§ Lord HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that the boys in a reformatory are employed at neighbouring works, half on day-shift and half on night-shift, and that the day-shift for the boys is frequently twelve and a half hours, i.e., three hours more than the time worked by the ordinary staff, and the night-shift thirteen hours compared with twelve hours for the ordinary workers; whether he is aware that the work they perform is not only one of the most laborious in the works, but uneducative, and that punishment for slight offences takes the form of close cropping of the hair in prison fashion; whether he is aware that the major portion of their earnings is devoted to the upkeep of the reformatory; and, seeing that employment of this character is too laborious and the working hours too long for growing lads and inconsistent with the obligations imposed upon the directors of reformatories to provide an education which shall give the inmates a proper start in life, whether he will take steps to improve the conditions under which these boys are worked?
§ Mr. MUNROI would refer the Noble Lord to the reply which I gave on this subject to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester on the 15th instant. Since the date of that reply a special investigation has been made by one of the inspectors of the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Department, and I am awaiting his report.