D. Melville

“ In fact the careful and intelligent friend who resides as master in our establishment, and verifies these traits, concludes, that the thing which no really criminal boy seems ever to have been taught at all, is self-denial—and the degree of criminality of any boy, in relation to that of any other boy, might be tested by the length, or, rather shortness, of time, which he could keep a piece of sugar candy in his pocket without eating it. ”

“ Policemen and others, out of pity or for fun, seem to suggest extravagant ideas of the life they are to lead, and the provision that is to be made for them. The disappointment that ensues does but enhance, of course, the difficulty of the work. A full statement of the comforts to be expected, even though strictly true, is dangerous, because a boy exaggerates what he hears into something higher which he expects. The best way to represent a Reformatory beforehand is as a place in which repentance may be assisted and perfected—leaving all the rest to be discovered. ”

“ A Reformatory officer over and above his special function in the establishment, should be a compound of a detective and a devotee. A mere devotee without judgment and practical sagacity, quick apprehension and concentrated purpose—would be in despair in a week, with an empty school probably. A mere detective would keep or regain his boys, but never reclaim them. In proportion as Reformatories are felt beneficial, anxiety about their permanance is reasonable. ”

“ But more pressing than the establishment or maintenance of Reformatories is, or soon will be, what to do with the boys on their release, and where. Home service will rarely be adviseable for the most real and true Reformatory subject. The very way they cling in heart and feeling to their old haunts and homes—"that dear old Brum!"—makes me fear their return to them. If the argument about honest and criminal labour applies anywhere, it does to the bringing back the known criminal youth to supersede, probably, his honest competitor. ”

“ Whilst it is true that "the great social evil which has called the Reformatory movement into existence, and the removal of which forms its principal aim, is a class of children who are born, bred, and trained to crime, as the calling by which they are to live," that they are the rising generation of the caste of professional criminals whom society does not know how to reform, can no longer banish, and dares not exterminate, this terrible picture in its political and social aspect, does not supply what characterizes the work. ”

“ The workhouse is despised not because the idle resort to it, but because it is unaristocratic. A thief will take advantage of the workhouse to elude pursuit or for opportunity of pilfering, but he never would like it thought he was obliged to have recourse to it—or for long time. ”

“ It is not that—what we have to deal with is necessarily more sinful, than what in the world around us escapes such treatment, but that, what we have to treat is actually confessed sinfulness, and that all those powers and agencies from the punishment whereby God has marked His sense of it—to the mercy which will not condemn because of it—are ours not merely to proclaim as a prescription, but to apply as a remedy. ”

“ If however the superior advantages of a Reformatory, stimulated crime either in parents or children, there would be a decidedly evil result: the remedy being provocative of the very disease it aimed at curing. ”

“ Without going into the comparison of voluntary and compulsory or even rate-supported institutions: it is well certainly that the demand for Reformatories under the abundance of juvenile crime, which is, perhaps, the strongest argument for non-voluntary schools, has not carried their legislative establishment. For no one who had a Reformatory to start from the first, could possibly tell how they were to be officered, with a true regard of the work to be done. Demand cannot cause, at least quick, supply of such articles. ”

“ If it is only considered that a Reformatory staff ought altogether, and as far as possible in each single member, to possess a knowledge of the evils of human nature with the method of its cure, with the rarer faculty of applying the one to the other, this will be at once perceived. ”

“ I would just observe farther, that we would not shrink from any amount of criminality where there is anything like a hope for a reclaiming treatment taking root, but either the unfit or hopeless in age or condition should not be sent, or if they indiscriminately are sent, we freely should be allowed the present method of relief. A Reformatory is a moral Infirmary, and, just as in that for bodily ailments, there are unfit and incurable cases, which can only be imposed to the hindrance and detriment of the true work. ”

“ Whatever may be the value of the intellectual element of education, it never single-handed forms the character under very favorable circumstances, how much less then where under strong counter influences the work is very directly and obviously "to repair the ruins of our first parents, by regaining to know God aright." ”

“ He told him that I had died lately, and being very ill before I died, I said I could not die happy if the boys were kept in the Reformatory—so I had sent for them and released them all and then died. Hence, quite as much as the mischief of making them fancy you have an interest in their criminal career, the mistake of asking them of their history. A boy will try to catch your idea and always shape his statement accordingly. I remember an eminent man visiting us and asking a very bad boy of his parentage, &c. ”

“ Both the parents and boys consider a Reformatory as a place of discipline and restraint. Neither party ever loses the sense of loss of liberty and involuntary work. Generally speaking young thieves are no burden, often a profit, to their parents. Neither party, in the worst cases, has such an estimate of right conduct and sound teaching, as to value them beyond liberty and wage for labor. ”

