had better acquaint
themselves with the facts of the case. It is too little known, that
there has been a society at work for the last sixty years in England,
for the reform of juvenile offenders. It has a farm at Red Hill, near
Reigate, from which about forty youths go out every year to agricultural
labour and humble trades, in which the great bulk of them do well. The
similar institution at Mettray, near Tours, produces similar results on
a greater scale. And the simple truth at the bottom of the whole affair
is, that young thieves are, in general, deserted or orphan children, or
children driven forth to destitution by vicious parents: criminal
through circumstances, and finding no true happiness in their wicked
kind of life, a large proportion of them _desire to reform_, and will
suffer not a little in order to obtain admission to respectable society.

It has lately been shewn, that society has a strong interest of a
pecuniary nature in the reformation of juvenile delinquents. A boy or
youth continually going about as a pickpocket or petty larcenist, is a
destructive animal of somewhat formidable character. To get quit of him
at last by transportation, costs at the least calculation L.150. Now, he
can be put through the twelvemonth's course of reformation in such a
school as that which we have described, and deported as a free emigrant
to Australia (where he is welcomed), for L.25. Thus, even in an
economical light, the reforming of the youth is a great gain.
Magistrates are everywhere impressed with the hopelessness of a mere
judicial treatment of these hapless children. They come back to the dock
at almost regular intervals; severity is of no avail with a poor wretch
who, on being discharged from jail, finds all honest employment denied
to him. It is by reform alone that we can rid ourselves of this moral
pest, by which our country is disgraced.

There is but one difficulty in the case, and that is one involving
profound social questions. Shall we see criminal children taken care of,
and treated kindly, while many of the children of the honest poor are so
ill off? Shall we not, by taking these children under our care, and so
relieving parents and others of their responsibility towards them, sap
the principles of the industrious poor, leading them to desert or cast
off their children, whom they will now be sure of seeing cared for by
others? We must admit that there is much force in these queries; but it
would be wr