Reformatory Schools

Front matter

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LIBRARY

Pot, SQCTAL. HISTORY QF EDUCATION GENERAL EDITOR: VICTOR E. NEUBURG

Preface

THE enormity and amount of juvenile depravity is a subject which now most painfully engages the public mind. The mature and headstrong character which it exhibits has been unveiled and presented to the public eye in colours, fearful because true, by various recent publications, which must make every Christian heart shudder and tremble. Statistic tables prove to us its appalling progress, in a ratio far exceeding that of the population generally ;—but even these, clear as they may appear to be, and forcible in their appeals, are less powerful to convince of the dreadful truth, and to demonstrate its results, than the daily experience of our great cities, as it can be attested by our magistrates,—our governors and chaplains of gaols,—our police,—or even the common readers of our newspapers.

These things have long been known to the few ;— now they are made evident to the many; and it is equally clear that if the evil is not checked it must v1 PREFACE.

increase. Now we see:—therefore our sin remaineth if we strive not to remove the evil.

But what can be done? Is there any remedy? If so, how can it be applied ?

None, probably, will hesitate to acknowledge that education, — the early nurture, and the sound, religious, moral, and industrial training of the child, is the only curative that can strike at the root of the evil, by infusing a fresh and healthy principle, instead of that which is now so rotten in our state. But can it be given, so as to influence these degraded children; and if it can, ought it to be bestowed gratuitously upon them? Have we not already done enough in this country for the prevention of crime, by providing Schools, Penitentiaries, and Gaols ?

These are important questions, which it will be attempted in this work fully and satisfactorily to answer ;/ while it will be proved that Reformatory Schools, adapted to the various conditions of the “ perishing and dangerous classes” of children, both can, and under Providence, will produce the desired effect of checking the progress of crime in those who have not yet subjected themselves to the grasp of the law, and of reforming those who are already convicted criminals. Such Schools occupy a middle ground between educational and penal establishments, and are liable to misunderstanding from a double source ; such misunderstanding it will be the aim of the

PREFACE. Vil following inquiries to remove, placing them in their true position with respect to society.

It is earnestly entreated that all who have within them any desire to promote the welfare of their fellow beings, or any sense of the high responsibility which every Christian lies under, to do something to prepare the way for the coming of his Lord’s kingdom on the earth,— will seriously and candidly peruse this volume, and, excusing its many defects, will allow due weight to the truths it contains,— truths which all may test for themselves.

Then let every one go forth to do what he can in this great cause ;—all may find a way ;— and what they do, let them “do quickly ;’—the hour is fully come ; the harvest truly is ripe;—may the Lord send many labourers to gather it in faithfully.

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Index

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

“ Perishing and Dangerous Classes” of Children, 1—3. Amount and Increase of Juvenile Delinquency, 4—11, Recommittals of Juvenile Offenders, 12—14. Condition of Juvenile Thieves, 15—18. Actual Ignorance of these, 19—28. True Education needed, 29—31. Existing Schools unadapted to Juvenile Offenders, 32—37. Reformatory Schools needed, 38, 39. Objections proposed and answered, 40—46. “Expense of Juvenile Delinquency, 47—54, / imperative Duty of checking Crime by Education, 55—57.

Chapter I. First Principles

The Children as they are,(58—67.) Classes of Children, —72, “Guiding Principles of all Reformatory Schools, <a Moral Tone, ‘78, 792 Industrial Training, 80. ‘Sanitary Condition, 81, 82. “Treatment of the Children, 82—85, Rewards and Punishments, 86—91. Religious Instruction and Moral Training, 92—101. Intellectual Training, 102—105. Instructors, 105—109.

x INDEX.

Chapter II. Evening Ragged Schools

Sunday Schools originally Ragged Schools, 110—116. Origin of the Present Ragged School Movement, 117—119. Evening Ragged Schools, 120—123. Conditions necessary to their Success, 124, 125. Increase of Juvenile Crime and Ragged Schools, 126—130. Actual State of existing Ragged Schools, 131—138. Good Results, 139 — 146. Effects of the Movement, 147, 148.

