HELPS FOR THE SAVING OF YOUNG OUTCASTS.
Fr is a circumstance which serves to relieve political contest of much of its bitterness, that there are grounds, of the profoundest interest, upon which those who are most opposed in the passing questions of the day can meet in a nobler struggle for the general good. Of this kind is a subject which has begun to press upon the attention of the public, both from its urgency and from its appeal- ing directly to the common feelings of humanity. The exertions of a few benevolent men have lately thrown the light of inquiry more forcibly on the existing system of treating juvenile delin- quents ; and by the help of Parliamentary and Government in- vestigations, the public have been made aware of' the monstrous fact, that a large portion of the criminals who crowd the gaols of the country are made so, either by the total neglect of their infant years, or by the very measures which have tbr their professed object the reformation of the criminal. Laws have been de- vised, by which parents and relatives are made answerable for the bodily sustenance of the helpless; but there is no provision for securing to the little wanderer in this world of temptation and error, natural or factitious, even a fraction of the means by which he may learn to guide himself; and, by a refinement in absurdity; those laws which omit all provision for securing the helpless against ignorance, do not permit even inevitable ignorance to be pleaded in excuse for error. It required some such sweeping folly to begin with in order to make way for the comtnon practice, by which babes are solemnly arraigned as criminals, and naughty little children, who "know no better," handed over to the gaoler instead. of the schoolmaster. No one who has witnessed the wholesale ma- nufacture of thieves and ruffians in our large towns, can be blind to the truly criminal stupidity of existing laws respecting juvenile delinquents. The raw material for our criminal population exists abundantly, in the shape of children whoae parents are occupied in ceaseless toil—dead—or dead to their children in habitual
ness or habitual imprisonment—or so lost to nature as to drive their children from them. Such are the little wretches whom the old iron-dealers of Lancashire seduce with cakes and tartlets to steal bits of iron-work from factory-yards; who are sent to continue their education in the gaol, and so, under the tuition of the ablest professors of crime, to graduate ht the beer-shop. Sub are--- but we need not pursue the specification of varieties.
Among those whose station and benevolent disposition make a most useful labourer in the good work of remedying this melancholy state of things, we find an old opponent of ours, Mr. Sergeant ADAMS. As a Judge of the Metropolitan County, Ile roust have had the best opportunity of combining large experience with im- partial observation; and his statements, therefore, bear the stamp of authority. In a recent letter to Mr. llAwlis, quoted in the Times yesterday, Mr. ADAMS says- " Its the great majority of cases ofjuvenile offenders of thirteen years of age and under it, it is unjust to consider them as criminals in the (military sense of the term,—that is to say, as offenders of sufficient ago of themselves to com- prehend the social duties of civilized life, or as offenders who, having been in- structed in those duties, have violated them. Many of these unhappy children are wandering and houseless orphans, without a friend to succour them, and committing petty thefts as a means of subsistence; others are hired by pme- tised ruffians to rob and phmder, and initiated h.) them in every species of low and demoralizing deliauchery. Mummy are children of poor but reaper tante pa- rentS, sedliCed by boys of riper years to commit little pilferings, for which they finn a rawly market ; whilst sulile contribute to the support of their profligate parents by the fruits of their dishonest industry.
" It is not that these boys are naturally more vicious and depraved than the children of honest parents, hut that their evil propensities have Ireen cncon.
raged, and tlteir virtuous 011VS 1113111111bCd. Iltrw can a child of tender years, who has received no instruction, religious or moral, or who has been sent out by Isis parents to beg or steal—earezsed when successful, and punished when unlucky—form any just notiod of hie duties either to God or to st wiety ? tol if* two or three moths' discipline a the tread-wheel, oaktun-room, or solitary cell, (repeated at interval:, as the case may napiire,) coulmi itopart theta to him, what means has he, when he quits his prison, of putting his newly- acquired. principks into action ? Tires is far greater hope, tinder a kiwi and h)stem, of the reformation of these unbertattate and neglected beings,. than of the children of honest and reputable tcents who appear at the bar et justiee, (Or HIWil Child11,11 !MST bail the nic•W,nil knowklge aunt in....;Icctvil it. " it IN a.■11,,,i, that. lagistrat imimml ',W.:kg mill the 111%4 mlclielnir of °Grid- cri of tender years, 10 SeparuN; 11,..1,1 Freon tIn•ir partmts; tin ph,'I loom tm slick term as may he m.