“ Haircutting, though except in runaways it is never cut for disfigurement, is always a time for tears. This dislike of short hair does not arise from its relation to the Gaol, or it were commendable, but from its supposed ugliness and its relation to the workhouse—but chiefly the first. Two big boys detected in a design to run away—roared with grief at the cropping of their hair, though nothing else moved them, and one was of very large experience of life. ”

“ Gaols have schools, and the sharpened faculty required for the perpetration of the higher offence, often is acquired in the prison instruction; and a juvenile thief put to school in gaol to quicken his intelligence, and in contact with the more knowing and older hand there to give that intelligence direction, results in that higher grade of crime under a more educated mind, which is here noticed. ”

“ The desire among them seems simply to acquire, rather than to possess, to have rather than to hold. Possession strips things of their value. This accounts for their real poverty under often abundant wealth by theft. In this particular of self-denial our experience is very cheering. The Governor of Worcester County Gaol—remarked the other day looking at our boys—"this is all very well now, where there is constant watching and no temptation, but what will they be when they pass out from being watched into constant temptation? ”

“ Kingsmill, Chaplain of Pentonville Prison—that the general proportion of uneducated persons among criminals is about the same as that of the class of life to which they belong, and the ordinary result of education, is rather to change the quality, than affect the quantity of crime. ”

“ In these cases all character for honesty is gone—the title of "reg'lar thief"—being claimed. Sometimes the appearance of glorying in iniquity may be put on with a view to repelling a tense of shame and of repelling commiseration, but after repeated convictions there is scarcely much sense of shame left, and the exaggeration proceeds from the vain wish of creating an interest and of proving a claim to heroism. ”

“ The schoolroom is a great auxiliary to us, but it is so subordinately to those humanizing influences, and practical teaching in the daily life, whereby the thoughts are influenced in their active exercise. It is the felt relation of friendship personally inforcing lessons of truth and goodness in the details of daily life, which supplants slyness and meanness by honest cheerful confidence, and which washes off, as it does, the hang-dog look and outcast bearing from most of our boys in about a month. ”

“ Our oft-convicted boys, quickened into an intelligence in crime, are found under the head of "fairly," or "well" in elementary education, though they may have been totally ignorant when first committed. ”

“ The sense that they have not their liberty—that from morning to night they do another's bidding, however kindly imposed, operates very strongly also, and seemingly never is lost. Even the best boys, and those who most cheerfully and intelligently acquiesce in the system, do look forward to their release, always using any opportunity of greater confidence or more free communication, to enquire about and urge it. ”

“ Whilst of course it marks the dislike of the Reformatory, at the time the boy does run away, it does not even mark such thorough dislike of it as might be supposed. It is often repented of even whilst being committed. This we learn subsequently. Any whim, any little discomfort, will set boys off, or trying to be off. Town alley-bred boys used to close atmosphere, will run away from the mere bracing air and exposure of field-working. ”

“ There is no lack of civility and attention, but no use. Two boys we received back through policemen, they having been given up by others to their custody, but we never have recovered a boy by means of a policeman, and have long given up referring to them. In six cases wherein their agency was fruitless we ourselves recovered boys, by the simple exercise of determination and common sense. ”

“ The presence of the two extremes neutralizes the full benefit of the system on its proper subjects. The Reformatory Act and The Industrial Schools Act, should allow of the free exchange of those for whom either legislates, on the representation of managers of schools, confirmed by magisterial authority. ”

“ Boys will undertake anything if it involves a selection, and decline the very same thing if many are to join. Poverty is not disclaimed if it is remarkable for its extremity—dullness in school—failing health and strength become sources of pride if they only are excessive and prodigious. ”

“ One boy—the one known to every criminal officer in Birmingham—from the Stipendary Magistrate to the Detectives—was walking the streets daily. Another was the boy whose mother's letter is given before. We wrote to her and she attempted to put us off as that letter indicates. Not satisfied, Mr. Griffiths went to her house after that letter was received—made the woman confess its lie and give up her son. I had sent a policeman to this very woman's house at first, and the boy told us on his return—"I was at home when the policeman came and heard mother "stuffing the Bobby." ”

“ Still segregation not aggregation is the secret of Reformatory success. Each establishment should not be beyond the personal and individual observation of him on whom its character mainly depends. From 40 to 50 I should think about an ordinary maximum. Nevertheless I have no doubt that the cost of our boys has been less than somebody would have had to pay had our boys been at large, living on the public, in Gaol or out of it. "The advantage to the general community"—says Mr. ”

“ I trust the Government will aid this looming difficulty by establishing Colonial Correspondents for the reception and employment of the boys. The benefit would soon be felt to be mutual—and any antecedent suspicion removed on experience. If the expense is the difficulty, why not apply one shilling a week for this purpose out of the seven shillings now allowed per head by the Government. ”