Chapter III. Free Day Schools

Free Day Schools, 149. Positive evil arising from ill-conducted ones, 150—154. Practical example, developing the Principles to be acted on, 155—186. Disadvantageous position of such Schools, as compared with British and other Pay Schools, 187—195. Free Day Schools for the Perishing and Dangerous Classes will not interfere with the Schools for the Labouring Classes, 196—199. Such Schools virtually excluded from Government Aid, 200—203. To have the desired effect they must be numerous and good; they cannot be so without Government Aid, 204—209.

Chapter IV. Industrial Feeding Schools

Vagrant Children training to Crime, 210—221. Free Day mre alone cannot check the evil, 222—225. Juvenile Vagrafcy and Crime in Aberdeen, 226, 227. Effects of Aberdeen Industrial Schools, 228—235. Objections answered, 236, 237. Parish Unions, 238—245. Industrial Schools inefficient without Magisterial co-operation, 246—251. Benevolent Efforts powerless under existing Legislative Regulations, 252—257. General Review, 258, 259.

INDEX. rel

Chapter V. The Gaol

The Gaol the only State School, 261, 262. Condition of Gaols, Newgate, 263. Visit to Liverpool Gaol, 264—270. Gaols on the Separate System, Bristol Gaol, 271, 272. VEffect of Imprisonment on 24 Scholars, 273, 274. Bath Gaol, 276—280. Preston Gaol, 281—283. njustice of the Present System regarding Children. The two Orphans, 284, 285. Inequality of the Law as respects Children and Adults, 286—290. Transportation, 291— 294. Uncertainty of Punishment, 295. Physical Effect of the Separate System on Children, 296, 297. cMental Effect, 298—300. Larceny Act, 301. Wisdom of the Present System, 302—306. Expense it involves, 307—310.

Chapter VI

Statistics of Juvenile Crime, 311, 312. Government Juvenile Prison for Boys, 313,314. Female Juvenile Criminals, 315, 316. Parkhurst, 317—323. Mettrai, 324—329. Dusselthal, 330—334. Rauhe Haus, 335—337. Philanthropic Institution, 338—340. Stretton-on-Dunsmore, 341. Insuperable Difficulties, 342, 343. ~Comparative Expense of Gaols and Reformatory Schools, 345, 346. Results, 347. Legislative Enactments needed, 448, 449. Conclusion, 450—453,

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REFORMATORY SCHOOLS.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Ir is not needed, at the present day, to demonstrate the immense importance of the juvenile portion of the community to the future, and even to the present welfare of the state,—or to show the need of education to prepare the young to be good citizens and useful members of the community. The days are past when it was requisite to prove that the labouring classes can work better in light than in darkness, and that even if they cannot, the more favoured few have no right to withhold from the many God’s best gifts. These questions we shall suppose to be settled. Nor shall we, in any way, touch on the topic at present so interesting to the public mind,—National Education, or refer to the systems pursued in the various public schools already existing for the labouring portion of the population, any further than to consider how far they can or cannot be applicable to the classes which form the subject of our enquiry. In like manner, if houses of correction and common prisons are alluded to, it will not be to offer any opinion on the plan and principles adopted in them, except as they bear on juvenile offenders.

The subject of the present work is solely,—The children of the “ perishing and dangerous classes,”— and the means to be adopted to raise them from that condition. Many remedies, more or less effectual, have been applied to mitigate or remove the evils, so multiplied and varied in form, amid which the infant population is springing up, rank and noxious as in a hot-bed of vice ;—philanthropists of varied powers and in different walks of life, have laboured, and are labouring devotedly, for the removal of the causes of crime, however and wherever it manifests itself. We wish them all God speed, and sympathise warmly in their efforts. Yet none can prove effectual without setting right the main-spring of life, which can be done only by education.

