of children at school, he continues : " The ultimate difficulty will be the securing the attendance of all children at school regularly and for a sufficient length of time. The principal causes of the absence of children from school are, first, the negligence and indifference of the parents ; this is the main cause of all : but, secondly, very many children are absent because the parents are posi- tively too poor to pay the school fees ; * and, thirdly, other children are absent because their * The Chief Constable of Salford found 1,100 such chil- dren in Salford alone. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CEIME. 379 parents choose to have their labour in some shape or other, either in actual work done for them- selves, or in the wages they can earn. Before the case of non-attendance at school can be dealt with stringently, it will be necessary, I think, to have a school rate, both for the support of schools, and, where necessary, for building schools." And he finally adds : t( There are many persons, however, who despair of our ever getting the children of the poor regularly to school, save by some compulsory enactments. There is no doubt, I think, but that this opinion is, whether rightly or wrongly, taking root and spreading. . . . There is, perhaps, no reason, except our want of schools in sufficient number of such sufficient cheapness, to forbid the immediate passing of such a law, provided care were taken not to fix the age for labour too high in the first instance." * Per-centage of 38,464 Children in the 246 Schools under inspection, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 4618 25-53 12-76 8-19 4'2 3-14 The Rev. J. P. Norris, speaking of education in the counties of Chester, Salop, and Stafford, Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 448461. 380 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CURE. although mentioning a slight improvement upon former years, still complains of the insuperable ob- stacles that prevent the regular attendance of children at school. " Of all industrial employ- ments," he remarks, " brickmaking offers the most perplexing difficulties to the friends of education. At Burton-on-Trent, during the summer months, when the brewing operations are in a great measure suspended, the people are chiefly employed in coopering or in brickmaking, and the children are taken away from school for these purposes at a very early age." Then, as to the general condition of education, Mr. Norris observes : " Bright spots there are, here and there, scat- tered through each Inspector's district; and he may well rejoice, in his annual tours, to find their number increasing. But, after all, how few and far between they are ! In driving from one school to another, what a breadth of darkness he often has to traverse ! What masses of neglected popu- lation lie on his right hand and on his left ! Town parishes, that have long outgrown the strength of their overworked and underpaid curates ; monster villages, that have sprung up round the newly- opened mines, or works of some hard-headed, hard-hearted contractor; broad rural districts, the estate, it may be, of some large-landed pro- prietor who does not wish to see the people edu- cated, who would much rather have them fold each CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 381 his one talent in a napkin, and lay it by against the great day of account. Foj such places I see at present no hope." * Per-centage of 39,465 Children in 350 Schools under inspection, who have been in School Less than One Tear. One Year. Two Years. ThreeYears. Four Years. Five Years and over. 40-41 23-15 15-64 9-93 6-03 4-84 The Rev. D. J. Stewart, likewise, in alluding to the schools inspected by him in the counties of Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, West- moreland, and also Hertford, Buckingham, and Bedford, thus writes : " Year after year the average age of the children attending school has declined, and the attendance has become more desultory. I do not think there is any school which I have visited during the last three years where I have not heard these com- plaints. In the Blue-coat School, Durham, three years ago, the average age of the boys in the first class was fully thirteen. It has now fallen to eleven. At Newcastle the variation from last year is slight. At South Shields the average age is lower. The average falls, in all cases, till it reaches the earliest age at which employment is offered to children. In towns this average remains tolerably * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 475 486 382 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CURE. steady through the four quarters of the year. In agricultural places it is subject to great variatious in these four periods, because schools, which are comparatively empty for the greater part of the twelvemonth, are crammed with children during the few months when farm-work is almost sus- pended. . . . The moment a child's labour becomes marketable, that child's school-days are at an end." Mr. Stewart winds up his excellent report by observing : " There is another immense evil to be met. At present children are employed at such an early age that their education is out of the question. If the law, which now barely protects a child from starvation, were to insist on its education, there would be something hopeful in the prospects of our working classes. Without this legal inter- ference there is very little to encourage any one to build a school. There are few who do not feel the heavy outlay required in this country to restrain, detect, and punish criminals, and there are num- bers who feel that ' no system of prevention is so merciful as that which would elevate these classes to the capacity to fulfil their duties as Christians and citizens/ " * * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 497528. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 383 Per-centage of 13,985 Children in 126 Schools under inspection, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 44-69 23-5 14-73 8'45 5- 3-63 Owing to the illness of the Rev. W. Warburton, Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools for the counties of Berks, Hants, and Wilts, no report has been compiled. The following tabulated re- turn, however, is given in the Minutes for 1855-6 : * Per-centage of 10,551 Children in 89 Schools, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 31-62 30-05 14-55 11-11 7- 5-67 The Rev. H. Longueville Jones, in his report on the state of education in Wales, which is u some respects very unfavourable, cites the follow- ing passage from a communication made by the Venerable Archdeacon Wickham, of Denbighshire, respecting the National schools of Gresford : " It must not, however, be disguised that only very imperfect results can be looked for, even from the present large expenditure of both money and labour 011 these schools, unless greater regu- * Page 532. 384 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. larity can be obtained in the attendance of the children than now prevails. Perhaps it will appear hardly credible that out of 108 children whose names have been on the books throughout the past year, the actual time during which more than one-third have been under instruction does not amount to 130 whole days in the year, or 2J days in every week ; while 20 only of the whole number have fulfilled the lowest conditions on which any government assistance can be obtained towards the expenses of their education, by an attendance of 176 days in the year, or little more than 3J days weekly; and 10 only have completed what the Committee of Council wish to have enforced, if possible an attendance of 192 days, or an average of four days weekly for 48 weeks in the year. With such disadvantages the wonder will be, not that so many grow up in ignorance after having long nominally attended our schools, but that even some few obtain through them anything at all deserving the name of education." * Per-centage of 13,918 Children in 127 Schools actually inspected in Wales, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 36-86 22;33 18-52 10-66 6-43 5-2 * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, p. 539. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 385 Mr. J. D. Morell, Inspector of schools in the North- Western division of England and North Wales, with reference to the general complaint of the non-attendance of children above eight or nine years old, remarks : " Is not the fact that chil- dren are taken so early to factory labour one which is fatal to any hope of our ever seeing them really well-instructed, or properly developed to any degree of intellectual power or refinement? No doubt, juvenile labour, in the measure in which it is now ordinarily employed, is a great evil ; an evil, too, which militates seriously against the real progress of the factory population in mental enlightenment. . . . Wherever you go, the uniform complaint of the teacher is, that the children stay too short a time" Mr. Morell next alludes to the Factory system, and shows how impossible it is for children of tender years to combine intellectual and moral culture with physical labour. He writes : " A few words will suffice to give a correct idea of the ordinary position of a factory boy in South Lan- cashire. Born ordinarily of parents who are themselves usually attached to some branch of the cotton manufacture, he enters the factory usually at about nine or ten years of age, sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later. The Fac- tory Act provides that he shall never enter before he has turned eight; that he shall never be c c 386 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CURE. allowed to work more than six hours a day, nor beyond six o' clock in the evening, and that he shall attend school three hours a day (excepting Saturdays), until he is thirteen years old, when he may be passed as a 'full-timer,' that is, may leave the school altogether, and work ten hours in the place of six in the mill. " Now, this position presents both advantages and disadvantages, viewed in relation to the rest of the juvenile population of the country. The dis- advantages are these that a child only eight or nine years old is subjected, not indeed to any hard work, but to the lot of being committed to the monotonous drudgery of the factory for six hours a day, at a time when the mind is most fitted for gaining useful knowledge, and otherwise naturally inclined to change and sport; that although he does go to school, yet the time of instruction is shortened one-half; that the mind is divided between the prosecution of his industry and the attention due to his elementary studies ; that he gets early mixed up with a miscellaneous class of workpeople of both sexes, not always, or perhaps generally, disposed either to good habits or decent language ; and, lastly, that when actually in school, he does not find, for the most part, arrangements well adapted for aiding his progress in learning, or fitted to the peculiar circumstances under which he attends The factory boy is often, CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CEIME. 