obligations imposed on the patrons are not burdensome: they consist in exercising a simple surveillance, and sending us a Report every six months of the conduct of those placed under their charge. This will enable us to judge of the good effects which a stay in the colony may produce."-p. 36.

We give no extracts from the account of their employments, nor from their financial Reports, as these must differ according to the circumstances in which such institutions are commenced. The cultivation of the mulberry and care of the silk-worm form a principal object of their attention, and they teach those trades which, being followed in most villages, will be least likely to lead the colonists into the temptations found in large towns.

Though the details of such an establishment as that of Mettray may not be applicable to this country, there is much in the principles it involves which might be advantageously transplanted.

When we look at the present state of a great part of our agricultural population, we cannot but think that well-trained farm servants, such as might be sent out from an institution which was not only a school of reformation but of an improved agriculture, would easily find employment (hitherto the great difficulty attending attempts at reformation); and our juvenile delinquents might be the means of elevating intellectually and morally a portion of our community peculiarly needing an infusion of new life,—instead of themselves swelling the numbers of our vicious population, and corrupting others who, but for their fatal example and advice, might have been useful members of society.

"But agriculture, though capable of combining, perhaps, the greatest number of favourable circumstances for the reformation of the less hardened portion of young offenders, is not the only means which has succeeded; nor may it always be the most desirable mode, certainly not always the most practicable.

In future Numbers we hope to present our readers with an account of some other successful attempts to rescue these helpless beings from what, under our present system, appears their inevitable fate; * as well as with some particulars of the extent

"Age 15. J. H. Fourteen times in prison. 'I have no parents, no home.'
R. F. I have been seven times in prison. I have no home, no parents.'
W. B. 'I have no home, no parents.'

17.

9.

9.

G. M. D. 'I once got 30s. out of a till: I bought a suit of clothes;
when I got home, my father took them and pawned them. I once
got 9s. out of another till. My aunt made me drunk, and took it
from me.'

B. C. Eight times in prison. No parents, no home, &c. &c. &c."
Report of Inspector of Prisons, 1840-Liverpool
Juvenile Delinquency.

of juvenile delinquency, of our present system of treatment, and suggestions for a more enlightened and humane policy.

One difficulty to be considered more fully hereafter, we will just advert to here,—because we are aware it will meet many on the threshold, and prevent them from fully considering the subject. We refer to the expense of such a term of detention as would be necessary to produce any lasting change of character and

habits.

The difference of the term for which each individual would be in prison would not be so greatly increased as may at first sight appear.

We find from the Report of the Inspector of Prisons for 1840, that 66 out of every 100 boys committed to the Borough Gaol of Liverpool in that year had been in prison before, above 28 of them for four times and upwards, some twelve and fourteen times. Will not the total of the terms of confinement, transportations included, the expense of which is £80 per head, which these boys have suffered, and will probably suffer hereafter, more than average the term necessary for their reformation, to say nothing of the expense of the punishment of those corrupted by them, and the loss occasioned by their depredations? The buildings necessary would be less costly than our present prisons, and the expense might be lessened in many ways we will not now enter upon.

Let it not, however, be supposed that, even if rational economy were not on the side, we will not say of mercy, but of justice, we could for a moment allow such a consideration any weight, when the question is whether a community shall educate its destitute children in virtue, or (as we are now doing) in vice. For "What shall it profit a man (or a nation) if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

VOL. IV. No. 16.-New Series.

R

THE

CHRISTIAN TEACHER.

ART. I.-JUVENILE DELINQUENCY.

Report of the Inspectors of Prisons, published by order of the House of Commons. Part IV.

In our last Number we gave a short account of the Colonie Agricole de Mettray, an institution in France, for the reformation of Juvenile Offenders. We expressed a hope in that article that we should be able to resume the consideration of the subject, and to offer facts and suggestions for a more humane policy. We propose in this paper briefly to show the mode in which Juvenile Offenders are treated, in one of the best and largest of the Gaols in England: we shall give the results of that treatment both in a moral and financial shape, and we shall then show by a comparison with different modes of treatment adopted both in England and in other nations, the necessity for a thorough and vigorous change in the management of that class of our people who have the strongest claims on our sympathy, inasmuch as they are the most destitute of the means of moral cultivation, and the most wretched in point of physical comfort.

We have said we can only enter on this subject briefly, for the space which can be afforded in a publication like ours to this discussion must necessarily be small. We trust however that we shall at least supply materials for thought and motives for action; and if we succeed in directing a greater degree of attention to the fearful magnitude of the evil involved in this question, we shall have contributed to provide a remedy for one of the most grievous calamities in our social system. We are the more earnest in the matter, because we fear that Government will not undertake the responsibility of making the first experiVOL. IV. No. 17.-New Series.

S

ment. That must be the work of individuals, or of some great municipality. We believe that the Council of the Borough of Liverpool might set this example with the greatest advantage, not only to the nation, but to themselves. They have a criminal jurisdiction over a population of 300,000 souls. The desperate character of the criminal part of this vast population may be estimated from the fact, that the re-committals of Juvenile Offenders in Liverpool are 66 per cent., those for the same class in London being but 35 per cent., and those in five principal gaols in England being only 322 per cent. This striking fact proves that the Gaol in Liverpool has no reformatory discipline worthy the name; and this arises not from the want of capacity of the Governor of that Gaol, for he is zealous and capable, nor from the want of attention on the part of the Chaplain, but it principally arises from the incapacity of the prison, and the impossibility of classification. If the Council of Liverpool, who pay all the expenses of the criminal jurisdiction in that Borough, were to establish an institution for the reformation of juvenile offenders on a well-considered plan, we believe that whilst they performed a great service to humanity, they would save their own funds, for we hope to prove, from what has been accomplished in other places, that the whole expenses of such an establishment would not be as great as those now incurred in the detection, maintenance and prosecution of Juvenile Offenders now confined in their Gaol. The importance of Liverpool, in its commerce, its population, and the power of its municipality, induce us to select that town as a place in which the experiment of a Juvenile Reformatory might be well tried, and we believe that the public authorities of that place, when they shall have well considered the existing system and the inevitable consequences of the increase of crime which it entails, will be among the most earnest advocates of any wise plan calculated to remedy the evil. We subjoin an extract from a letter addressed by the Governor of the Gaol in Liverpool to the Inspector of Prisons, the substance of which is printed in the report to which we have already referred.

The real state and character of Juvenile delinquency in Liverpool will be most accurately estimated by a reference to the accompanying table. It contains a comparative statement of the number and other particulars respecting the adult and juvenile prisoners committed during one year to the Liverpool Borough Gaol; to eleven of the principal prisons in England; and to the Glasgow Bridewell in Scotland. It has been compiled from the digest of Gaol Returns, which appears in the report