§ In reply to a Question by an hon. MEMBER,
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, that the imprisonment of children of a tender age had lately been occupying very much of his attention. Only a few weeks ago he received a report from a prison in England, that "a child, eight years old, looking younger," was in gaol under sentence of several weeks' hard labour. This, he confessed, so shocked him that he immediately required a report from the Prisons' Commissioners showing the number of children under 15 years of age in gaol. These reports were coming in to him in immense numbers, and he found that children of 10 and 11 years were constantly committed to prison for several weeks of hard labour. Some were sent to gaol for playing at pitch and toss, some for obstruction in the streets, some for trampling down grass, and some for throwing stones and breaking panes of glass. In most of these cases he had directed inquiries to be made. He was perfectly aware of the difficulty of dealing with refractory children; but he could not think that committing children of that age to prison for several weeks' hard labour was the proper way to deal with them. He had given directions that no child under 15 years should be sent to prison without the case being brought under his personal knowledge; and he was preparing a circular to magistrates in England, requesting their consideration whether, by means of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1280 or by industrial and reformatory schools, they could not escape from this course of proceeding, which tended to poison the fountains of life, and make a child a gaol bird before he reached the years of discretion.