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82S THE LEADER. [~ No - 336 > Saturday,
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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. T M W.—We tha...
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We do not undertake to return rejected c...
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SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1856.
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w There is nothing so revolutionary, bec...
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V REFORMATORY RESULTS. Nine years have b...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
82s The Leader. [~ No - 336 > Saturday,
82 S THE LEADER . [~ - 336 > Saturday ,
Notices To Correspondents. T M W.—We Tha...
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . T M W . —We thank our correspondent , whose communication reached us too late for insertion this week . It will aDDear ia our next number .
We Do Not Undertake To Return Rejected C...
We do not undertake to return rejected communications . No notice can be taken of anonymous correspondence . Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as a Ruarantee of his good faith .
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Saturday, August 30, 1856.
SATURDAY , AUGUST 30 , 1856 .
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W There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Bec...
w There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very ¦ law of its creation in eternal progress . —DE . Abnoxd . _ ^
V Reformatory Results. Nine Years Have B...
V REFORMATORY RESULTS . Nine years have barely elapsed since the Legislature first recognized the justice and expediency of drawing a distinction between adult and juvenile criminals . "While the viciousness of even the former may sometimes be involuntary , that of the latter is almost invariably the result of ignorance and bad example . The natural tendency of mankind is to error . Acquisitiveness is the first law of nature . The first act of the new-born babe is an attempt at appropriation . In its own de-__
fence , therefore , society is compelled to set limits to selfishness , the transgression of which shall be attended with pain to the offender . Thus morality is in the first instance conventional , and becomes , secondarily , a habit . In the middle classes this habit is planed down to a dead level , and assumes the name of respectability ; in the upper classes it receives a polish , and is called honour and gentlemanly feeling . For the purposes of society at large , simple morality will suffice .
When the lower orders shall he induced to practise strict morality , they will cease to be either a contrast , or a danger , to the more industrious , or more fortunate . The inauguration of these Saturnia regna was celebrated at Bristol on the 20 th and 21 st of this month , under the able presidency of Lord Stanley , and in the presence of a large concourse of
intelligent and influential persons , in whose eyes nothing human is common or unclean , and with whom payment of tithe is not the highest merit , or eating with unwashen hands the sin that cannot be forgiven . Their views are , in the highest sense of the word , catholic . Their object is to " comfort and help the weakhearted , and to raise up them that fall . " In such a cause who would not wish them God
speed r The excellence of their motives must command respect , even if the end they proposed to attain were quixotic and utopian . But experience has already shown that their object is eminently practical , that their eventual success is certain , and—a strong argument with not a few—that tho process they pursue saves the commonwealth not only annoyance , but money . It is a financial maxim , said Lord Stanley ,
that no tax is so burdensome or vexatious as that -which , is capriciously distributed , and levied with equal irregularity . Such a tax , in its . - worat form , are the illegal acquisitions of the dangerous classes . Tho value of the robberies committed in Liverpool , in ono year , is ? * "nated , at 700 , 000 ? . ; iu London at 1 , 5 OO , OQ 0 Z . The coat of the maintenance and prosecution of criminals throughout great Britain is annually about 855 , 00 OZ . -Every thief on an average makeB about 100 Z a year but as ho disposes of his plundor for
about one-third of its real value , the tax he levies upon society may be rated at nearly three times that amount . His detection , apprehension , and punishment , inflict an additional loss of 621 . ; whereas the work of reformation , among juvenile criminals , is sometimes effected for 251 ., and never exceeds 4 < 2 l . — inclusive of the outlay thrown away upon the incorrigible . In the year 1853 , the registers of crime exhibited 98 , 664 entries ; of which 26 , 804 . were " for trial or tried at assizes and
sessions , " and 71 , 850 were summary convictions . Eleven and a half per cent , of this fearful catalogue was assignable to juvenile offenders under 17 years of age . And one-fourth of all crime is committed by lads between the ages of 17 and 21—a period of life that embraces only one-tenth of the entire population . In other words , in one hundred individuals of all ages there are ten lads , between 17 and 21 years old , who are guilty of as much crime as twenty-five persons at any other period of life . Of the 11 , 453 juvenile criminals committed in the year 1853 , nearly 4000 had been
previously convicted . At Manchester , m the nineteen years preceding 1827 , between onethird and one-fourth of the total number were old offenders . Of the 12 , 000 to 13 , 000 committals at Salford and Leeds during the same number of years , 4000 were already acquainted with the interior arrangements of a gaol . And at Liverpool , of 14 boys taken at random , it was found that one had been committed nineteen times , and that a child only seven years old had , in the course of twenty-four months , been thrice imprisoned , and for the fourth offence sentenced to