■allol at swn, re:/hrw.th.ry sc/un,/, where they may be trowd to indwitrorms hahax, wat jwisoA hut I ychind discipline ; and then to send them to some healthy colony, (thus making expatriation the penalty of the parelits' Hills, and the price of their own mond redemption,) there, under proper superintendence, and removed front their old temptations, to serve out their youthful years as apprentiees to well-eomluetent masters. Who will may that Maier Yach a system the majority of such offenders might not be reel:timed anti become useful mernhera of society ? who will dare to Nay that the experiment is not worth the trial ? " A plan of this nature might, a alma Ii tO! ago, have hem deemed vision- .yal;,,l,nat the Cause of humanity lins made great progress during the last two " Jim the atatute for etdahlishing is juvenile prison at, Parkhurst, (the Moat 111.1MIthe Itet of the session of 15380 is contained a clause authorizing her Ma- jisty to grant pardons to juvenile offenders, urn condition that they will place themselves under the care of some charitable institution willing to receive them, and giving Magistrates the same jurisdiction over such children as they possess over appren t ices. o 1,p to the month of July 1838, the age of seven was the age of legal and moral rc pnI ilillity ; and no distinction was known in the law between that age and the age Of the ripest judgment. By the above-mentioned clause in the Parkhurst Prison Act, a new awl glorious principle is recognized. Children may now be treated as children, although they may have incurred the penalty of the law. Education is to supersede meareeration ; and the funds of priv:Ite charity, 51111 the benevolent exertions of the virtuous and humane, may be legally called in in aid of public jo,tice for the reformation of the young offendes. Tltis is a principle it, \Odell the Christian philanthropist may un- hesitatinsly rejoice; may its proetiCai fruits he ivorthy of its promise " I it [Milo:ranee of ther,e views, but limiting their application for the present to the Metropnlitan district, so that it they prove to be unsound there may be less difficultv in retracing Mir,ti.11a, I would (so far as regards childreniittler thirteen years) take from Magistrates their present power of summary jurisdiction, and substitute very extensive powers of a different nature ; for mm i have no fear of summary power when it s to be exercised in moral impr.ivement and not in bodily ine aceration. o Wilco a CIIIR iv charo:ed with such olfenees a; would bring him withie the present scheme of summary jurbalietion, or ; •,:d him for trial at the Sessions, would empower the Justice before whom he is brought, to dismiss the charge altogether ; or direct him to be whipped and bucked up upon bread snd water , for some short period; or send him under all order to the parish or union work-
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house or stetter their warrant, at the expense of their parents, if they ore of sutlieiem sidstance, or at the expense of the Government, County, Patish, or Union, as the ease may require, (the du,siee having the power to make the order accordingly,*) to some institution for the reformation of young offenders; there to remain and abide by its rules, of which ultimate apprenticeship in some healthy colony should, for reasons already given, generally, if not in- variably, form one. In case of breach of the rules, the 31agistrates to be au- thorized to commit under the autherity given by statute 2d Victoria 1.; and if a child who has been so dealt iv should commit a subsequent felony, the committal to the Sessions to he compulsory, and the punishment transporta- tion. These powers not to be understood as superseding the power of com- mittal for trial, which would still be necessary in all aggravated cases, or when the hand of mercy had been held out in vain. " An opinion, I know, prevails antonest the Prison Inspectors, that children who have been brought be!iire a criminal tribunal and convicted, although summarily, of any offence against the law, should from that time cease to be objects of individual benevolence, anti become children of the State, and placed wholly under the control of Govermnent. Of the soundness of this opinion, when the age of childhood is passed, and a convictitm has taken place before a regularly-constituted tribunal, thin e can Le no doubt ; but it does not seem applicable to the eases now under conideration. The infusion of new mem- bers gives it constant freshness to the exertions of charitable institutions, which cannot be attained under this necessary formalities of Government offices; and private charities must altva■s et, joy more of the parental charaetcr than hoards. The Cape of Good Hope anul South Australia present unli in it ed fields for the exercise of these benoolent views; and new societies will be formed, or, amougst the numerous charitable ilititutions now in eat letter, it bullicieut nu:ober will adapt themselves to the plan to remove all doula as to its practicability. Nor, because the puillie purse will he in part employed, let a niggardly economy be inbsted against us. It will cost the state less to reform a And in his youth' and make him a valuable subject in a free colony, than to pay tie: his repeated trials and support hint in his various imprison- ments through life as a convicted Mon."
The children thus reclaimed from a life of misery and crime might supply a useful class of servants for the Colonies, with great advantago to themselves. But probably it would be advisable not to make expatriation an invariable consequence, as it is not indeed a necessory adjunct, of the reformatory process. 1 he inmates of the juvenile penitentiary at Auburn, in the United States, are eagerly sought for as servants, in the muneutate neighbourhood of the place ; so little does the discredit of infant error attach to the well-trained youth who leaves what is known to be an admirable school. In fact, to give the reclaimed delinqueut the most satis- factory of characters, it is only net•essary that the system of re- formation to which he has been subjected should be known to be thoroughl_v ellicoeitots. lint witloout doubt, youths whose earlier ties had been broken would frt quently be willing emigrants; and it would clearly he of use if the Colonies competed with the Mo- ther-counfry in offering a home to those who have been rescued front destruction.
It I o,,t hooded iu Oki; letter to go into the details of the plan; but ii' the ptineil•;,. be recogttitol, they Inity tie cA•ily
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