387 without question, badly off. No one looks after him in early years to get him instructed in ele- mentary knowledge before he begins his life's labour. When once he gets into the factory he has to begin his alphabet just at the same time that he begins his manual labour ; the atmosphere of the mill puts precocious ideas into his head, and gives him a distate for all learning ; and thus, by the time he is passed on as a full-timer, his edu- cation has, in fact, hardly commenced." * The following is the Per-centage of 19,297 Children in 123 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Tear. Two Tears. Three Tears. Four Tears. Five Tears and over. 39-22 32-95 11-8 7-5 4-47 4-06 The annexed tabulated summary, appended to Mr. Matthew Arnold's " General Report of Schools in the Midland, Metropolitan, and South-Eastern Division of England," is likewise indicative of the impossibility of retaining children in school in the absence of legalized coercive measures : Per-centage of 18,692 Children in 117 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Tear. One Tear. Two Tears. Three Tears. Four Tears. Five Tears and over. 27-34 43-74 12-75 8-06 4-83 3-28 * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 559-561. Ibid. p. 577. 388 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. Mr. Bowstead, speaking of the schools in the South- Western division of England, and in South Wales, thus remarks : "The returns made by the managers and teachers of the schools which I visited between September 1st, 1854, and the same date in 1855, compared with the returns for the preceding twelve months, show that the per-centage of children on the registers under ten years of age has risen from 65'13 to 66'94, whilst the per-cent- age of those over ten has fallen proportionally from 34'87 to 33-06. The greatest evil, therefore, with which education in this country has to contend the premature transfer of children from school to work, from learning to earning appears to be on the increase in that part of the island to which my labours extend. I am confirmed in the belief that this is a correct conclusion, by my own ob- servation of the extreme youthfulness of the head classes in many of the schools visited during the past year, as well as by the consideration that there has been no recent increase of infant schools in the district, nor any other extraneous circum- stance calculated to render the return less favour- able than heretofore. Should the experience of any considerable number of my colleagues during the past year exhibit similar results, the evil will, I trust, be thought sufficiently important to merit the gravest consideration of the Committee of CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 389 Council on Education, or even of the Legislature itself." * Per-centage of 16,991 Children in 142 Schools inspected, who have heen in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 19-43 48-89 13-51 8-45 5-75 3'97 Mr. Marshall, alluding to the state of education in the Southern division of England, observes: if Immense progress has everywhere been made, and nowhere more visibly than in my own district, in the extension and improvement of school fa- brics, the supply of suitable and skilfully- devised apparatus, and the gradual creation of an adequate staff of competent and devoted teachers. But when the schools have been built, often at great cost and with excellent judgment, and the teachers have been installed in their office, full both of zeal and capacity, what has been done to secure in- mates for the one and pupils for the other ? Evi- dently nothing. It is, I believe, the unanimous testimony of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, that the average age of children frequenting ele- mentary schools, and the average duration of their attendance, is rather below than above what it was a few years ago ; and this in spite of all the Minutes, &c., 1855-6, p. 579. 390 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CURE. cost incurred to provide them with solid instruc- tion, and all the attractions displayed to induce them to accept it." Finally, Mr. Marshall, after referring to Bir- mingham, which he describes as a " dark spot in the educational map," and showing the short work which the Factory system has made of edu- cation in that town, remarks : " If there is any weight in the facts which I have adduced, any cogency in the arguments which I have founded upon them, I may now venture to submit, in quitting the subject, that the real question for all who are concerned in furthering the interests of public education is not, as some seem to suppose, how school buildings may be most advantageously constructed, what books may be most profitably used, nor how teachers may be most effectively trained all these have long since passed from the domain of theory to that of experimental know- ledge but how children may be brought to school, and kept there till their education is complete" * The following is the Per-centage of 8,988 Children in 97 Schools inspected, who have heen in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 36-59 33-89 13-55 9-2 4-11 2-66 * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 605-611. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 391 Mr. S. N. Stokes gives the subjoined tabulated summary of Roman Catholic schools inspected by him in the Northern division of Great Britain : * Per-centage of 19,480 Children in 127 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 38-89 44-78 8-19 4-7 2-31 ri3 Even in Scotland, where education is said to be more extended and better appreciated than in England, the Rev. T. Wilkinson, Inspector of Episcopal schools, thus speaks of the low and otherwise unfavourable condition of elementary instruction in that country : "We see how soon school instruction is lost, by considering what hap- pens to crowds of children on leaving our primary schools. They are taken away while yet in one of the lower classes, while reading is still a disagree- able task; the work of self-education has not been commenced ; they never voluntarily open a book again, and in a very short time they have lost every trace of their school training. Glas- gow, Green ock, Paisley, Dundee, and other places, supply abundant examples in proof of this state- ment. The children, of both sexes, after passing * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, p. 639. 392 JUVENILE CRIME : ITS CURE. through the infant and juvenile schools, are taken away at ten, or even nine, years of age, on con- dition that they shall attend night schools for an hour every evening. These night schools, how- ever, though kept open throughout the year, and efficiently conducted, are found to fail to keep up the attainments of many who attend them." * Per-centage of 6,099 Children in 35 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 45-84 25-81 14-81 8-45 3-33 1-76 Mr. John Gordon, Inspector of Established Church schools in Scotland, affords confirmatory evidence. He writes : " At many schools the attendance is for a short period, and much interrupted. Examples : at St. John's Sessional School, Glasgow, so few remain after nine or ten years of age, that 1,200 have been admitted within the last four years, the attendance at any one time not exceeding 140. The Hunter-street Female School, in Paisley, in- tended for a population of handloom weavers, has no more than 60 pupils, though 200 have been en- rolled within the last twelve months. The collier Minutes, &c., 1855-6, p. 708. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CHIME. 393 population at Stevenson sent 260 children to the parish school within a few months preceding the time at which the actual attendance was found re- duced to 170. It is certain, at the same time, that no class of children are, or need to be, de- tained from school by any difficulty in meeting the ordinary demand of school wages ; free admission is liberally given by every teacher, wherever he has reason to believe that any such difficulty exists ; the children of the poor relieved by the parish may have their instruction at the cost of the parish Board ; the children of the poor not so relieved are often educated at the charge of Kirk Sessions, of Charities, or of individuals. " The school is not frequented from other causes ; mainly from the employment of the young in work at home or elsewhere ; partly, and in a less degree, from that indifference of parents to what the school offers, arising from their own ignorance of any good, moral or material, which education bears along with it. In one instance the people, it is said, are so depressed in their condition, so ' sunk in heart and hope/ as to think that schools, though proper things for those that prosper, were never meant for them. In another, at a distant station in the Highlands, they have taken up the notion, that, if a few can read amongst them, the rest do not need to care about the matter, as they can get, upon occasion, the benefit of what the 394 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. few can do in that way. Those instances are rare, perhaps solitary; but still, the neglect of the school is, in many places, so prevailing, and the attendance so brief and fitful, that a thorough in- struction of any sort becomes impossible." * Per-centage of 18,570 Children in 178 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 34-34 23-3 16-04 11-82 7-8 6-7 Dr. Woodford, Inspector of Established Church schools in Scotland, after passing severe animad- versions upon the system of teaching in some schools, and citing a few examples of unpardon- able ignorance in particular schools, adduces the following f Per-centage of 32,891 Children in 370 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 30-23 21-97 17-77 13-32 9-45 7-26 Dr. Gumming, Inspector of schools not of the Established Church in Scotland, does not speak * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, pp. 683-4. t Ibid. p. 663. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 395 very encouragingly of the state of education in that country. The party-feeling that exists on the subject of education among various classes is, apparently, the main cause of non-success. " One can scarcely help wishing," says Dr. Gumming, " either that a national system of education were carried speedily, or that it were at once and finally abandoned." * Annexed is the Per-centage of 33,015 Children in 314 Schools inspected, who have been in School Less than One Year. One Year. Two Years. Three Years. Four Years. Five Years and over. 35-02 22-73 16-43 11-49 7-85 6-48 From the painful facts above adduced it will plainly appear, that there is no hope for the progress of education in this country, or a diminution of crime, so long as an efficient extended system of education be not adopted, and legal measures employed to enforce the attendance and continu- ance of children at school for a specified number of years. The Times echoes the same complaint, and ob- serves : " We cannot give anything to be called education in our poor-class schools. The children leave too soon, owing to the great demands of manufactures and agriculture upon a child's la- * Minutes, &c., 1855-6, p. 693. 