transportation . These facts establish beyond a doubt the inefficaey of punishment , as at present administered , to deter delinquents from a repetition of their offence . This unfortunate circumstance is attributed by Lord Brougham and Mr . "Wheatley to the law ' s delay and uncertainty . The fear of punishment is in a great measure neutralized by the probability of escape . Even detection does not necessarily lead to conviction ; and even when a conviction is obtained , such a length of time frequently intervenes between the commission of an offence and its
chastisement , that the idea of crime is not necessarily associated with that of pain . The latter is consequently no longer deterrent , and can never be reformatory . If further proof be needed , we would refer to the records of the model prison at Heading . In 1852 , of 209 prisoners recommitted for separate confinement , 89 had commenced' thoir career of guilt and suffering before they were seventeen , and collectively had since been
sent to prison 403 times—giving an average of fully 4 £ times to each . Undoubtedly one great cause of tho frequency of recommittals is tho shortness of periods of confinement . In this country tho average length of imprisonments docs nob exceed 50 days—long enough to confirm , but not to eradicate , evil tendencies . Tho experience of the Glasgow Bridewell during ten years fully supports this view . Of those committed for fourteen
days , 75 por cent , again found their way to gaol ; for thirty days , 60 per cent . ; for forty days , 50 ; for two months , 40 ; for throe months , 25 ; for six months , 10 ; for nine months , 7 ^ ; for twelve months , 4 ; and ^ for eighteen months , 1 per cent . ; while of 93 who had been discharged after two years ' confinement , not ono had returned to his former practices . These statistics likewise aflbrd encouragement for believing in tho possibility of reforming adults , though hardened in crime . Wo loam from Captain Choitton ' s paper that in Ireland a wellconducted prisoner is romovod , some
months before the expiration of his sentence , to Government establishments , where a moral , social , and industrial education is imparted . A loan fund has also been opened for the purpose of assisting the poor wretch in his first struggles to obtain a fair footing . The Glasgow House of Refuge reclaims 85 per cent , of its inmates . Out of 137 cases from the Glasgow Female House of Refuge , 69 have done well , and of the others 38 are either dead or not traced . The Rev . J . F .
Heesohe : l , the founder of " The Refuge" at Gloucester , speaks most favourably of the result of the experiment as far as it has yet been tried . This excellent institution is as yet in its infancy , and limited in its operation by the inadequacy of the funds at the disposal of the chaplain . But it professes to afford to male prisoners on their discharge , who have earned a good character during their imprisonment , " the means of separation from their former bad associates , a clean and
comfortable lodging at the lowest possible cost , a temporary home for such as are destitute , and the opportunity of seeking employment . " For the first fourteen days , lodging , fuel , light , and washing—and food , when necessary—are afforded gratuitously . When employment is obtained for an inmate he is allowed to remain one month , but is then charged Is . 6 d . a week for everything except his subsistence . Thus far there has been no difficulty in finding
employment for mechanics or labourers , and in no instance have the employers had reason to repent of their kind-hearted credulity . The great desideratum is to have work ready for the men on their discharge . Idleness is proverbially the parent of all mischief . This is the cause of the frequent relapses among the ticket-of-leave men . It is neither good for the criminals , nor just towards society , that these friendless and only half-disciplined Bedouins should be turned adrift without a
home or food , or the means of procuring either . Surely something might be done for these outcasts . There are thousands of acres of waste land in the British Isles that might be reclaimed by spade and husbandry and concerted labour , and there would be something ; in the occupation appropriate to the moral condition of the labourers themselves . At first such labour might not prove remunerative , but it would certainly diminish the penal expenditure of the country , and such conditions might be introduced aa should hold out hope to those who never before knew the meaning of the word . But this by the way .
The most effectual reformation , however , may be expected in the case of juvenile criminals . The causes of crime , we are told , are early ignorance , vicious associations , bad parents , intemperance , and a defective police , which so frequently allows guilt to escape undetected . But tho most abundant source of crime is the viciousness of parents . In this sense , at least , tho satirist had good reason to complain that tho present generation is worse than the last , and sure to give birth to ono yet more profligate . Tho sins of tho fathers descend to the third and tho fourth generation . At Manchester , out of 100
children , 60 wore sprung from dishonest parents ; 30 from profligate , but not actually dishonest , parents ; and only 10 wore the first of their family branded with vice and crime . It is , therefore , most just and equitable that tho parents should be compelled to pay for the maintenance and proper training of their children ; and it is satisfactory to learn that in 47 cases out of 69 this payment ia rogulurly enforced .
By an Act passed in 1854 magistrates nro empowered to send juvenile criminals—under 16 years of ago—on the expiration of their sentence , to a Reformatory School for a period
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 30, 1856, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30081856/page/12/
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