transportation until they have appeared at the bar four or five times. I will, therefore, suppose the expense of between three and four prosecutions, at Assizes or Sessions, to be £50. The average imprisonment of each offender before transportation may be taken at three years, and the expense of it at £65; three years' probation in separate confinement, at Parkhurst, or public works, £50; removal to the Colonies, &c., &c., £35; total, 1200. So that when 3,000 sentences of transportation are passed in a year, we may consider them tantamount to a notification to the public that a last instalment of a sum exceeding half a million sterling is about to be called for! To be as precise as the nature of this inquiry will allow, the 2,728 convicts under thirty-one years of age, to whom I have already alluded as having run the career of juvenile criminality, represent a cost waste of £545,600! But let it be remembered that the felonry of this Kingdom-and whether juvenile or adult, it belongs to this question to consider the fact is not maintained, while at large, for nothing. Having investigated, to a considerable extent, the rates of income derived by thieves from their practices, and having obtained estimates 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 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 criminals 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 I am convinced 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 depredations of the Liverpool thieves stated the amount of those depredations at seven hundred thousand pounds! Need more be said on the economical part of this momentous question? Need I ask you to balance between the charge of training the young outcasts of the country to godly and industrious habits, and the waste of money, time, and SOULS, Consequent upon our neglect of an undeniable Christian duty ?" Sergeant Adams, however, has given some cases which clearly prove the necessity for the schools, and the absurdity of short imprisonments: the reader too should ask himself, how many of the 12,238 juveniles, not more than 16 years of age, committed during the year 1853, may not have been as woful cases as those two related by Sergeant Adams thus: Thomas Miller, aged 8 years, was tried at Clerkenwell, at the August Sessions, 1845, for stealing boxes, and sentenced to be im 66 prisoned for one calendar month, and once whipped. At the January Sessions, 1846, he was again tried at the Clerkenwell Sessions, for robbing a till, and enquiries being then made, it appeared that, in addition to the above-mentioned trial, he had also been twice summarily convicted, and once tried at the Central Criminal Court, during the year 1846. He was in consequence sentenced to 7 years' transportation, but his sentence was commuted to 3 months' imprisonment. On March 14, 1846, he was again convicted of larceny, before the Common Sergeant; and in the printed sessions cases it is stated that the prisoner had been in custody 8 or 10 times. He was again sentenced to transportation, but his sentence was on this occasion commuted to imprisonment for 2 years. He was discharged on May 13, 1848. In July, 1848, he was summarily convicted, and sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment. From that period he has been lost sight of in the Middlesex prisons, until the 4th day of this month (June, 1852), when he was sentenced, under the Larceny Act, to be whipped and imprisoned 2 days. He is now only 12 years of age, and not more than 4 feet 2 inches in height." "Edward Joghill, aged 10 years, has not been yet tried by a jury, but he has, within the last 2 years, been 8 times summarily convicted, viz: April 15. ... ............ 1 3 66 This return relates to the committals of this boy to one prison only." As this topic of expense is one much misunderstood, we shall here insert a table kindly drawn up for us by a friend; it shows the entire, Estimated cost of maintaining 185 Boys in Reformatory School. £ s. d. Committal of 185 Boys to prison preparatory to confine- .................. Maintenance in prison-185 Boys for one month each 111 0 0 52 0 232 10 0 8325 0 0 8720 10 0 £15 per annum ought to cover all expenses of buildings and repairs. See Parliamentary Evidence, Report on Criminal and Destitute Juveniles. per head. Answer 185. Bath Reformatory School cost per annum £10 0 0 714. Steward of Parkhurst supposes gross cost would be........... دو Nett 729. ... 14 10 0 5 0 0 17 0 0 14 0 0 20 0 0 2998. Mr. Whitmore, Manager of large Refor- 3734. Rev. S. Turner (Red-hill) for number of 300 Appendix 14. 