396 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CURE. hour." * Cheap labour, doubtless, is a great boon ; but, after all, it is too dearly purchased at the ex- pense of national intelligence and morality. Lures have been thrown out, by the Privy Council on Education, in the shape of capitation- fees to those scholars who would regularly attend school for a certified period. And what has been the issue ? Why, out of 4,800 schools inspected, in order to ascertain if they were worthy of the capitation grant, 1,096 received its aid, and of the 102,364 scholars attending them, only 36,929, or 36 per cent., came within the conditions requiring an attendance of 176 days in the year. Thus it is evident that nothing will avail in the education of the masses apart from legislative compulsory measures. However long the Government may pusillanimously refrain from adopting this course, it must resort to such expedient in the end. To devise a system of education calculated to meet with the approval of different parties each of whom has a shibboleth of its own is mani- festly impossible. One is for having religious instruction made the basis of secular learning; another is hostile to religion being taught in schools, regarding such a course as unnecessary and inexpedient ; while another party, again, is opposed to all dogmatic religious teaching whatso- * Leading Article, Nov. 7, 1857. CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 397 ever, either in school or out of it. Now, it is quite possible in a large measure to attain the grand object in view, and withal meet the conflicting views and peculiar idiosyncracies of each political and religious party. Let but the Government pass a single and simple enactment, making it obliga- tory on all children from the ages of five to fourteen to attend school regularly, holding parents and guardians responsible (upon pain of a pecuniary penalty for each offence) for the due performance thereof, and requiring a certificate of attendance from each scholar, to be submitted quarterly or half- yearly to the registrar of the district in which his or her parents or relatives may reside. Parents would then, as now, be at perfect liberty to send their children to whatever school they preferred, whether denominational or national, secular or religious, it mattered not. By the adoption of this plan the hostility of all parties would be appeased, their prejudices met; while the important end in view the education of the young, of which each party is desirous would unquestionably be pro- moted. I am persuaded, however, that a compre- hensive National system of education would work better and more effectively, though, I confess, I see formidable obstacles in the way of its adoption. Meanwhile the plan proposed is the only available course. It is lamentable to think that the youth of this nation should be perishing through lack of 398 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. knowledge, while disputants are angrily engaged in discussing the manner in which it should be administered ; just like a sick person who is dying for want of medicine, but whose recovery is ren- dered hopeless, owing to the consulting physicians not agreeing as to whether the mixture be imbibed from a wine-glass or a silver spoon ! In connection with a broad system of National Education, a considerable preventive check to crime would be found in the establishment of Industrial Feeding Schools. There is among us a numerous class of juveniles vividly and truly described by Lord Macaulay, as "the human vermin which, neglected by ministers of state and ministers of religion, barbarous in the midst of civilization, heathen in the midst of Christianity, burrows amid all physical and all moral pollution, in the cellars and garrets of great cities." Now, it is clear that we cannot reach this class except through their stomachs. To try and educate starving and vagabond children would be indeed a hopeless task, if, at the same time, nothing be done for their physical wants. So convinced was the philosopher Locke of the neces- sity for providing asylums for destitute juveniles, where they should be fed and taught, that he urged the erection of an Industrial school in every parish, where, to cite his own words, " the children of the poor, from the age of three to fourteen, CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 399 should be lodged, fed, clothed, and put to work." In 1796 a bill was submitted to Parliament by that eminent statesman, William Pitt, which had for its object the establishment of schools in every corporate district, where vagrant children should be maintained and instructed in sundry branches of handicraft ; so that being timely preserved from the temptations and snares of indigence, and trained in habits of industry, they may be saved from a life of infamy and crime. The attempt to legislate for this unfortunate class of " city Arabs " was, however, unsuccessful ; and more than half a century elapsed before any further attempt was made in their behalf, beyond the laudable but in- adequate efforts of private charity, in the forma- tion and sustentation of Ragged schools. These institutions have been extensively organized with the view of reclaiming the most depraved and abandoned of our juvenile population with which, for want of a better and more effective machinery, I most willingly sympathize. But, individual or voluntary agency is quite insufficient to compete with an evil so gigantic, even were it tenfold more active than it is. Notwithstanding, it is well cheer- fully to accept of the lesser in lieu of the greater antidote, thankful the while if a proportional im- provement be discernible. Partially defective as is the system, and objectionable as is, perhaps, the nomenclature itself, still I cannot refrain from 400 JUVENILE CRIME J ITS CUBE. acknowledging that Bagged schools have effected a very considerable amount of good ; although but a comparatively small proportion of outcast chil- dren embracing not always the most dangerous and degenerate has been reached even through this channel. But mere moral instruction is worse than thrown away upon these British Pariahs, if we bring them not within the scope of our humane and Christian sympathies. Their strong physical crav- ings must be supplied before we can, not only with efficiency but with propriety, attempt to draw out their spiritual or even improve their moral nature. In Scotland, the Act 17 and 18 Viet., c. 74, commonly called " Dunlop's Act/' passed in 1854, has effected considerable advantage, as by it magistrates are enabled to commit to a Certified Reformatory school any child, under fourteen years cf age who may be found begging in the streets or known to be destitute of home or friends, al- though not chargeable with any actual offence. This Act, however, empowered parents, or others, to bail such children, upon condition that they should be sent to school and that the sureties should be responsible for their good conduct. But this clause of the Act was repealed by 19 and 20 Viet., c. 28, which gives power to magistrates to refuse such securities and to detain a child forty- eight hours while inquiries are being made respecting him. The operation of this Act has CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 40l not only caused hitherto careless parents to look after their children, but it has stimulated guar- dians of parishes to provide for the education and physical necessities of juvenile vagrants who were previously suffered to prowl about a shocking disgrace to our civilization and humanity. Mr. Thomson has given a detailed and highly satisfac- tory account of the working of Mr. Sheriff Wat- son' s Industrial Feeding schools in Aberdeen, in which about 400 destitute youths are fed, clothed, educated, and trained to some industrial employ- ment, and at an almost inconceivably low cost. One or two facts are worth recording in connection with these schools, viz., that while in 1841 the number of children committed to Aberdeen Prison, under twelve years of age, was 61, in 1851 it was reduced to 5 ; and that while before the opening of the first school there were known to be 280 juveniles, under fourteen, who maintained themselves by begging and thieving, this class of children has almost entirely disappeared from the streets, so that, to use Mr. Thomson's words, " a juvenile mendicant is almost unknown." Through the efforts of private Christian benevolence, Industrial schools have been established in Edinburgh, Glas- gow, Greenock, Dundee, and other places ; the reports of which are highly gratifying. The Aberdeen schools, however, were instituted before the passing of the " Dunlop Act," as the local D D 402 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. Police Act of that city empowered the police to take into custody all children and other persons found begging in the streets. The "Industrial Schools Bill," which was intro- duced by Sir Stafford Northcote during the Parliamentary Session of 1856, and, in his ab- sence, by Mr. Adderley in that of 1857, and finally amended in Committee, seeks to accom- plish for this country what the " Dunlop Act " has effected for Scotland. This bill, which laud- ably aims at the prevention of crime, seeks to establish a similar system for Industrial schools as is already in force with reference to those of a reformatory character. But, as no compulsory powers exist, the effectiveness of the contemplated measure must be materially impeded as soon as it becomes law. The State should certainly place Industrial schools under its special patronage and support, and not suffer so powerful a preventive agency to be thrown on the precarious prop of private charity. The humble colonists of Massa- chusetts have shown, in this respect, a deeper sense of national responsibility, and displayed a larger knowledge of political economy and Christian duty, than the more enlightened British statesmen. I now conclude this subject in the language of the eminent and eloquent Dr. Channing : " Let society," he observes, "especially protect the exposed child. There is a paramount duty which CHIEF PREVENTIVE CHECK TO CRIME. 403 no community has yet fulfilled. If the child be left to grow up in utter ignorance of duty, of its Maker, of its relation to society, to grow up in an atmosphere of profaneness and intemperance, and in the practice of falsehood and fraud, let not the community complain of his crime. It has quietly looked on and seen him, year after year, arming himself against its order and peace ; and who is most to blame when he deals the guilty blow ? A moral care over the tempted and ignorant portion of the State is a primary duty of society." * I have dwelt long and strongly upon this topic, because I am led to regard education as the only effectual preventive check to crime. Other remedial measures may, doubtless, be beneficially employed, but none can prove of much avail if this be want- ing. In the language of the learned Recorder of Birmingham : " It is to education, in the large and true meaning of the word, that we must all look as the means of striking at the root of the evil." t Every earnest philanthropic man, who is really desirous to see education spread and crime dimmish in this land, must sympathize with the exclamation of the poet Wordsworth : " Oh for the coming of that glorious time When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth * Sermon on the Obligation of a City to care for and watch over the Moral Health of its Members, f Repression of Crime, p. 9. D D 2 404 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. And best protection, this imperial Realm, While she exacts allegiance, shall admit An obligation on her part to teach Them who are born to serve her and obey ; Binding herself by statute to secure For all the children whom her soil maintains The rudiments of letters, and inform The mind with moral and religious truth, Both understood and practised so that none, However destitute, be left to droop By timely culture unsustained ; or ran Into a wild disorder ; or be forced To drudge through a weary life without the help Of intellectual implements and tools ; A savage horde among the civilized, A servile band among the lordly free ! * * * * * * The discipline of slavery is unknown Among us hence the more do we require The discipline of virtue ; order else Cannot subsist, nor confidence, nor peace. Thus, duties rising out of good possest, And prudent caution needful to avert Impending evil, equally require That the whole people should be taught and