That part of the community which we are to consider, consists of those who have not yet fallen into actual crime, but who are almost certain from their ignorance, destitution, and the circumstances in which they are growing up, to do so, if a helping hand be not extended to raise them ;—these form the perishing classes: —and of those who have already received the prison brand, or, if the mark has not been yet visibly set upon them, are notoriously living by plunder,—who unblushingly acknowledge that they can gain more for the support of themselves and their parents by stealing than by working,—whose hand is against every man, for they know not that any man is their brother ;—these form the dangerous classes. Look at them in the

““PERISHING AND DANGEROUS CLASSES.” 3 streets, where, to the eye of the worldly man, they all appear the scum of the populace, fit only to be swept as vermin from the face of the earth ;—see them in their homes, if such they have, squalid, filthy, vicious, or pining and wretched with none to help, destined only, it would seem, to be carried off by some beneficent pestilence ;—and you have no hesitation in acknowledging that these are indeed dangerous and perishing classes.( Behold them when the hand of wisdom and of love has shown them a better way, and purified and softened their outward demeanour and their inner spirit, | in Schools well adapted to themselves, and you hardly believe them to be separated by any distinct boundary from the children who frequent the National and British Schools. Yet there is, and will long be, a very strongly defined line of separation between them, which must and ought to separate them, and which requires perfectly distinct machinery and modes of operation in dealing with them.

In the present chapter an idea will first be given of the amount of crime among the juvenile portion of the population in our large cities; and it will be shown that this is co-existent in a great degree with absolute ignorance of the lowest kind, but still more with a striking deficiency in the nature of the education they have received. It will thus be proved that the present educational establishments for the labouring classes neither can nor will affect these perishing and dangerous ones, and that if we would effectually influence them, gratuitous ones of a different character must be provided for them. The objections made by political economists to such Schools will afterwards be considered and answered.

In order to become somewhat acquainted with the extent and heinous nature of the juvenile depravity existing in our very midst, we shall not have recourse to general statistical tables of crime, and for the following, among other reasons :—

The returns are generally of the number of committals, not of the number of individuals committed. Instances are known of one person having been committed 100 times, and among juveniles, re-commitments of 6, 8, or 10 times, are not unfrequent: hence the number of committals may show the frequency of crime, but not the number of criminals. But it will be only an approximation even to this. A clever young thief will go on for years committing daily depredations before his case is recorded in the annals of crime.

Even if we have the numbers before us of the juveniles committed during a series of years, we shall

_Still be in danger of forming very erroneous opinions of the actual‘amount of crime, from ignorance of circumstances which have led to some particular course of conduct in the acting magistrates. For instance :—when we find that the number of boys from 7 to 14, committed to the Houses of Correction at Westminster and Cold Bath Prisons, and tried by jury in 1837, was only 67, and that in 1846-47, it

DANGER OF JUDGING BY STATISTICAL RETURNS. 5 was 277, we are appalled at the fearful increase ; and not less so when we find that in this last year the summary convictions were 621, making a total of 898, while in the next, 1847-48, when Ragged Schools were in operation, the summary convictions rose to 1,129, the trials by jury being 131, making the fearful amount of 1,260. Might not the inferences be plausibly drawn from such facts, that in the ten years from 1837 to 1847, juvenile crime in its more serious aspect had quadrupled, and that in the very next year, when Ragged Schools were in active operation, it had increased by nearly 200, thus showing the ill effects of that movement. Sergeant Adams, in his excellent “Charge to the Grand Jury, of the Quarter Sessions of the County of Middlesex,” 1849, satisfactorily explains this. In the year 1837, he tells us, “the rage for summary conviction was at its height, during the year of the parliamentary inquiry; and several police magistrates gave evidence in its favour, and the returns show the consequent rapid increase of committals, although the trials by jury remain stationary.” (The summary convictions in 1837 were 1,031, making a total increase of 200 juvenile offenders over the preceding year.) “By degrees, summary convictions decreased, and the old constitutional tribunal was resorted to; and the consequence was that in the last year before the Larceny Act was passed, 1846- 47, the number of committals had decreased 200 on the committals of 1837, though the trials by jury quads rupled the number of trials in that year. The Larceny Act has brought summary conviction again into action in another form; and the consequence has been that the committals of the first year of its operation (1847-48,) exceed the committals of 1837 by 162.” The effects of the Larceny Act will be again referred to; but we make this extract here, to afford a clue to the detection of the fallacies which may be and have been founded on apparent facts. Another illustration may be given :—The numbers of juvenile offenders in Bristol during the last three years, have been 202, 164, 315; these figures would indicate a great increase of crime since the Ragged Schools have been in operation. But this increase is fully accounted for by the fact, that during the last two years a change has been made from 14 to 16, as the age under which young persons are to be regarded as children, thus including in the last returns a period peculiarly prone to crime; these figures cannot, therefore, give us any certain result as to the increase of juvenile crime, or as to the effect of Ragged Schools in checking it. On the