730. Steward of Parkhurst for the gives cost....... In That amongst the teachers of the Marlborough-st. Training School there are young men fully competant to become masters in those schools is, we are assured, a very certain fact. our paper entitled, Reformatory and Ragged Schools," we gave the Report of a Ragged School, attached to the National Schools of St. Andrew's, Roman Catholic, Parish. The school is directed by a master, who is of the 1st division of the 2nd class. of Trained Teachers; it is essentially a Ragged Feeding School, and the Report for the present year is as follows:To Rev. J. P. Farrell, Manager and Superintendent of the Andrean Male National Schools, Cumberland-street, South. SIR,-In compliance with your instructions, I beg to submit, for your information, the following as my second Report on the Andrean Free National School : No Change Made.-I have not deemed it necessary to make any alteration in the system which, in my former Report, I endeavoured to convey a rough idea of, as it still appears the best calculated to meet the very peculiar wants of the school. But I do not mean it to be understood from this, that the organization of the school is so perfect as to require no improvement, on the contrary I believe it to be very defective, yet I cannot see, from the experience I have had, how it could be made more perfect without incurring additional expense. From 9 till 9-Reading, Spelling, and Explanation. ,, 94 10 Grammar and Geography alternately. General Instruction Junior Division (1st class). Senior Division (2nd, 3rd, and 4th classes.) From 10 till 104, Rolls called-Arithmetic (Practical and Theoretical.) 11 11, Spelling, Reading, and Explanation. " 11, 12, Distribution of Bread, Relaxation in Play Ground, and Inspection in Cleanliness. From 12 till 124, Object and Moral Lessons-Writing alternately. 12,, 1, Spelling and Explanation-Arithmetic (Practical and 11 14 Theoretical). 11, Arithmetical Tables. 24, Relaxation in Play Ground. 24, Spelling and Reading-Grammar and Geography alternately. 21 3, Geography-Writing from Dictation and Conversational Lecture alternately. Religious Instruction.— From 10 till 11, Catechism or Lecture from a Clergyman. Subjects Taught-First Class :-Spelling, Reading and Explanation; Multiplication Table; Outlines of Map of the World; Object Lessons. Second Class :- Second Lesson Book (Spelling, Reading and Explanation); Addition, Multiplication, and Pence Tables; Simple Rules of Arithmetic First Part of Spelling Book Superseded: Elementary notions of Grammar and Geography; Writing. Third Class:-Third Lesson Book; Compound Rules of Arithmetic, with exercises in Mental Arithmetic; First Part of Spelling Book Superseded, with Rules for Spelling; Maps of Ireland and Europe; Dr. Sullivan's Grammar, First and Second Parts; Writing. Fourth Class:-Fourth Lesson Book; Arithmetic to Practice, with exercises in Mental Arithmetic; First and Second Parts of Spelling Book Superseded with Rules for Spelling; Principal Maps; Dr. Sullivan's Geography Generalized, two chapters; Dr. Sullivan's Grammar, First and Second Parts; Elementary Principles of Mensuration; Writing. Learning. PROFICIENCY OF PUPILS. First Book of Lessons 143 ... 6 Lessons with ease and intelli No. 62 11 18 14 66 278. Acquainted with Maps of Eu- 28 Draw-Backs. The draw-backs on improvement may be ranked under three heads :-indolence both physical and mental on the part of the pupils; indifference and frequently opposition instead of co-operation on the part of the parents; and inadequacy of teaching power on the part of the school. These are very weighty draw-backs, and so long as one of them exists, much less three, the improvement of the school must be consideraby retarded. The immediate removal of all of these is impossible, since the two former are to be removed only by time; and this time will depend on the amount of effective teaching power brought to bear upon the pupils' instruction. The most serious drawback therefore, is the inadequacy of teaching power, as the others would scarcely be felt if there were a sufficient staff of teachers to meet the wants of the school. Table showing the number admitted, discharged, removed, and remaining in each of the classes, from 13th February till 30th September, 1854. The number of Admissions and Discharges exactly balance each other, and consequently the number on Rolls is neither greater nor less than the number remaining at the date of the former Report. The greatest attendance for any one day was 303, and the highest average attendance for any one month was 267. Causes of Removal of Pupils from School-The pupil teachers return weekly reports of their respective classes, in which they state the cause of removal and destination of every discharged pupil. From these returns the following imformation has been derived. Of the 381 boys discharged, 13 have been apprenticed. 31 got situations as messengers, &c. 17 working with their fathers. 43 Paying for their schooling. 41 Change of Residence. 187 Irregularity of Attendance. 8 Want of Clothes. 8 Died. 8 Gone to the Poor House. 25 Not known. Total 381 |