trained. So shall licentiousness and black resolve Be rooted out, and virtuous habits take Their place ; and genuine piety descend, Like an inheritance, from age to age." * * The Excursion, book ix. CHAPTER XL REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. " No man either was, or is, by nature a wild and unsoci- able creature, but some have grown so by addicting them- selves to vice, contrary to the laws of nature ; and yet these, by other manners, by changing their method of living, and place of abode, have returned to their natural gentleness." PLUTARCH. Life of Pompey. " The precious seed which lies dormant in the human mind is sometimes suddenly and singularly vivified." FREDERIKA BREMER. " The general results everywhere encourage the hope that a new era is now commenced for our juvenile outcasts, and that, for the future, instead of treating them so as only to \^r harden them in crime, they are to be dealt with as a wise and affectionate parent treats his rebellious, unpromising, child." ALEXANDER THOMSON, of Banchory. THAT feeling which, formerly, caused society to regard a criminal with abhorrence, and as only a fit object for unmitigated punishment, is, to the honour of humanity, now confined to a few, such as the " London Scoundrel/' who, believing in no logic but that of the hangman' s rope, gloated with 406 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. brutal satisfaction in the columns of the Times, over a wretched miscreant whom a human tribunal had prematurely sent before that of the Divine. The merciful genius of Christianity has, at length, permeated even our rigorous judicial code. Not in England only, but in all civilized countries, legislation has chiefly proved " More prompt To avenge than to prevent the hreach of law." A growing disposition has, however, been for some time observed among our legislators and jurists to modify the severity of the penal statutes a circumstance which in itself argues favourably for our progress as a nation and the extension of that liberty which is deservedly the boast of Eng- lishmen and the highest glory of England ; for, as an eminent writer remarks, " As freedom advances, the severity of the penal law decreases." * But the idea of reforming the criminal is entirely of modern date, and beautifully in keeping with the first principles and precepts of our Divine religion, which exhibits to us a like treatment in the Eter- nal's dealings with men : as " Earthly power doth show likest God's, When mercy seasons justice." Viewed simply as a repressive force, a punitive system based upon reformatory principles is worthy * Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, book vi. chap. ix. REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 407 of the support of every good citizen no less than of the State, whose chief duty it is to suppress crime, and with the least possible pain to the de- linquent. No apprehensions need be entertained that a mild course of punishment will tend to increase criminal offences; for, as Montesquieu asserts, " the cause of all the violations of the laws arises from the impunity of crimes, and not from the moderation of the penalties." For a thousand years or more we have been madly endeavouring to repress crime by severe punitive measures, in some instances approaching the blind ferocity of the Draconic code ; and all to no imaginable purpose, except to increase the giant strength of the ugly monster they aimed to crush, just as Prometheus, in the Heathen allegory, rose superior to his tormentors. But, viewed apart from the mere pecuniary loss saved to the State by the reformation of offenders, we must also take into account the direct moral advantage which it gains in the conversion of a criminal into a well-ordered citizen, determined no more to violate the laws of his country or forfeit the confidence of his fellows. It is curious how susceptible of good impressions even the hardest natures sometimes are ; like to the statue of Memnon which is said to have poured forth its song of joy when touched by the rays of the morning sun. "Men," says Eliot Warburton, 408 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. (f are always more true to their collective than to their individual responsibility. Remove a dis- orderly soldier to a well-disciplined regiment, and he becomes exemplary ; convert a gossiping Vene- tian into a gondolier, and he becomes discreet; promote a thievish Arab into a muleteer's place, and he will straightway become an honest man."* Thus it was that Peter the Great created an army of steady, ready soldiers out of a troop of slavish serfs, and transmuted a nest of pirates into a commanding navy. Here was a moral and phy- sical metamorphosis of which Ovid never dreamt. If the principle of criminal jurisprudence laid down by the eminent commentator, Blackstone, be correct, viz., that the end and measure of punishments should be " such as appear best calculated to answer the end of precaution against future offences," t then indeed a punitive process based upon reformatory principles is the best, least expensive, and most effectual machinery to employ to attain such an issue. It is decidedly " the duty of all rulers to prevent, as far as possible, the necessity of punishing, and, when they do inflict punishment, to attempt reformation ."% Of course repressive must always remain sub- sidiary to preventive measures. To the latter we * The Crescent and the Cross, vol. ii. p. 78. f Commentaries, book iv. chap. 1. I Lords' Committee on Juvenile Crime, 1847. REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 409 must look for the material diminution of our criminal ranks; while the former may hopefully be expected to produce corresponding advantages with the efforts made in that particular direction. Greater difficulty will naturally arise in the case of adult criminals, whose evil habits have become confirmed ; but even with these the exertions put forward for their reformation will meet with con- siderable success. Mr. Kingsmill gives the fol- lowing proportion of good and bad results in 1,000 convicts who have passed under his personal observation in Pentonville Prison, and which, he says, is an approximation to the probable results of all other Home Government prisons : " Two hundred will return to a course of crime in one form or another, but with far less success than before. " Three hundred will abandon it from the feeling that they have lost the art of thieving in a great measure, and from the experience that common honesty and the worst sort of labour produce more comfort and advantage. " Four hundred will decidedly take to a good course of life from principle and choice, and on the whole become useful members of society at home or abroad. " One hundred, after their long imprisonment, combined with advancing age, and often with pre- vious bad health, will be permanently invalided, 410 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. unfit for gaining a livelihood by any means, and, after struggling with poverty in the streets of our towns and along the roads in country parts, in the various capacities of vagrants, will finish their days in the poor-house." * So far, if perfectly reliable, the results of certain prison treatment are highly encouraging, as merely about one-fifth of the whole number may be said either hopelessly to relapse into crime or present extraordinary impediments to the process of reformation. But, with the juvenile delinquent the obstacles in the way of reformation are comparatively trivial, provided the proper course be employed to win his affections, touch his conscience, and enlarge his intellect. The highly successful penitentiaries of Mettray, near Tours, and the Rauhen Haus, Ham- burg, show what beneficial and lasting influences can be exercised upon juvenile offenders, when the fitting machinery is employed for this important end ; the number permanently reformed in each of these asylums being 85 per cent, and 90 per cent, respectively ; a result which fully justifies the say- ing of Lavater : " Man is capable of corrupting and of recovering himself to such a pitch, that we ought not to withhold all esteem, even from him who bears the worst physiognomy, however depraved * Reports of Directors of Convict Prisons, 1856, p. 22. REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 411 it may be, nor utterly despair of his return to virtue." * M. DeMetz, one of the zealous and philan- thropic founders of Les Colonies Penitentiaires at Mettray, had his mind first directed to the refor- mation of young delinquents while officiating as judge in Paris. The large number of children con- stantly brought before him in his official capacity some of whom did not reach higher than his desk caused him considerable pain ; for the good magistrate had no alternative but to commit them to prison, where he knew they would only become more corrupt, and all chances of amendment be hopelessly imperilled. The first steps taken in the formation of the new Colony was in the summer of 1839, when M. DeMetz and his noble colleague the late Vicomte de Courteilles, who generously presented a large grant of land for the purpose, commenced the formation of an Ecole Prepar- atoire, having collected together some twenty- three youths of respectable condition, who were to be instructed in the very onerous but honourable duties of Reformatory school teachers. The entire success of the subsequent scheme may justly be said to have depended upon this important step of having trained officials ; a circumstance almost overlooked among the directors of Reformatories at * Essays, vol. ii. p. 41, 4to ed. 4*12 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. home. In January, 1840, twelve juvenile criminals were the first inmates received into the Institution ; and future admissions were very gradually in- creased until the undoubted success of the project, and the extent of public and even governmental support, warranted the founders in greatly aug- menting that number. According to the last Report of the directors, 650 children were resident in the colony, making the total received since its establishment 1,984, of whom 1,170 were returned to society reformed, and placed in sundry situa- tions; 356 youths having entered the army and navy, a few of whom, by meritorious conduct in the late Crimean war, obtained the cross of the Legion of Honour.* During the first ten years of the operations at Mettray, the following were the progressive num- bers in the Institution : 1840, 71; 1841, 134; 1842, 176; 1843, 221; 1844, 339; 1845, 376; 1846, 425; 1847, 528; 1848, 526; 1849, 560. On the 1st January, 1856, 1,984 detenues had been received from the commencement of the establish- ment in 1840. Annexed is an analysis of the un- favourable moral soil upon which M. DeMetz has had to work, included in the preceding total : * Kapport des Colonie Agricole et Penitentiaire, 1856, pp. 12-19. REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 413 346 illegitimate children. 876 orphans. 116 foundlings. 304 step-children. 117 children whose parents live in concubinage. 408 children of convicted parents.