other hand, the last report of the Bristol Ragged - School Society, states, “In the Schools in Temple parish, 9 boys were committed in 1848, only 4 were committed in the last year. Of boys attending the St. Philip’s Evening School, 12 were committed from April 19, 1847, when the School was opened, till the close of the year ; 11 in 1848; and only 4 in the last year. The diminution may in part be attri-

AMOUNT OF CRIMINAL POPULATION. rf buted to the influence of the institution, and of the wholesome discipline of the Industrial School.” Those, however, who are fully conversant with the actual working and progress of such Schools, with the individual. characters of the boys frequenting them, and at the same time with the existence, at least undiminished, of a very great amount of juvenile crime in that city, will probably attribute the diminution of the number of committals from the Schools to the fact, that though boys of vicious character will frequent such Schools at their first opening, and while they continue in a somewhat disorderly state, yet that they will seldom persevere in attendance, or endure the discipline of a well-conducted School, and hence cease to go to it.

Again: statistical returns may give a very erroneous idea of the amount of the criminal population in any district ; this is shown in the following extract from the evidence of F. Hill, Esq., Inspector of Prisons, before the Committee of the Lords in 1847.*

“With reference to the numbers of habitual offenders, in saying that it is smaller than is generally supposed, I do not mean to say that compared with the number of occasional offenders it is smaller, but that the criminal population is much smaller than is generally imagined, in consequence

* “First and Second Reports from the Select Committee of the House of Lords, appointed to inquire into the execution of the Criminal Law, especially respecting Juvenile Offenders and Transportation ; together with the Minutes of Evidence taken before the said Committee, and Appendix and Index, 1847.”

of the very large number of distinct offences which any one habitual offender commits where crime is his trade. I may mention in illustration of this, a case that came to my knowledge some time ago, of three families, consisting of 15 members. They were the families of three brothers, and it was ascertained that of those 15 members, 14 had been in the constant habit of making and uttering false coin. I made an estimate of the number of distinct offences which this body of criminals had committed ; and it appeared highly probable, considering the issue of every separate coin as a distinct offence, that not fewer than 20,000 separate offences had been committed by those three families, considering every separate issue of a false coin a distinct offence. So large a number being issued by those families, and the families moving about, and appearing first here and then there, it would probably create in the minds of the public who could not put these facts together, a supposition that there was a much greater number of persons employed than was really the case. In many instances I have ascertained by inquiries of the police, the precise number of habitual offenders in a given town—for in small towns the criminals are frequently well known—and I have generally found the prisoners to be very small. By a reference to my second report, which contains much information on this subject, it will be seen, for example, that the town of Kinghorn, in Fife, containing a population of about 1,500, there were at the time of my inquiry just 9 thieves. Even in places of much larger size, the number of offenders appears to be often very small.”

_ While, then, we shall not enter on a minute statistical examination of the amount of juvenile crime, referring ali who wish to do so to the published tables, and to such valuable works as Mr. Fletcher’s “ Moral Statistics of England and Wales”’ (which, however, is not published), it will be important carefully to consider a few tables and statements on the subject, which, having been made by

INCREASE OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY. 9 individuals who have had peculiar opportunities of accurately investigating the subject, and delivered in to parliamentary committees, may be regarded as having great weight, as well as calculated to give a more distinct impression than mere general statements,

From a paper delivered in by Mr. Pearson, as part of his evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Lords, the following most important facts are selected :—

