"Me and my sister was taken up by the police for sleeping on a doorstep," said one sad-eyed little maid in a blue frock.
"Why on a doorstep?"
"Father left us, and when mother died the landlord turned us out."
True enough, and the sisters will be sent to a girls' home shortly.
That is the best that can be done for the girls, especially the large number that are brought away from houses of ill-repute.
The boys who get committed to reformatories still find themselves under Crooks's eye. While the Asylums Board looks after them when under remand, the London County Council becomes responsible once the lads are committed. This dual control Crooks is trying to get rid of, in the hope that the duty will be given wholly into the hands of one authority.
For several years he was a member and at one time Chairman of the L.C.C. Committee that looks after the industrial and reformatory schools. The committee meets at Feltham, where is the largest of the institutions under its charge. It was rare for Crooks to be absent during his membership of the committee.
He and Colonel Rotton, who was also Chairman for a period, could generally make the lads on arrival understand them without much parleying. Every lad, on being committed to the school by a magistrate, had to appear before the committee. Here are some characteristic dialogues:—
"Well, my boy, what are you here for?"