* The success of the Mettray reformatory system will appear all the more extraordinary when the rough and stubborn material upon which it had to work is considered. The criminal youth of France manifest a precocious virility, sharpness of intellect, and quickness of action, not to be found in chil- dren of a corresponding class in England, where the number of young offenders double that of the former country, t Besides, the Mettray colonists appear to have been taken chiefly from the most neglected, abandoned, and vagabond class miserable outcast children many of whom have never known a mother's care or felt a father's love ; but who, from their earliest infancy, have been destined to do battle with the world, and to feel its sorrows ere they tasted its joys. And yet, the moral reclamation avowedly achieved at Mettray is effected by simple and gentle means; perhaps rendered all the more potent on this account. Just as a drop of water, * Notice sur Mettray, par Augustin Cochin, Maire du-10 e arrondissement de Paris, p. 17. t Rapport fait a 1'Academie des Sciences, Morales, et Politiques, par M. Beranger. 414 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CURE. continually falling, will wear away the hardest stone, so the unctuous droppings of kindly words upon the flinty, rebellious heart of the criminal child doth in time destroy its unnatural obduracy, and render it soft and susceptible to virtuous im- pressions. " The observance of religious duties/' remarks M. Cochin, " the love of liberty, the esprit de famille, the influence of good example, the cultivation of the sense of honour, habits of discipline, the proper use of liberty ; in these general and simple elements consist the whole reformatory system, all the regenerating influence of Mettray."* The learned Recorder of Birmingham mentions the following affecting story of a very incorrigible Mettray youth, which shows that even in the apparently irreclaimable, some seeds of virtue may yet be latent in the heart, awaiting only the proper influences for their development : "A youth of a poor, but ancient and noble, house in Brittany came to Mettray. His father had through life sustained all the essential dignity of his rank by honest industry ; cultivating, with his own hands, the last of the paternal acres. But * Pratique de la religion, amour du travail, esprit de famille, emulation de I'exemple, culte de 1'honneur, habi- tude de la discipline, bon usage de la liberte ; tout le sys- teme penitentiaire, toute I'mnuence moralisatrice de Met- tray est dans ces grandes et simples idees." Notice sur Mettray, p. 8. REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 415 the disgrace which the son had brought on his name had crushed his spirit. Even at Mettray the lad could not refrain from repeated acts of theft, and, when confined in a cell, he still found opportunities of stealing. He was expelled. After his removal to prison a letter of reproach was written to him by one of his family. " ' Do you know/ said the writer, ' that your aged father sits with his head sunk on his breast, and that he has never raised it since the day of our dishonour ? ' The boy read the letter he felt the blow he pined away, and died heart- broken!"* There is another matter connected with the Mettray Institution which it is well to notice, as upon it, in a great measure, its signal success, as a Reformatory school, is to be attributed. I allude to that system of patronage which not only pro- vides each boy with a friend while a colon, but which watches over, protects, and even cherishes him if need be after he becomes an apre. As the information furnished by Monsieur DeMetz may be interesting and useful to the managers and friends of English Reformatories, I hesitate not to cite it : "We do not," observes this excellent man, " disguise from ourselves the fact, that our efforts * The Eepression of Crime, by M. D. Hill, p. 125. 416 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CURE. would produce no good results, if we lost sight of our children as soon as we gave them liberty ; that critical moment, when they found themselves beset on all sides by the temptations of the outer world. They never leave the colony until we have secured a place with employers upon whom we can entirely depend. A patron, chosen in the neighbourhood whither the youth is sent, watches over him with unremitting care, and aids him with advice. " Colons who have been engaged by farmers in the neighbourhood of Mettray, or who have gone into the army, happened to be quartered at Tours, come every Sunday to spend the day at the colony. The same place is laid for them at the family table which they used to occupy j they kneel at the same altar with their former schoolfellows ; they dine with them, and join them in their sports. Thus we withdraw them from the influence of the tavern, whither they might be led by want of occupation ; and we have no fear of overstepping the truth, when we say the day is, to the greater number, a jour defete. " Youths who have been with us have no need to fear want of employment, which too often ruins a workman's hopes for the future. As soon as they are out of work, they return to the colony, and put themselves under the protecting wing, so to speak, of the chief of the family who has REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 417 brought them up, who knows their character and has won their affection. Then they resume, in every respect, the life of a colon, and submit, unre- servedly, to the discipline of the household. We provide for their wants, on the understanding that they will work industriously. We seek a new situation for them, and it is not until one has been found that we consent to part with them. " If one of our lads is ill, and is living in the neighbourhood, we send for him to the colony. We never allow him to go to an hospital ; we claim the privilege of alleviating his sufferings and sor- rows, as a father does those of his children. We endeavour as earnestly to strengthen in his heart the love of virtue as to cure his bodily ailments. We seek to revive his religious feelings ; and should he die, we have the consolation of knowing that he dies like a Christian. Thus, the time passed with us is doubly profitable to the youth. His companions are well aware that we receive no remuneration for the cost of his stay among us, for our lads know all ; and this is why we make it a rule that nothing shall be done which it would be desirable to conceal from them. These acts of hospitality excite the gratitude, not only of those who are its objects, but of those also who witness it. " No youth ever leaves us until his health is com- pletely restored. Convalescence is a time of still E E 418 JUVENILE CEIME ; ITS CURE. greater difficulty to the workman than illness itself, and more dangerous to his future well-being by exposing him to struggle with want. Our hospitals, which are always inadequate to the demands made upon them, cannot keep the patient long enough for him to regain his strength, and they dismiss him while the employer consi- ders him yet too weak to work. What can become of him, between the hospital which sends him forth, and the workshop where he cannot gain admit- tance ? Our lads have not this sad alternative to bear. " We maintain an unflagging correspondence with the youths we have placed out, as well as with their patrons; the number of letters we have written and received amounts to at least four thousand. We never regret their multiplicity, although the correspondence is a very onerous one, not only for the time it absorbs, but for other sacrifices which it entails. It is by means of the packets contain- ing these valuable documents, each endorsed with the name of the youth to which it has reference, that those persons who have visited Mettray with the intention of writing an account of it, have been able to verify the facts stated in our Annual Reports."* The Philanthropic Farm- School, Re dhill, Surrey, * Irish Quarterly Review, Dec. 1851. REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 419 is based upon the principle of the Mettray establishment ; and, although the good results are not so great as that of the French institution, they are, nevertheless, all that could well be expected under the circumstances ; 75 per cent, of the boys being, it is said, reformed. The Philanthropic Society the nucleus of the Redhill institution was originally formed in 1788, by a few good and earnest men,* who, see- ing a large and increasing number of destitute and degraded youths infesting the metropolis, and living by prey, resolved upon making an effort to abate the evil. After a few changes of residence, a large plot of ground was purchased in St. George's Fields, opposite Bethlehem Hospital, and suitable buildings erected thereon, in which criminal and destitute children, of both sexes, should be fed and taught, as well as instructed in various industrial occupations. In 1806 an Act of Incorporation was obtained from the Legislature, sanctioning the objects of the society, and granting other privileges. In 1845 the girls' school was discon- * The following names are to be found in the list of the founders of this charity : The Duke of Leeds, first Presi- dent of the Society, A.D. 1790 ; Lord Aylesford; Dr. Sims ; S. Bosanquet, Esq. ; John Harman, Esq. ; George Holford, Esq., M.P. ; J. J. Angerstein, Esq., M.P. ; Colonel Harn- age, and W. Houlston, Esq. The late Earl of Hardwicke ; H. R. H. the late Duke of York, and the late Marquis of Westminster, were also among its earlier patrons. 420 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. tinued, when the agency of the charity became confined to the reformation of penitent and ju- venile delinquents, who, after two or three years' probationary course, were either apprenticed out or enabled to emigrate, instead of being suffered, as formerly, to remain in the house until almost the age of manhood. Matters went on in this way up to 1849, at which time the directors, being fully convinced of the superior advantages pursued in France, leased a farm of 133 acres at Redhill, for a tenure of 150 years, with the option of purchasing the land, at a stipulated price, within a certain period. On the 1 3th of April of the same year, the school, which then consisted of about 111 boys, was re- moved to the new locality at Heigate, when the manufacturing employments were for the most part suppressed, and agricultural labour, as at Mettray, became the staple industry. During the year 1857, 131 criminal lads were received into the Institution, making a total of 1,066 ad- mitted since its opening in 1849.* The discharges for the year 1857 amounted to 114, of whom 12 either deserted or were dismissed. Of the re- maining 102, 72 emigrated, 5 went to sea, and 25 were assisted to employment at home, the large majority of whom are considered likely to do well. * A single death has not occurred in the Institution since it was opened. REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 1 431 The subjoined table will show the results of the society's operations during previous years ; at- tested by what is known of the character and cir- cumstances of those who had left the Institution either as emigrants or for home employment : Years. Emigrated. Eelapsed into Crime. Home Em- ployment. Relapsed into Crime. 1850 31 2 19 8 1851 41 8 13 3 1852 61 8 25 7 1853 86' 11 36 15 1854 86 10 26 13 TOTALS . . 308 39 119 46 The following statistics, furnished by the late eminent Chaplain and Superintendent, the Rev. Sydney Turner, will afford a pleasing illus- tration of the good character and conduct of the boys in each division of the school : " I begin," writes Mr. Sydney Turner, " with the most distant and completely separated House of ' Garstons/ opened in February, 1854, and con- taining 48 boys. Mr. Butcher reports that 45 lads have been allowed leave of absence to see their friends, of whom 37 have honourably come back on the day appointed for their return : 37 boys have had their names once on the good conduct list, 10 twice, and 5 thrice during the last three months. "Mr. Howe has the management of the last- 422 JUVENILE CRIME j ITS CURE. built House, 'Water-lands/ containing 50 boys. He reports that 25 boys have had leave of absence, of whom 23 returned to their time. 51 have had their names on the good conduct list for one month, 23 for two months, 9 for three months, since the list was instituted in October last. " Mr. Harvey has the care of the class of boys, chiefly mechanics, who occupy the ' Farm' House, 19 in number. His report mentions that 13 have kept their names on the good conduct list for October, 19 for November, 19 for December; 9 being on the list twice, and 5 thrice. 