average from 1831 to 1834, it was 6 per cent ;* whereas in England and Wales, as already mentioned, it exceeds 11 per cent. Of offenders from the age of 16 to 21 years, the proportion for the same periods was, in Belgium, 12 per cent; and in France 14 per cent; but in England and Wales, upon an average of 1834 and 1835, it was no less than 29 per cent!

The offences for which these juvenile delinquents are committed for trial consist almost entirely of those against property, -in fact, of thefts. Out of the 2356 committals in 1835, no less than 2146 are included in the class of, offences against 'property committed without violence,' and 1669 are for simple larceny. The charges are often of the most trifling description, such as stealing an orange-a few apples-or two buns-taking a cocoa-nut-three halfpence-or two biscuits! For such offences as these, a mere child suffers several weeks' imprisonment before trial. We should not also lose sight of the summary committals under the Malicious Trespass Act, the Larceny Act, the Vagrant Act, and other statutes.

The evil of such a state of things has begun to be very generally felt; and the application of a remedy is understood to be under the consideration of Government. It will not do to wait for the benefits which might be anticipated from a good system of national education; that is a blessing whose approach we as yet perceive only in the distant horizon. What is done must be done quickly. In the first place, a summary mode of trial has been suggested before a petty sessions composed of two magistrates and a jury of five, with more discretionary power to the magistrates than at present, to punish by whipping, or some other mode than imprisonment. Another proposal lately made, from a quarter entitled to attention, is that of the establishment of local courts throughout the kingdom for the speedy trial of all such offences as are now disposed of at quarter-sessions; so as to supersede the jurisdiction of the magistrates as far as regards the trial of indictments. To try boys and men at different tribunals has

* Compte de l'Administration de la justice criminelle en Belgique, pendant les années 1831 à 1834; par Ed. Ducpétiaux, Inspecteur Général des Prisons, et des Etablissemens de Bienfaisance, 1836.

+ Inspectors' Report, Home District, p. 82.

Inspectors' Report, Home District, p. 92. This idea, we believe, originated with Sir Eardley Wilmot, and has met the approbation of many intelligent witnesses examined before the Lords' Committee.

S Report of the County Rate Commissioners, p. 19.

been objected to; on the ground that it would have a tendency to diminish the sense of crime when committed by persons under a certain age, and that if boys are more leniently dealt with than men, they are likely to be put forward by their seniors as the chief agents in depredation. We think, however, there are many practical difficulties in the way of establishing local courts, which do not apply to the trial of boys and girls at petty sessions. The degree of moral turpitude in a boy under sixteen who may commit a felony, is really less than that of a man. Upon the same principle as that on which his punishment should be different, why should not also the mode of his trial?* We would even go the length of extending the jurisdiction of the petty sessions to a large class of offences against property committed by adults; if after a time it should be found to work well upon juvenile offenders. The magistrates have already summary jurisdiction over threefourths of the offences for which imprisonment is inflicted; and if it is expedient to continue that jurisdiction, it cannot be very inexpedient to make a small addition to it of cases in which the moral guilt is actually less than in most of the present cases. The name of felony is a mere technical distinction, and calculated to mislead in considerations like the present. Whether it is desirable to deprive the magistrates entirely of all their judicial functions, and to establish other tribunals in their room, is a different question; but the plan of trial of juvenile delinquents at petty sessions is neither inconsistent with the present order of things, nor open to any practical objections that we are aware of, beyond what have been noticed.

Whatever improvement, however, may be adopted in the mode of trial, the use of imprisonment as a punishment can only be dispensed with to a small extent, and the system of prison discipline adapted to youth becomes a most important consideration. In France, the plan of appropriating separate prisons to boys has been acted on for several years. The prison of the Madelonnettes in Paris was assigned to the juvenile offenders of the Department of the Seine in 1831. It contains about 350 boys, who are divided into two wards, those before trial, and those under sentence. The latter includes also vagrants, and boys abandoned

We think also, that with a view to the more satisfactory definition of punishments, the age of the offender deserves more particular regard 'from the legislature.'-First Report of Commissioners on Criminal Law, p. 32.

by their parents. The discipline appointed to this establishment, is that of separate sleeping cells (which, however, the building of the Madelonnettes does not entirely admit of being carried into execution)-silence by day, except during the hours of recreation division into classes of reward and punishment-instruction in useful trades-moral and religious education-and solitary confinement as a punishment. The new prison of La Roquette, to which the inmates of the Madelonnettes are probably by this time removed, will supply the deficiencies of the latter building. At Lyons, a portion of the House of Correction of Perrache was, in 1833, assigned as a penitentiary for fifty juvenile offenders, upon the same plan as that of Paris. There is a similar division in the prison of the Bicêtre at Rouen. The boys remain three or four years in these prisons, and on their discharge are received by societies pour le Patronage des jeunes Libérés, which have been formed in Paris and in several provincial towns of France for apprenticing the discharged youths to trades, and furthering their advancement in the world. There are similar societies in the Grand Duchy of Baden, in Wurtemberg, and in the Rhenish provinces. Belgium has also adopted the plan of a separate prison at St. Bernard, near Antwerp, for the juvenile offenders of the whole of that kingdom. It would be highly desirable, at the present moment, to have full and authentic details of the management of the several prisons of this description on the continent, and particularly those of Paris and Lyons.

