§ The DUKE of RICHMONDrose to present a petition of very great importance to the country, and which had reference to the very great increase of juvenile offenders. He was not one of those who thought it was impossible, by education, or in any other way, entirely to prevent a great many of those children from committing those offences for which they were so repeatedly brought before the courts of justice. Although he knew the subject was surrounded with considerable difficulty, he, for one, could not see why they should not endeavour to rescue this portion of their population from the misery they were doomed to undergo in this world, and from that fate which probably awaited them in the next. A child of about eight or nine years was sent out by his parents to plunder; he was taken and tried for stealing some toy, not worth perhaps three halfpence, and for that offence the jury was bound to find him guilty of a felony. From that time, that child had little hopes of doing any thing else but going, week after week, and month after month, before a Criminal Court, until finally he was transported, when he was perfectly hardened in every species of crime. He begged, therefore, to call the attention of the Government to this system. He certainly did not intend to proceed with any measure in reference to the subject this year; but his intention was—if the Government did not take the matter into their hands—to lay on the table, for the consideration of the country at large, a proposition for sending those children, in some cases, to reformatory institutions. He would propose that they should be sent—and paid for as they should now be paid for when they were sent to prison—for a certain period to a reformatory place, where they would have some chance of reforming them. It might be said that, by adopting this mode of proceeding, they would place the parents of guilty children in a better position than 83 the parents of well-conducted, because they would relieve the parents of the former class from the burden of supporting them; but he saw no difficulty in having an Act of Parliament so framed that those parties should be obliged to pay a certain portion of the expense of sustaining them. No person could more plainly see than he did, the necessity of having strict discipline in their prisons; but if they wanted to stay crime in this country, they must go to the root of it. When they sent children of this description to the gaols of a great metropolis, it was impossible for them to learn there anything that could be of use to them; and although they went into the prison, comparatively speaking, guiltless, they would come out of it schooled in vice. The petition which he presented to the House was adopted at a meeting called in the city of London, and signed by many of those who attended there, including magistrates of the metropolitan county, merchants, bankers, gentlemen connected with the Philanthropic Society, and the Society of Refuge for the Destitute. When they saw what had been already done by the Philanthropic Society, there was a very cheering prospect that they might be able to extend their usefulness. In conclusion, he would remind their Lordships that this was not a party question, but one to which they might all apply their minds with a view to remedy so distressing an evil.
LORD KINNAIRDsaid, that the subject was one which well deserved the attention of their Lordships. Their Lordships were not perhaps aware that there were in this metropolis upwards of 100,000 children who had no education whatever; and that there were 30,000 vagrant children, who either had no parents to apply to, or who were neglected by their parents. These children would be the men and women of an after generation; and it was impossible to calculate the extent of the vice and crime to which such a state of things might lead. The plan now recommended for adoption in the petition had already been tried with success. In the town and county of Aberdeen, where some time ago the number of vagrant children was, in the town, 280, and in the county, 328; after a school had been established for one or two years, the numbers were reduced to 48 in the county, and to 14 in the town. There had, therefore, been an actual saving of expense, to say nothing of the performance of a high moral obliga- 84 tion. It had been calculated that the training up of these children as criminals cost from 100l. to 150l. each, while to keep one of them at school, cost at Aberdeen under 5l. a year, and in the metropolis 6l. a year. The petitioners desired that the magistrate should have the power of committing children to a reformatory school, with the penalty of a prison hanging over their heads if they left the school. He thought it quite possible, without giving undue encouragement to vice, that schools of this sort might be provided, partly by a rate, and partly by an educational fund; and that schoolmasters should also be obtained, partly by the same means, and partly by private contributions. He hoped that Her Majesty's Government would consider, during the recess, whether some measure of that sort might not be adopted.
§ EARL GREYadmitted the importance of the question to which the petition referred, and considered it to be worthy of the attention of Her Majesty's Government. He believed their Lordships were aware that sometimes the practice was adopted of taking boys from prison, and sending them out as apprentices to Western Australia. With regard to the proposition contained in the petition, it was absolutely necessary that they should very carefully consider any measure of the kind they adopted. If they adopted this proposal, it would place the parents of guilty children in a much better position than the honest and industrious parent who took care of his children. He felt, also, that there would be extreme difficulty in making the parents liable for the support of their children; and when they were made liable, there would also be some difficulty in forcing them to pay the amount of the claim upon them.
LORD BROUGHAMcalled the attention of their Lordships to the opinion of the Criminal Law Commission with respect to juvenile offenders. They laboured under a strong impression that it would be advisable to punish small offenders by corporal punishment, instead of sending them to be tried for felonies. They knew there was a great objection amongst the people of this country to that punishment; but it was the unanimous opinion of the Committee that it would be much the better way of dealing with the petty offences of young offenders, for nothing was so absurd as sending a child of eight or nine years old to be tried for felony for stealing two apples.