48 had leave of absence during the year, of whom 47 returned to their time. "The fourth, or ' Duke's' House, accommodat- ing 40 boys, is under the control of Mr. Shipperley, who reports that 36 boys have had their names once, 11 twice, 3 thrice on the good conduct list since October. 23 have had leave of absence, of whom 18 returned to their time. " The Fifth, or f Queen's ' House, is managed by Mr. Cowen, who has now 38 boys under his charge. Since the good conduct list was instituted, last October, 31 have had their names on it for one month, 10 for two months, and 7 for three. 26 lads were allowed a few days' leave of absence to London, Bath, etc., of whom 22 returned of their own accord on the day appointed. "The sixth, or < Prince's' House, containing REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 423 48 boys, is superintended by Mr. Lawrence. He reports that during the year, 28 boys have had leave of absence, of whom 26 returned to time. 1 8 boys were on the good conduct list for October, 18 for November, and 25 for December; of these 20 were on the list twice, and 10 three times suc- cessively. " I think that the above returns will be felt to be very encouraging, showing as they do a marked advance in the spirit of self-improvement which lies at the very basis of our boys' reformation. " We have had, of course, many cases of mis- conduct, petty dishonesty, lying, etc., to regret; but I may truly say that their number is far less, and their character far lighter, than could naturally have been anticipated in a school which professedly deals with the realities of juvenile crime, and above 100 of whose inmates have been sentenced to transportation, penal servitude, or long impri- sonment." * One important defect in the system pursued at Redhill, is the placing of so many as 40 or 50 boys in one family group ; a circumstance which must greatly mar the advantages that would other- wise accrue. At Mettray, and the Rauhen Haus, an opposite policy is pursued; for in the former establishment there is one teacher to every 20 * Report for 1856, pp. 1516. 424 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. detenus, and in the latter, one to every 12. I am well aware of the great difficulty there is in ob- taining the right men for this important work ; a fact which goes far to mar the success of all our Reformatory plans. Surely, it is possible to re- medy this serious defect by establishing a training college for zealous young men who may feel in- clined to pursue this good work, in two or three of our larger Reformatories, from which they could be sent forth as occasion required. I have known some Reformatory institutions to become total failures, and others to prove all but useless, owing to the one crying defect of not having had a pro- perly qualified superintendent. In France, the State grants assistance to the various Reformatory institutions established in that country ; an example which has been very wisely followed by our own Government. In the Parlia- mentary Sessions of 1854-5, two Acts were passed ' ' For the better care and Reformation of Juvenile Offenders," which introduced, for the first time, some highly important principles into our system of criminal jurisprudence. By these successive measures the reformatory scheme received legis- lative sanction, and, upon certain conditions, pecu- niary support. In order, likewise, to guard against such insti- tutions offering a premium to careless or criminal parents who may wish to be relieved of the burden REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 425 of their children in so easy a manner, the Secre- tary of State is authorized to appoint certain legal officers, whose duty it shall be to recover contribu- tions from the parents of those children who may be detained in Reformatory schools, and to account to Her Majesty's Treasury for the moneys so ob- tained. The magistrate before whom any parent may be summoned is empowered to fix, according to* his discretion, a sum not exceeding five shillings per week for the child's maintenance during the whole time of his detention ; a course at once dictated by reason, justice, and sound policy, the beneficial effects of which have been already fully manifest. The tabulated statement on the following page gives the classification, number, and accommoda- tion afforded in the entire Reformatory schools throughout the United Kingdom. The Metropolis contains 19 Reformatories for males, and 16 for females; affording accommo- dation for 1,042 male, and 831 female inmates. The reformatory r'egime in this country is at present little better than an experiment. It has a vast number of difficulties to cope with, perhaps none of them greater than those offered by its warmest advocates. Philanthropy, like other things, loves novelty in its sphere of action, and delights in the stimulus which that novelty affords. After the first excitement is over it is but natural 426 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. to look for a reaction, when the fervour of a " first love" would, perchance, settle down into insipid lukewarmness or complete indifference. This "o o CO CO CO CO *& CO CO W O rH Ol H CO CO C? OB g g ^ g CO Oi +3 .V as C rH ^fi ^ "^ rH "o g - CM TH -* g 1 gl 07 co O iO rH CO o 1 fa 0* CO Ot 5 03 C* . ' b- O Hj O tS ^ J "^ CQ 00 )O S rH t-J CO 3 Tfl rH 00 CO OS C^ HJ CO o ri H .2 B S g o's'e'* CO CO 00 .H o '"in a feg03 fa mber of I s| rH O CO CO rH 00 Oi g l ^ CO h i CJ 0? ?S HI Cfi 1 ^ "oQ jMOO! j-rttn'43'3 w 3 CO ^ H ^ s cfi o ^ cc O j^ o 3 H co 1 "^ cff a3r S l ~ |r ^ 0?"^^ ^ H 5 a 2 0^ "^ 2 ^ %* " rH ^ f1 > <3 rH CO W W * In addition to these, the Gazette of NOT. 13 announces that the Manchester and Salford Institution, and the Herts Reformatory, have been certified by the Secretary of State under the provisions of the Statute 17 & 18 Viet. cap. 86. REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 427 result is the more to be dreaded, as Eeformatory institutions multiply all over the country; each under a peculiar management and system of its own, indifferently supplied with fitting teachers, and necessarily defective in its organization, perhaps devoid of any well-formed or tested plan of dis- cipline. How much better would it be if, instead of the 109 Reformatories now dotted over the country, there were but even one-tenth of that number where the family combination could be freely and perfectly carried out, as at Mettray and Redhill, and where, as a matter of course, the re- formatory machinery would be in a higher state of efficiency and effectiveness? If any great results are eventually to be accomplished by re- formatory efforts in this country and I am san- guine of a fair amount of success, provided suitable means be employed it can only be by consoli- dating the numerous small schools now rising up, and establishing extensive agricultural colonies of some 300 or 400 colonists in each ; where every family would be classified according to the chil- dren's antecedents the vagrant and unconvicted being kept strictly apart from those who, malo animo, had committed crimes. On this subject Mr. Jelinger Symons writes : " I believe it to be of the utmost importance to classify criminal children. They vary immensely in their prone- ness to corrupt and be corrupted. The power of 428 JUVENILE CHIME; ITS CURE. segregating them into family groups, as at Mettray and Redhill, is one main cause of the superior success of those establishments. Wherever badly- disposed or vicious children herd together, the ten- dency is downward to the standard of the worst, not upward to that of the best. It is a perilous thing to bring criminals into close and hourly contact. This peril is alone to be counteracted by judicious grouping and careful watching. But this essential segregation is impossible without buildings arranged for the purpose, and such buildings are beyond the power of private purses/' * The establishment of Ship Reformatories in a few of our leading seaports would, I think, have a highly beneficial effect ; not so much because of the facilities that would constantly offer for send- ing lads to sea, as in consequence of that peculiar life being better adapted to promote their perma- nent reformation than any employments obtained for young offenders on shore, where the danger of relapse is always greater and the temptations to crime more constant. Besides, a seafaring life is particularly suited to the errant natures of this peccant class; a circumstance which should not be disregarded. * Report on Reformatories, Minutes, &c., 1856-7, pp. 234-5. REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 429 The only Ship Reformatory at present is the "Akbar," which is moored in the Mersey; and this experiment was undertaken rather less than three years ago by some philanthropic Liverpool gentlemen, whose zeal and liberality are deserving of all commendation, and whose example I hope to see imitated in other maritime ports. The " Akbar " was originally a fifty-gun frigate, of East India build, and for some time called the " Cornwallis." Latterly, this vessel had been lying uselessly in the Mersey, as a lazaretto. Upon ap- plication to the Admiralty, the " Akbar " was ge- nerously granted for the purpose of a Reformatory ship ; when a sum of 1,818/. was expended in fitting up the hulk with suitable rigging and accommo- dation. At the annual meeting in January, 1858, the " Akbar " contained 113 boys making a total of 181 received since its establishment as a Refor- matory. Of this number 1 died; 4 were trans- ferred to other Reformatories ; 6 were sent home to their parents ; 1 was apprenticed ; 22 were sent to sea ; and one escaped.* This Reformatory frigate can comfortably accommodate 150 boys; but the Committee are cautious in not too rapidly in- creasing the number. Captain Fenwick, who succeeded Lieutenant Veitch as superintendent, is * Third Annual Report, 1857. 