ABSTRACT

IN the early part of this work a series of Schools were described, which, as far as existing social regulations permitted, have been proved to be eminently effective in checking the process of juvenile delinquency ; and it was shown what legislative aid is needed to enable such a system to be so extensively carried out as to produce the desired effect. The gaol has been next considered, as a deterring and reformatory agent for the correction of criminal children ; we have seen that under the most favourable circumstances its influence on the young is rather for evil than for good. Notwithstanding all our severity, Mr. Neison informs us, in a table he laid before the Committee of the Commons last year, that after deducting re-committments from the annual register of prisoners tried at assizes and summarily convicted, the yearly average in 9 years, ending with 1847, of male prisoners 12 years of age, was 683; 12 and under 14, 1,181; 14 and under 17, 4,352 ; so that above 7,000 youths are annually

added to our criminal population, without including the children under 12, who, as we have seen, have often already become, under the present system, hardened offenders,-nor the females, who at this age are about 1-5th of the number of the males.*

Better to prepare a small portion of these for the colonial life assigned them when sufficiently vicious, the Parkhurst Prison, in the Isle of Wight, was established by Government a few years ago, for the reception of boys sentenced to transportation. It is in name and in fact a prison. Great expectations of the benefit to result from it were entertained by the benevolent, and we have already seen that kindhearted judges frequently endeavoured to escape from the perplexity and incongruity of their position,.