“Tt appears from parliamentary returns and other authentic documents, that during the present century the number of commitments and convictions for crime has increased in this country greatly beyond the increase of population, In a period of 40 years, the population, 10 years old and upwards, has increased 65 per cent., while the proportionate commitments for crime have been augmented 494 per cent., and the convictions 625 per cent. Until the last 10 years, the returns do not specify the ages of the prisoners; but, as appears by these later documents, the number of juvenile criminals has increased in a greater degree than even the mass of criminals at large. Thus the number of criminals under 20 years of age, committed to prison in the year 1835, was 6803, or 1 in 449 of the population, between 10 and 20 years of age ; while in 1844 they amounted to 11,348, or 1 in 304 upon the population of the same age./ This increase of crime cannot be attributed to an increased degree of poverty and ignorance, for it has gone on in an inverse ratio to the accumulation of national wealth, and to increased means of education afforded to the masses. }It is likewise worthy of remark, that although the last 3 years shuw a ‘decrease in the number of commitments and convictions in respect of the whole population of England and Wales, (which the Premier and Secretary of State have, in Parliament, truly ascribed to the increased prosperity and industrial occupation of the masses of the people,) yet the stated decrease during those years is in respect of the adult population only; as upon comparison of the two periods, the number of commitments and convictions of juvenile offenders has increased in the 3 latter years upwards of 7 per cent.”

Mr. Pearson remarks, however, that though crimes have increased in number, they have been less ageravated in character, and that various changes which have taken place between the two periods of comparison may have had effect on the numbers of convictions, and prevent our considering the amount of actual crime, as truly indicated by them. Yet, on the other hand, he adds, “It is believed that the number of summary convictions for petty offences, in England and Wales, which do not find a place in the returns of commitments and convictions from which the foregoing calculations have been made, amount to more than three times the number of convictions at the assizes and sessions which form the basis of such evidence.”

“T am very desirous,” says Sergeant Adams, “of having this return in my evidence before the committee of the Lords.

The number of summary convictions under the Metropolitan Police Act, of children under the age of 16, in 1834, was : . ; s 1557 The number of convictions of those tried by juries a, aned Summarily convicted in 1835 : : : 1624 Tried by juries ‘ : : ; ; : ina veld Summarily convicted in 1836 : : . 1662 Tried by juries : : : : : ; ree noes Summarily convicted in 1837 : , ; 1819 Tried by juries : ‘ : : 139 J - 1908

“Among those samimaurly convieted as ‘reputed thieves,’ there are no less than 32 children of the age of 7 years ; and

JUVENILE REPUTED THIEVES. ll it is singular, that though these children have been convicted as reputed thieves, there is not one case tried by a jury under the age of 8 years. Of the age of 8, there are no less than 90 who are summarily convicted as reputed thieves, and there are in the same period but 3tried by juries ; so that there are 32 children of 7, and 87 of 8 years, who have acquired the reputation of reputed thieves, making altogether 119, during a period in which 3 only are tried for theft.”

What are these poor children to become, who have acquired a reputation for thieving at so early an age, —who have been inured to the police-court and the prison, while others, the children of the same Heavenly Father, are tenderly watched over in the nursery ?

It is stated in Mr. Neison’s “ Statistics of Crime,” that in the whole of England and Wales the number of persons under 15 years of age who are tried and convicted, only form about one-seventeenth part of the total numbers of all ages. But this gives a very inadequate idea of the proportion of juvenile to adult offenders in our large cities. Sergeant Adams states, that in the Midland Circuit, which he attended, he found few juvenile offenders, and he believes that the large towns are where they are to be chiefly found, few being met with elsewhere. In saying this, we are not of course to understand that ignorance and sin do not exist in as great, perhaps in a greater degree, in the rural districts,—this would be the subject of a very different inquiry; but that large towns are more favourable to that precocious development of crime whtich brings the young offender ynder magisterial correction. ‘The metropolis exhibits this early training to vice in an overwhelming extent ; next to it are some of our large seaport towns. Mr. Rushton, in his evidence before the Lords, gives the following extract from the report of Captain Williams, Inspector of Prisons, for 1840, respecting the state of juvenile delinquency in Liverpool :—