The inspectors for the home district have recommended the establishment of a separate prison in the metropolis for all boys charged with, or convicted of, offences within the range of the central Criminal Court; to consist of two parts, a house of detention for boys committed for re-examination, and also for trial; and a house of correction for boys of all descriptions sentenced to periods of imprisonment not exceeding twelve months. They do not propose any distinct prison for offenders of this description in other parts of the country; but they strenuously urge the necessity of keeping them individually separate in the several prisons to which they may be committed. For boys sentenced to transportation, and to periods of imprisonment exceeding twelve months, they recommend a general Reformatory for England and Wales; and we believe that steps have been already taken for the foundation of an establishment of this sort. We look upon the management of such an institution to be a matter of the utmost importance to society. It should rather be of an educational, than a punitive character, should be on a modified plan of individual separation -and should teach useful occupations, with especial attention to

moral and religious instruction.* A good course of such discipline for some three or four years could scarcely fail to make an impression on the youthful mind. Of the results of the metropolitan house of correction for short periods of imprisonment we should not be so sanguine; this, as with men, must operate principally as a repressive instrument. But it would have the immense advantage of preventing the horrible contamination of the present system; and we think there should be similar establishments in other populous districts. It is true that individual separation, if carried into effect, renders the necessity of distinct boys' prisons somewhat less urgent; but the treatment of boys and men ought, in several respects, to be so essentially different, that separate establishments are much more desirable. In regard to those young vagrants who are now so frequently sent to the house of correction for merely a few days, we would not send them there at all. They ought to be whipped and discharged.

We cannot at all concur in that part of the plan of the French juvenile prisons (which also belongs to the house of refuge in New York) embracing the reception of destitute as well as criminal youth. Such a plan cannot but tend to confound the distinction between poverty and crime; and although, in countries where there is no legal provision for the poor, the admission of destitute objects into a prison may be more excusable, there can be no doubt that in England the work-house is their proper asylum. The inspectors make the following observations upon this point:

Although the destitute condition of many juvenile depredators gives them strong claims on the public commiseration, it is important that care be taken lest, in bestowing relief, advantages should be extended to them, which are superior to those enjoyed by the children of the poor at large. A refuge for the indiscriminate admission of destitute youth, would tend not to the diminution, but to the increase of the criminal population. To establish an institution for the gratuitous instruction, clothing, and education of all destitute young persons, would be to afford to indigent parents the strongest inducements to abandon their children. For these reasons, we consider it to be of great importance that the house of correction in the metropolis, the necessity for which we have taken the liberty to suggest, as well as the proposed general reformatory, should be stern in its aspect, and penal in its character. So far from

*The poor-school at Hofwyl might, in some respects, furnish valuable lessons. It would be very desirable that all that relates to the reformation and emigration of juvenile offenders should be placed under one management, as a distinct branch of our criminal system.

+For an account of this institution, see Crawford's Report, p. 42.

affording any encouragement to the vicious and depraved, these prisons should inspire the dread, not only of juvenile offenders, but of all with whom they are connected. As one method of effecting this object, we earnestly recommend, that during the confinement of a boy, all personal intercourse with his friends shall cease.' *

The last measure for the reformation of the criminal youth, and by no means the least in importance, is to supply him with the means of earning his subsistence after his discharge. Our previous suggestions in respect of the emigration of adults will be also applicable to youths leaving prison; but the Government should be empowered, at its discretion, to apprentice or employ in the colonies all those young persons of both sexes, whose friends cannot undertake satisfactorily to provide for them on their discharge. The state should thus take upon itself the duties which the parent has, by suffering his child to become a criminal, proved his inability to fulfil. Nothing would be easier than to make arrangements with the colonial governments for the reception of the youths, and procuring them appropriate situations. The cost of the passage might remain a debt to be repaid by instalments in after life; and although that repayment should not in all cases be obtained, we are confident, that under good management at home and abroad, the public would in the end de considerable gainers by the plan. There can be no worse economy than a system which exposes society to the probability of a land becoming a frequent inmate of prisons in after life; and that such is often the case at present, there is unhappily too strong evidence to admit of a doubt. The London' Refuge for the Destitute' has, on a small scale, done much good in the way we have mentioned. The Children's Friend Society another public institution, is too indiscriminate in the admission of its objects; and the shortness of the period (only three months on an average) for which the inmates remain, give it a different character from that which a penal institution ought to possess. We have proposed to make the emigration to a certain extent compulsory; but we cannot agree with the inspectors that the offender ought ever to be permitted to exchange a portion of his term of imprisonment for voluntary exile; because that would not only render the punishment uncertain, but give the emigration an appearance of penality which is especially to be avoided. We deprecate altogether any thing like the present system of transportation, which, little as it