430 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. considered a most efficient commander, possessing the necessary zeal and ability for his honourable but laborious office. The system pursued on board the " Akbar " is somewhat assimilated to the work and discipline of a man-of-war. The boys are divided into two batches, port and starboard, and again subdivided into forecastle men, foretop, maintop, and mizen- topmen, and the afterguard. They are under the complete control of a superintendent, who ranks not lower than a commander in the royal navy, who is assisted by a schoolmaster, boatswain, second boatswain, carpenter, steward, cook, master-at-arms, and two seamen, all of whom, with the exception of the schoolmaster, formerly belonged to the navy. The educational and indus- trial instruction comprise "the ordinary routine of reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography, and includes a short Bible lesson every day; the boys are also instructed by the schoolmaster in the lead-line marks, and the use of the compass. The nautical instruction consists of teaching to knot and splice, to hand-reef, furl, bend and unbend topsails ; to reeve and unreeve running gear ; to shift yards, topmasts, and rigging ; to make sails ; to heave the lead; to make sinnet and gaskets; to draw and knot yarns, and to row in the boats. They have also to wash and mend their own clothes, REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 431 and some of them are always employed with the carpenter." * Young offenders brought up before the Liver- pool magistrates, whose ages do not exceed 15, and who are of a certain height and weight, are committed to the "Akbar," nominally for three years' imprisonment. After a probationary service of about twelve months these boys are frequently reported eligible for sea service ; when, with the consent of the Secretary of State, they receive a pardon and are apprenticed. In this way about thirty lads have been sent to sea, who continue, from the best accounts, to give every satisfaction to their masters. Indeed so great is the confidence reposed in the effective reformatory treatment pursued in the " Akbar," that the applications for boys are more numerous than can with safety be met; while of the delinquents themselves Captain Fenwick says, that " no boys ever gave him less trouble." These, so far, are very encou- raging results. The Admiralty, I think, might easily supply other unemployed vessels for a similar purpose. Notwithstanding the large amount of good that a well-organized and properly conducted Reforma- tory school is likely to effect, I apprehend that there exists a tendency in too many quarters to * First Report of the " Akbar " Ship Reformatory, 1856. 432 JUVENILE CRIME ; ITS CURE. exaggerate the beneficial results of such moral machinery. Managers of Reformatories should, by all means, guard against this foolish practice, which, unfortunately, is not confined to them or their mission alone. However great their zeal, it should not be suffered to bias their judgment. By so doing they detract from their personal influence, and lower their cause in the estimation and confi- dence of the public. The remarks of Mr. Jelinger Symons on this subject are so quaint and perti- nent that I scruple not to reproduce them. He observes : " One of the great characteristics of juvenile offenders is precocious deceit. They have been usually trained in guile, arid all kinds of false appearances. Nothing is more natural than that they should act penitence; and this inevitable tendency is sometimes far too much encouraged by the tone held towards them by managers and teachers. The key-note is easily adopted. I place little reliance on the statistics of reformation. So far from taking 70, 75, or 80 per cent, as the real proportion of reclaimed criminal children, and unfairly measuring the efficiency of other less boasting schools thereby, I hope there is reasonable ground for believing that one-half the whole number of inmates are, not only contrite and permanently reclaimed, but so far practically con- vinced that honesty is their best policy, that they really will strive to be honest, and earn their own KEPKESSIVE CHECKS TO CEIME. 433 livelihood. If any school managers can con- scientiously say that they are effecting this, they may take great joy and credit to themselves for as much success as any one really acquainted with the nature of juvenile crime can or will expect from them. And even this cannot be often done under three or four years careful training, with at least the principal appliances I have named. The present means managers have of testing the accounts they get of the good conduct of those children who have left them are extremely defective, even when the accounts they receive are conscien- tiously made. Many of such accounts come from the children themselves, and cannot be implicitly relied on."* The general organization of " Societies of Pa- tronage," for providing employment for, and otherwise aiding discharged prisoners, as well as exercising careful surveillance over those juveniles who leave Reformatories, and assisting them when in necessity, would act as a powerful repressive check to crime. When criminals leave our gaols, and derelict youths Reformatory schools, as many of them do without prospect or resource, they must be more than human if they do not resort to their old practices; so that years of instruction, indus- trial training, and expense, are liable to be all lost * Report on Reformatories, Minutes, &c., 1856-7, pp. 230-1. F F 434 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CURE. for want of a little timely succour at the most trying period of their whole lives, when enduring a moral almost a mortal conflict between good and evil principles ; and when the latter are likely to he the victors. Indeed, the very consciousness of such patronage and after-supervision being ex- ercised, would go far towards rendering reforma- tory and punitive discipline more effective ; would inspire a confidence, and give a potency to moral precepts not otherwise to be expected. " Insure," says Voltaire, " as far as possible a resource to those who shall be tempted to do evil, and you will have less to punish/'* A movement has, however, been made in this direction by the formation of some half-dozen Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies; but, I fear, the amount of support they receive is very trivial ; so that the advantages obtained through such in- strumentality must be correspondingly limited. These societies have no institution ; but provide food, lodgings, tools, work, and other assistance, for discharged prisoners, who, it must be ad- mitted, are generally placed in a wretched and difficult position. A boy, who had been recom- mitted to Parkhurst Prison, once remarked to the governor : " I had my licence, sir, but to tell you the truth, I could not see that it was of any * Comment, on Beccaria, cap. ii. REPRESSIVE CHECKS TO CRIME. 435 real value to me no one would employ me ; the money I had taken with me when I was released was all spent ; I was miserable and wretched, and I thought I might as well be in prison as starving outside." * The partial abolition of transportation, and the consequent liberation of convicts on tickets-of- leave irrespective of those prisoners set at large upon the expiration of their sentences who are now flung back, with damaged characters, upon society, render associations of patronage all the more indis- pensable. Especially is this the case when dis- charged juvenile criminals are concerned; for, to cite the trenchant language of the Inspectors of Prisons, " Whatsoever measures may be adopted for the benefit of the juvenile offender, they must in a general sense be inefficacious, unless some arrange- ments be made by which the destitute may on their liberation be placed in a situation in which they can earn an honest subsistence. The law provides for the boy, who is simply friendless and deserted, an asylum where, by proper arrange- ments, his moral improvement may be promoted and his vagrant habits reclaimed. There is nothing peculiar in his situation which should prevent him from obtaining, or the parish on whom he has a claim from procuring for him, employment. But * Keports of the Directors of Convict Prisons, 1855. 436 JUVENILE CRIME; ITS CUBE. it is far different with the criminal youth. Bereft of character, as well as of friends, he has no resource, hut to recur to his former habits, and is thus driven for support to the renewal of depre- dations" * One fatuous and fatal error will, however, have to he guarded against by those who are taxing their energies in the repression of crime, viz. indifference to the well-being of the criminally- disposed, but unconvicted, in their unbounded enthusiasm to reclaim convicted offenders. Let them beware, also, lest a premium be offered to crime, or that the law of supply and demand should operate in this case as in others. That instrumentality which will prevent is preferable to all the machinery erected to repress crime. And, assuredly, it should not be necessary that the out- cast juveniles of our large towns must " qualify," as it is termed, by the commission of offences, before a friendly hand be held out to save them ! * First Report for the Home District. THE END. LONDON : J. F. HOPE, 16, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. INDEX. Aberdeen, Mr. Sheriff Watson's In- dustrial Feeding schools in, 401 " Act for abolishing short terms of transportation," effects of, 297 Act of Parliament, impossibility of making people virtuous by, 201 "Acts for the reformation of juvenile offenders," passed in 1854-5, 424 Adderley, C.B., M.P., letter on Refor- matory schools, by Rev. Sydney Turner, addressed to, 84 Adult criminals, greater difficulty in reforming, 409 Adrets, Auberge des, M. Tregier on the pernicious effects of the drama of, 176 Age, the, characteristics of, 68 " Akbar," the ship reformatory, 429 Albany, city of, number of destitute children in, 133 ; convictions during 1856, in, 133 Alison, Sir A., statistics of the num- ber of children of drunken parents in the Glasgow House of Refuge, 124 Amount annually abstracted by each London thief, 325 Amusements, Bentham and Channing on the necessity for, 161, 175, 191 Analogy between the political and the physical body, 337 Arabs of the street, condition of, 21 Arabs, City, number of, 73 Argos, Horace's character of a citizen of, 162 Aristotle on the education of youth, 345 Arnold's, Dr., definition of education, 859 Arnold, Mr. Matthew, report of, on the state of education in the mid- land, metropolitan, and south-east- ern divisions of England, 387 Ashley's, Lord, " Bill to regulate low lodging-houses," 72 Assizes, cause of the decrease of trials at, 292 Asylum for the homeless poor, visit to, and description of, 6 10 Asylum for inebriates in New York, 135 Auckland's, Lord, efforts to reform prisons, 243 Australia, drunkenness in, 136 Australia, Western, cost of support- ing expatriated convicts in, during 1853. 332, 333 Austria, Imperial regulations re- specting education in, and the em- ployment of children in the manu- factories of, 350 Austria, Number and cost of main- taining elementary schools in, 350 Bank of England notes, annual in- crease of forging and uttering, 309 Beaumont and Fletcher's Dramatic Works, 158 Beccaria on the severity of punitive discipline, 288 ; the nature of crimes, 307 ; and on the best mode of pre- venting crimes, 337, 342 Beer-Houses, evil effects of increase of, in our manufacturing towns, 140 Beer-Houses, augmentation of crime arising out of the increase of, proved by statistical returns, 141 Bedouins, English, statistics of, 10 Belgium, extent of criminality, and ignorance of criminal offenders in, 103 Belliers, Rev. H, W., report of, on education in counties of Gloucester, Oxford, Warwick, Worcester, Here- ford, and Monmouth, 366 Bentham's rebuke of those favourable to ignorance, 86 Bentham on pauperism and crime, 1, 3 Bentley, Mr., on ignorance and crime, 85 " Berkeley Beer Bill," the effects of. in England. 