Although numbers of these unfriended pariahs of both sexes die in their probation, yet some, by dint of depredation and subsistence at the public expense in jail, grow up to adolescence. Let us hear, in concluding this miserable history, Lord Ashley's experience of the grown-up thief:—'Last year he received a paper signed by 150 of the most notorious thieves in London, asking him to meet them at some place in the Minories, and to give them the best counsel he could as to the mode in which they should extricate themselves from their difficult position. Lord Ashley went to their appointment, and instead of 150, he found 250 thieves assembled. They made no secret of their mode of life. A number of addresses were delivered, and he proceeded to examine them. They said, "We are tired to death of the life we lead—we are beset by every misery—our lives are a burthen to us, for we never know from sunrise to sunset whether we shall have a full meal or any meal at all: can you give us any counsel as to how we may extricate ourselves from our present difficulties?" He told them that that was a most difficult question to determine under any circumstances in the present day, when competition was so great, and when no situation became vacant but there were at least three applicants for it; more especially was it difficult to determine when men whose characters were tainted came in competition with others upon whose character there was no stain. To that they replied, "What you say is most true: we have tried to get honest employment, but we cannot—we find that our tainted character meets us everywhere." In their efforts to escape from their miserable condition, these poor creatures were constantly foiled, and driven back to their old courses.'
Thus it is that an action and reaction are continually kept up; and from this short sketch it may be readily seen how crime, and especially that of young persons, increases, and will increase, until some comprehensive remedy is earnestly applied. We repeat, that in our present official system no machinery exists for helping the helpless: the iron hand of the law does not hold out the tip of its little finger to aid the orphan out of the gulf of ignorance and crime which yawns for him at the very threshold of his existence. This is the root of the evil—the radical defect in our system; for it has been ascertained that not one in fifty ever becomes a depredator after the age of twenty. Crime, therefore, can only be checked by removing pollution from its source.
Before we take a glance at the beneficial efforts towards this result which have been made by private benevolence, by means of Ragged Schools, and other reformatory establishments, we must point out one more trait of the infirmity of the law, by showing the enormous expense to which the country is put by keeping the cumbrous and clumsy legal machinery in operation.
A child indicted for a petty theft is often honoured with as lengthy an indictment, occupies as much of the time of a grand jury, and when brought into court, has as great an array of witnesses brought against him—all involving draughts on the county rates—as a capital offender. A petition was presented to parliament last year by the Liverpool magistrates on this subject, in which Mr Rushton gave the criminal biography of fourteen lads, whose career of wickedness and misery had cost, in their innumerable trials and convictions, about L.100 a-piece. This is only a single instance; but a more comprehensive calculation shows that the total amount we pay for punishing, or, more correctly, for fostering crime, is two millions per annum; and it has been computed that from two to three millions more are lost in plunder. In the year 1846, the cost of each prisoner in England and Wales averaged L.26, 17s. 7¼d.
Laying aside the higher aspects in which the duties of the community towards their misguided and neglected fellow-beings may be seen, and lowering our view to the merely fiscal expediency of the question, it is easily shown that prevention—and reformation when prevention is past hope—would be much cheaper than the mischievous cure which is now attempted. At from one penny to twopence a week, nearly 10,000 children are at this time being taught reading and writing in the Ragged Schools: and although reading and writing are by no means of themselves preventives to crime, yet the moral instruction which is given along with them to a certain extent is. Then as to reformation, the Philanthropic School reforms juvenile offenders at L.16 per head; and even if we add this sum to the L.26 odds which the conviction of each prisoner is said to cost (for reformation can only be complete after punishment), there would be a great saving to the country; for the reformed youth would be withdrawn from the ranks of depredators, and cease to be a burthen on the country.
In endeavouring, however, to provide for destitute criminal juvenality, the danger presents itself of placing them in a better position than the offspring of poor but honest parents, who have no such advantages for their children. From the absolute necessity of the case we could get over this: but there is another and more peremptory objection. Anything like a wholesale sweeping-up of juvenile vagrants, and providing for them, no matter how, would most probably tend to a demoralisation of the lower class of parents, who would be only too thankful to get rid of their offspring on any terms. Plans of this nature must inevitably be accompanied by an enforcement of parental responsibility. The wretch who neglects his child, must be taught, even if by the whip to his back, that he has no right or title to turn over his duties to the philanthropist or to the public.
Another difficulty presents itself even after the reformation of the more hardened offenders has been effected. How are they to find employment? The 250 depredators who told Lord Ashley that they could not get honest employment, only mentioned the ease of every one of their crime-fellows. Some manage to obtain an honest livelihood by concealing their past history, but even in such a case the 'authorities' do not always leave them alone. One young man told Lord Ashley that he had contrived to get a good situation, and after some trial, his employer was as well pleased with him as he was with his employer. One day, however, there came a policeman, who said to his master, 'Are you aware that you are employing a convicted felon?' The master, upon ascertaining that such was the case, turned the young man at once out of his service, and he had no alternative but starvation or a recurrence to the evil courses from which he had so nearly extricated himself.
In such cases emigration meets the difficulty, and has hitherto succeeded. Several batches of reformed juvenile criminals have already been sent out from Parkhurst Prison, from the Philanthropic School, and other reformatories, and the emigrants have, upon the whole, given satisfaction to the employers.
We have laid the evil bare before our readers, and hinted at remedies, not more for the importance of the facts set forth, than to prepare them for a description we shall next attempt of the interesting experiment now being tried by the Philanthropic Society at their Farm-School at Red Hill in Surrey. Its object has been to see how far a modification of the Mettray system is likely to answer in this country. The results which have arisen up to this time are of the most encouraging nature. What we saw during our visit has led us to hope that at least a beginning has been made towards removing much of the stigma which rests upon Great Britain for suffering the existence, and allowing the increase, of more crime and destitution among persons of tender years than exists in any other country.