Benjamin Rotch

“ To change the system of education among the working classes, and instead of teaching them to arrive at an excellence in Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, which only makes them [15] seek places above that which Nature destined them to fulfil, to have them taught those useful Arts which they can employ in every situation of their humble station in Society, learning to Read and Write, and keep accounts merely as ancillary to those useful trades and occupations by which they are to get their living, and so to add to the general stock of comfort and happiness among their fellows. ”

“ How much longer will intelligent Juries, men not only of common sense, but of common humanity, continue to present the state of Juvenile Depravity, and the mode of disposing of Juvenile Depredators as unsatisfactory and inhuman, and be satisfied to see nothing done on either subject in the way even of an effort to improve? ”

“ A most interesting investigation which I have been lately carrying on as a Visiting Justice of the House of Correction at Cold Bath Fields, justifies me in predicting that when more is done to prevent crime than to punish it, our labours to diminish the burthens on the county purse will be crowned with far happier results than any we can now present to public view for the purpose of obtaining public support. ”

“ Surely when we are driven by the earnest and justifiable remonstrances of our hard working colonists, who can no longer bear the constant infusion of such a polluted stream of Emigration among their industrious population, to found a new Colony in North Australia, at an enormous outlay, it would be wise to consider if a much less expense properly incurred at home might not effect far better results and be more like “getting hold of the right end of the stick.” ”

“ The present agitated state of public feeling on the subject of Juvenile Crime and Juvenile Criminals loudly proclaims that no other answer can be given to these questions, and we are therefore not only justified, but actually called upon by the hallowed voice of Religion and of common Humanity, to seek some new remedy for the acknowledged evil. ”

“ Without them, Home (that otherwise Magic word) can have no charms, for either the old or the young, and they are induced to seek pleasure abroad among the countless temptations of sin and depravity. Nothing can be more faithfully or more graphically depicted than the character and occupations of the young Thief of our great Towns, given by my excellent Friend and worthy colleague, Mr. Buchanan in his Remarks on the causes and state of “Juvenile crime in the Metropolis,”—but the remedy he proposes, falls far short I fear of what would be required to effect his purpose ”

“ We know by our experience in the House of Correction at Cold Bath Fields, that a boy may be made an excellent Shoemaker in Twelve Months, and that he might be made an equally good Tailor in an equally short time, admits of no doubt, while the business of a Tinman, a Shoeing Smith, a Painter, and an hundred others are learned with similar facility. Each Child taught a few of these useful Arts, instead of being a burthen upon, would be a valuable addition to a Family. ”

“ From the Investigation before alluded to, it is evident that the want of proper parental care and the absence of domestic comforts are the two by far most fruitful and most manifest springs from which flows one vast tide of Juvenile Depravity and Crime, though let it not be supposed for a moment that these two springs cannot still further be traced to one deep seated source which might with God’s assistance be speedily dried up ”

“ They will be taken before the actual commission of crime has been brought home to them, when surrounded by want destitution and injustice from the poverty or drunkenness or depravity of those who should be, but are not, their natural protectors, they would inevitably have fallen a prey to those who are ever on the look out for just such suffering creatures to make them, though only yet half willing, the tools of practiced crime; to become, when further advanced in sin, hardened and emboldened in Iniquity, and thus proper Candidates for Parkhurst. ”

“ We know perfectly well that the first years of a Boy’s Apprenticeship are never spent in really learning the Trade he is apprenticed to learn, he is used by his Master as an errand boy, a servant, a groom, or even doing house work for some years in many cases before he begins to learn his Trade, and why? ”

“ There all the Children have been criminals, have been allowed to drink deeply of the cup of vice, and if not after trial, have at any rate before trial been subject to the, I may say almost electrical, contamination of Gaol Association, so rapidly does it take effect. There the foul impress of Felony or Misdemeanour is stamped upon them all before they are offered to the Public as useful members of Society. The Children of the Asylum will be of a far different class. ”

“ To stop the wages in the hands of the employer which an abandoned and depraved Mechanic would squander on his own ruin, and disburse it for him on the legitimate object of maintaining and properly educating his own offspring. ”

“ It must be remembered that the Children with whom I propose to deal are the very same beings who are now dealt with by the state under the far more expensive character of criminals, and the simple question in the case as a matter of finance will be whether it would be more expensive to maintain any given number of innocent Children, and educate them as I propose they should be educated, than to capture, try, and maintain an equal number of Adult Felons at home and abroad at the enormous cost at which they are now dealt with. ”

“ The expense of maintaining them as innocent children will be far less than that of maintaining them as felons while we shall be destroying the root of this Upas Tree which stands in the midst of every densely populated Neighbourhood, spreading its branches so far in every direction that the good and virtuous even can at length reach them, and think they are destroying the tree by endeavouring to keep its unwieldly limbs within bounds by the pruning knife. ”

“ The recent Establishment of Baths and Wash-Houses for the Working Classes, and the efforts lately made to provide suitable and comfortable dwellings for the Poor, show that the current of public opinion is fast waking up to the paramount importance of domestic comforts to secure social happiness. ”

“ The present system is to allow a youth to become well hardened in villainy before he is transported. He is maintained alternately by the plunder of the public out of prison, and by the county purse in prison at a great expense for years ”

“ I am satisfied from a long experience in such matters, that no difficulty would be found in placing out boys well taught, well brought up, under rules of strict discipline, and who have not yet become criminals. ”

“ How much longer will that Ratepayer be content to pay the enormous sums which are daily drawn from his too often slender resources to pay the heavy cost of the repeated apprehensions by the Police, [14] examinations, remands, re-examinations, and committals by the Magistrates and Justices, Trials and Convictions by Juries, Sentences by Judges, and Imprisonments in our Gaols of those wretched Children? ”

“ This consideration alone should induce us not hastily to condemn any suggestion, however novel or gigantic it may at first sight appear, and will I trust gain from my Brother Justices of Middlesex for my humble endeavour, in what I consider the greatest field for exertion ever opened to the Philanthropist, a few moments Investigation of a plan which, however soon a better may supersede it, is the result of many years of anxious Enquiry and careful investigation, and which I am prepared to show involves no principle which has not been previously acknowledged and acted upon by the Legislature. ”