147 Berne, social condition of, 129 " Betting-Houses' Bill," beneficial re- sults of, 195 Betting practices, criminal tendency of, 192 Birmingham, how cottages are built in, 68 Birmingham, licensed brothels of. 189 Birmingham, robberies perpetrated by juvenile prostitutes in, 317 Birmingham, a dark spot in the edu- cational map, 390 Birmingham Prison, personal visit to, 274 Birmingham Borough Sessions, ave- rage cost of each trial at, 328 Blackstone on the end and measure of punishments, 408 Bl.'ickstone, Sir William, philanthro- pic labours of, 243 G G 438 INDEX. Blandford, Eev. J . J., report of, on the state of education in the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Lei- cester, Rutland, and Northampton, 373 Boston, juvenile crime and intem- perance in, 136 Bowstead, Mr., report of, on the state of education in the south-western division of England, and South Wales, 338 Bowyer, Mr., on the character of workhouse children, 220 Bremer, Frederika, on the human heart, 26 Breweries of Burton-on-Trent, obsta- cles to education presented by the, 380 Brickmaking, impediments to educa- tion presented by, 380 Bristol City Sessions, average cost of each trial at, 328 Bi-itish Pariahs, mere moral instruc- tion, without temporal aid, thrown away upon, 400 Brixton Prison, cost of salaries, pri- soners, &c., during 18 .6 at, 330 Brookfield, Kev. W. H., report of, on the state ol education in the coun- ties of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, 375 Brothels, low, dens of robbers, 316 Brougham, Lord, on ignorance and crime, 85 Brown, Dr., on the domestic virtues, 42 Brown, Dr., on the duties relating to the property of others, 335 Burglaries in London during 1856, amounts abstracted by, 325 Cade, Jack, and the Clerk of Chatham, 343 Caldwell, Dr., on the hereditary character of intemperance, 149 Campbell's, Lord, sale of " Obscene Books' Prevention Bill," 210 Campbell's, Lord, speech in the House of Lords, on the oorruptors of youth, 210 Capitation Grant, nature and object of, 396 Capitation Grant, paucity of scho- lars who qualify for the reception of, 396 Garden, Sir B. W.,and the West Lon- don Union, 23 Carpenter, Professor, on the mental and physical condition of drunkards' children, 148 Casual Pleading, marvellous effects produced by, 363 Central Criminal Court, average cost of each trial at, 328 Chalmers's, Dr., attempt to establish religious services for the poor near Glasgow, 357 Channing, Dr., on unlawful pleasures, 175 Chanm'ng, Dr., on the obligation of society to protect the exposed child, 402 Chesterton's, Mr., " Revelations of Prison Life," 75. 79 Chief preventive check to crime, 337 Children, great mortality among, 4 Children under 14 years of age, com- puted annual earnings of, 367 Children of labouring poor, character of education provided for, 345 Children in England and Wales, number of, 346 Children attending school, number and ages of, 347 Children not attending school, num- ber and ages of, and from what cause absent, 347 Children, poor, hostility or indiffer- ence to education manifested by the parents of, 348 Christmas, Rev. H., on the difficulty of reforming prisoners, 280 Christians, theological differences among, 360 Christianity, its benign influence on our judicial code, 406 Churches, condition of the, 358 City, Dr. Channing on the moral obligation of a, 402 Cleikenwell, purlieus of, 7 Cochin's, M., " Notice sur Mettray," 414 Coldbath-fields Prison, punitive sys- tem of, 253 ; complement of war- ders to prisoners in, 254; number and severity of punishments in, 256 ; per centage of recommitments to,258 Comedies, English vicious, the Spec- tator on, 1 59 Commitments under each of the six classes of crime, during the last five years, 310 Commitments in 1856, statistics of, 309 Commitments in 1S39 and 1856, tabu- lated comparison of, 295 Commitments, first, during 1856,num- her of, 302 Committals in 1856, number of, 292 Committals in 1856, Mr. Redgrave's remarks on, 295 Committals in 1856, ratio of juvenile to adult, 299 Committals of juvenile offenders from 1847 to 1856, 299 Compulsory education in Prnssia,349>; in Austria, 350; in the Swiss Can- tons, 351 Compulsory education of Philadel- phia, 352 Compulsory education needed in, England, 353 INDEX. Compulsory education enforced by the poet Wordsworth, 404 Concert rooms, Preston, Leeds, and Birmingham, 190 Connecticut, laws made for the ad- vancement of education in, 352 Constantine II., law of, to suppress intemperance, 144 Convict, affecting personal narrative of a, 151 Convicts, value of work done by, in 1856, 332 Convicts, cost of transporting and maintainingexpatriated, 332 Convicts in Pentonville Prison, statis- tics of the career of one thousand,409 Convicts' children, number of, in work- houses, 334 Convicts' wives, cost of removing, and Government regulation respecting, 333 Cook, Kev. F, C., report on education in the counties of Middlesex, Hert- ford, Bedford, and Buckingham, 364 Cost of crime, estimated total, 321 Cost of crime, above that required for the whole pauper population, 335 Costs of convictions, how reimbursed to counties and boroughs, 327 Court, Assize, per centage of trials, in 1856, at, 293 Court, Central Criminal, per centage of trials in 1856 at, 293 Court, Central Criminal, number and co^t of -cases tried in 1856 at, 327 Courts, Circuit Assize, number and cost of cases tried in 1856 at, 827 Cowper on the character of the in- ebriate, 127 Crime, hereditary character of, 54 Crime, hereditary character of, statis- tics respecting, 55 Crime, hereditary character of, Lord Stanley's remarks on, 56 Crime, Dr. Brown and Mr. Hopley on the chief cause of, 58 Crime, influence of social comforts in checking, 230 Crime, the extent and inoreflse of, 282 Crime, juvenile, Mr. Redgrave, the Criminal Registrar, on, a^2 Crime, refutation of Mr. Flint's argu- ment respecting decrease of, 285 Crime, Recorder Hill's statistics of, 290 Crime, amount of undetected above re- cognized, 291 Crime, Rev. H. Worsley on the sta- tistics of, 304 Crime in 1856, nature and increased per centage of first class, 309 Crime, period of life to which the greatest amount falls, 312 Crime, influence of moral education in destroying, 343 Crime, inconsistency of the State in punishing, if by education it does not prevent, 353 Crime in England, dangerous condi- tion, and necessity for checking the further growth of, 340 Crime in Wales, statistics of. 306 Crime in Ireland, decrease of, 300 Crime in Scotland, character and in- crease of, 300 Crime and criminals, the Times on, 320 Crime and pauperism, perceptible cause of, 347 Crime, relative nature, and epidemical and local character of, 807 Crime, English and French classifica- tion of, 308 Criminal commitments during the last century, five-fold increase of, 288 " Criminal Justice Act," convictions under, in 1855, 125 " Criminal Justice Act," operation of, 309' " Criminal Justice Act." total num- ber and cost of cases tried in 18J> j under, 32.7 " Criminal Justice Act," powers con- ferred on magistrates, . Published by Authority of Parliament Globe (The) Newspaper Guerry's Essai sur la Statistique Morale de la France Gurney (J. J.) Life of Guthrie's (Dr.) City; its Sins and Sorrows Greatest of our Social Evils. By a Physician Givin's (Dr.) Report of the State Penitentiary of Pennsylvania Hallam's Middle Ages Hamilton's (Dr.) Popular Edu- cation Hanna's Life of Chalmers Hansard's Debates Hay's (Capt.) Report on Low Lodging-Houses Head's (Sir Francis) Fagot of French Sticks Hill's (Frederick) Crime; its Amount, Causes, and Remedies Hill's (M. D.) Suggestions for the Suppression of Crime Hilliard's Six Months in Italy Home Office Returns of Criminal Offenders in England and Wales from 1838 to 1847 Hopley's Education of Man Horace's Epistles, &c. Howard's State of Prisons in England and Wales Irish Quarterly Review, 1851 Jebb's (Colonel) Prison Reports Jebb's Modern Prisons Journal of the American Temperance Union, Jan. 1857 King of Sweden oil Punishments and Prisons Kingsmill's Chapters on Prisons and Prisoners Kingsmill's Present Aspect of Serious Crime in England Kingsmill's Letter to the Times on Education and Crime Kitto's (Dr.) Memoirs Lavater's Essays Law Review, Feb. 1852 Law's (Bishop) Discourses Laws of Connecticut Laws of Philadelphia Lees' (Dr. Fred.) Essay on tho Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic. Letheby's (Dr.) Sanitary Reports Lieber's Essay on Penal Laws Lippich's Grundziige zur Dipso- biostatik Liverpool Life ; its Pleasures, Practices, and Pastimes Liverpool Magazine Lownes (of Philadelphia) on Crime Macaulay's Essays M'Culloch's Statistics of the British Empire Mann's Census on Religious Worship Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor Mayhew's Great World of London Melbourne Argus Minutes of Evidence on Criminal and Destitute Children Minutes on the Factory System Minutes on Education, 1846 to 1857 Minutes of Parochial Union Schools Miall's (Edw.) British Churches in Relation to the British People Mfflot (L'Abbe) Histoire de la France Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois Moran's (Rev. J.) Report of the Female Convict Prison at Brix- ton, 1853 Morgan's (W.) Lecture on the Re- formation of Juvenile Offenders Moseley's (Professor) Report on Kneller Hall Training College Murray's Cities and Wilds of An- dalusia Museo Borbonico Napolitano Neison's Contributions to Vital Statistics Neison's Statistics of Juvenile Offenders, presented to Parlia- ment North British Review, May, 1856 Paley's Moral and Political Phi- losophy Parliamentary Return on Illegiti- mate Children Plint's Crime in England REFERRED TO IN THIS VOLUME. 455 Plutarch's Lives Poor Law Returns Porteus's (Bishop) Lectures Quetelet's Sur 1'Homme et le Developpement de ses Facultes Eead's (Dr.) Physiological Re- searches, &c. Read's Dr.) Essays on Insanity Redgrave's Judicial Statistics, Part I., 1857 Redgrave's Tahles of Criminal Offenders, 1856 Report of Inspectors-General of Prisons, England and Wales Report (Seventeenth) of Inspec- tors of Prisons, Great Britain Report (Twelfth) of Inspectors- General of Prisons, England and Scotland Report (Twenty-first) do. Report (Thirty-first) of Inspector- General of Prisons, Ireland Report(Thirty-second and Thirty- fifth) of Inspector-General of Prisons, Ireland Report of Inspectors of Prisons, Home District, (1st, 8th, 10th, and 15th) Report of the Bristol Ragged School Report of the Bristol Conference Reports of the Birmingham Con- ference on Reformatory Schools Report on Reformatory Schools, by one of Her Majesty's In- spectors of Schools Report on General Education in Sweden Report on Public-houses, pre- sented to Parliament Report (Second) of Registrar- General Report (Ninth Anmial) do. Report (Ninth Annual) of Poor Law Board Report of Committee on Trans- portation Report of Lords' Committee on Juvenile Crime Reports, Newgate Prison, 1852-57 Reports of Leeds Prison Reports of Preston Gaol Reports of Manchester Gaol Reports (Police) on the State of Crime in Liverpool Reports of Directors of Convict Prisons, 1851-0 Reports (Unpublished) of Society for Suppression of Vice Reports of Reformatory Ship, " Akbar" Reports of Boys' Refuge, White- chapel Reports of Albert Street Refuge, Spitalfields Return of Criminal Offenders, Scotland, 1856 Return (Parliamentary) on Pauper Children Revue Contemporaine Richards's (Baron) Charges to Grand Juries Ryan's (Dr.) Prostitution in Lon- don Salut Public (The) of Lyons Scott's Danes and the Swedes Smith's (Dr. Southwood) Health of Towns' Reports Spectator (The) Tables of Criminal Offenders for 1855, published by the Home Office Thomson's Punishment and Pre- vention Thomson's Social Evils Times (The) Tregier's Des Classes Dange- reuses de la Population dans Grande Ville Tuckerman's (Dr., of Boston) Re- port of his Ministi'y to the Poor Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy Turner's (Rev. Sydney) Letter to C. B. Adderley, Esq., M.P., on Reformatory Schools Vanderkiste's Dens of London Voltaire's Commentary on Bec- caria Warburton's Crescent and Cross Warleigh's (Rev. Smith) Park- hurst Prison Report, 1847 Wilkes's United States Exploring Expedition Wordsworth's Poetical Works Worsley's Prize Essay on Juvenile Depravity Of THE . 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH OWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate s regal!. ' YB