JUVENILE VAGRANCY.
MERE exists a Society whose object it is to reform and provide for destitute children, juvenile beggars, infant pickpockets. It is slenderly provided for ; nay, its continued existence is doubtful, from the want of patronage. Of the importance of crushing crime in the egg, no reflecting person can doubt; and were this system of suppressing vermin vigorously acted up to, society would be relieved from continual depredation; the gaols would be depopulated, the hulks thinned, and the horrors of crime and punishment mitigated to a most heart-rejoicing degree. Well— this most rational and humane plan is one that has never been adopted by our Government, has been scarcely sanctioned by the wealthy and enlightened public, and in the instance of this Society, is left to struggle and starve on its way to failure and extinc- tion. All this time, the Legislature is providing laws against crime; the Executive is devising prisons at home and at the Antipodes, establishing armies of police, and legions of magis- trates, justices, and juries. What a spectacle of blindness ! Crime is left to grow strong, to spread, to fecundate, and overrun the land,—and then is the time chosen to contend with it; when all that it is possible for a man to do, is just to keep it under—to prevent it from overshadowing and suffocating every growing and green thing. "Catch your thief young." If this maxim were acted upon, and the whole force of a preventive society were directed to this object with full powers and means, the change effected in London in ten years would be magical. But read Captain BRENTON'S letter—and say if the blood does not boil to see such objects neglected, and at the same time to read of tens and hunsiteds of thousands scorpaPred. upon patching up old . . . churches and chapels, and other ruins, whose sole merits are that they were built in a distant time of barbarism. When will the scales drop from the eyes of society ? when will it cease to be deluded and diverted from its true interests ? Read, the reports of the meeting for the purpose of taking steps to restore the venerable fabric St. Alban's Abbey, and then turn to the letter of the Se- cretary of the Society for the Suppression of Juvenile Vagrancy, in the Herald of Wednesday, from which this is an extract- " If any of your readers have time or inclination to visit our establishment at West Ham, they will there see between twenty and thirty poor children, happy, well clad, well instructed, and in a fair way of gaining an honest liveli- hood. These poor boys were all in extreme destitution and misery when we took them in; and most of them will tell their story better than I can for them, —that they were thieves inmates of gaols, and so unused to kind treatment that they cry when we talk of sending them away ; but this we must soon do, unless the public answers our signal of distress, which has been flying a long time unnoticed. When a ship at sea makes such a signal, show me the sailor that would not sacrifice life and limb to afford relief. When the famished in- habitants of the city of Genoa were allowed to come forth after the surrender of that fortress to the British and Austrian forces, in 1800, the poor spectres got into boats and paddled off to the British ships of war. The crews had just been piped to dinner—but was there a Briton that ate any of it? No; I am proud to say, to the honour of my country, that the contents of their bowls, platters, bread-bags, and grog-kettles, were all—all consigned to those wretched objects. Is this feeling dead among us after a lapse of thirty years ? Heaven forbid ! How is it, then, that all the petitions in favour of these British-born subjects-- the children, in many instances, of these very Britons—are unanswered ? How is it that thousands of pounds are spent on horse-races and operas, and five shillings refused to relieve a starving child in a land where you hear of nothing but anti-slavery ? Let the Anti-Slavery Society listen to my story ; and, when my little English slaves are rescued from their sufferings, I will promise them my support, humble as it is, in relieving the Africans, who, for the present at least, are infinitely better off."
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