“During one year, the number of male juvenile prisoners committed to the Liverpool Borough Prison, was, in proportion to the whole number of male prisoners, much greater than in any of the gaols selected for comparison, and the proportions of juvenile re-committals was, in Liverpool, nearly double that of the average proportion of the metropolitan prisons, and more than double the average of the five remaining English prisons ; whilst of the worst class of re-committals, (those who had been in gaol four times or oftener,) the proportion in Liverpool was upwards of seven times the average proportion in the metropolitan gaols, and nine times more than in the five provincial gaols. The proportion of male juveniles to the whole number of male prisoners. committed to the Liverpool Borough Gaol, was 4 per cent. more than the average proportions in the six metropolitan prisons ; 83 per cent. more than the proportion in Salford New Bailey Prison ; 104 more than Bristol; 10 more than Warwick ; 12} more than Wakefield ; 74 more than Hull; and 4 per cent. more than Glasgow ; or about 9 per cent. more than the average of 6 of the largest provincial prisons attached to the most populous manufacturing and commercial towns and cities in the kingdom. The character of the offences for which they were committed will be evident from the fact, that of 709 juvenile prisoners committed during the year to the Liverpool Borough Prison, 316 were committed as known or reputed thieves, and 256 as vagrants. The proportion of male juvenile re-committals to the whole number of male juveniles during the year, was, in Liverpool, 66 per cent. Of these, 284 per

RE-COMMITTALS OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS. 13 cent. had been in prison four times or oftener ; so that 66 out of every 100 boys committed to this gaol had been previously imprisoned ; and more than 28 of each 66, who had been previously committed, had been in gaol four times or oftener. In the Metropolitan districts the proportion of re-committals to the number of juvenile prisoners, averaged 354 per cent., and in the other five gaols in England 323. The number of re-committals to the Glasgow Bridewell does not appear in the returns. Compared with the proportion of re-committals in the adult class of male prisoners, the proportion in the male Juveniles was much greater generally, the average number per cent. having been in the Metropolitan gaols 354, whilst of adults it was 23 ~,th, and in the other five gaols the average re-commitments of juveniles was 324, and of adults 183 per cent. In Liverpool the proportions were, of adults, 36; of juveniles, 66 per cent. The returns of the preceding year exhibit nearly similar results. Of the 2740 juvenile re-committals to 203 prisons in England and Wales, 299, or about 1-9th of the whole, occurred in Liverpool ; and of the 506 juveniles who had been in gaol four. times or oftener, the number in Liverpool was 138, or upwards of 1-4th of the whole number of this class in 203 prisons from which the returns were made. It is a cause of satisfaction to learn from the last report of the Chaplain of the Liverpool HKorough Gaol, that there is some improvement since that time, but the per centage still remains very high. ‘It is pleasing to notice,’ he says, ‘that whilst the instances of relapse of juveniles into crime, in the years ending 30th Sept., 1843, 1844, and 1845, have been 52, 504, and 49 per cent. respectively, those of the year to which this report refers (1847) have been little more than 41 per cent.’ This improvement is ascribed by Mr. Rushton, ‘in great measure to the care and vigilance of the Chaplain, and also to the great care on the part of the Governor of the Borough Gaol, who has taken much pains, and has in a very beneficial manner bestirred himself about this matter, in taking care of the lads who are there, and delivering them up to their parents, and so forth.”

Here is a specimen of a prison return, which must make the blood thrill :—

Paper delivered by Captain Groves to the Select Committee of the Lords. Return of two boys sent to Milbank Prison, under sentence of seven years’ transportation.

Time Whe- Re- Name When ee ther SAE Charac-| marks Reand 9) Crime: ae ape before te have shoes . rid marks. Age. tried. | judge. es gene m3 Bronte ‘ aoe he Sent to House of} Correc- June 12, Bad: tion, un- John {Stealing | 1846, at None (!) Not Not |Connec- Rae der the Nicholls} monies.}| War- known. | known.| tions * | proviaged 7. wick. bad. — yl tional pardon.

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“Must : hila| jected be sepa- crime, |" tramps [Tas lived, by order from thejabout the| vender it | of th Domi- | stealing | Oct-21, | rated. time he | Untry; | “Simost | Qo 0” nick - | 1846, at [from his} Not an elder |, Secr e-