and other more serious offences; and if we allow committals of the like amount each year during the next five years, we should, at the conclusion of that period, require accommodation for 825; however, if we subtract from this number those likely to receive sentences of two years, we may reduce the accommodation required at the end of five years, to that capable of receiving about five hundred offenders. The proviso as to separate confinement is an improvement upon the English Act, and is too reasonable to require observation.

The fourth section is as follows:

"IV. Whenever, under the provisions of this act, any Young Offender shall be committed to a Reformatory, the cost of his support therein, and of all other charges. shall be borne by the Consolidated Fund; and half the amount so advanced by the said Fund shall be repaid to it annually by Presentment of the Grand Jury of the County, in which such Young Offender shall have been convicted, from the rates of the said county: but all payments made to the said Consolidated Fund by any county for the maintenance of such Young Offender as aforesaid, shall be considered as a Loan from the said County to the Guardians of the Electoral Division of the Poor Law Union, on which such Young Offender would have been chargeable as a Pauper, and may be recovered by the Treasurer of said County, from the said Poor Law Union, by an action for Money Lent, before the Assistant Barrister of the County in which said Electoral Division shall be situated.

Provided always, that the said Poor Law Union, or Electoral Division of the said Poor Law Union, shall be entitled to recover from the Parents, step Parents or Guardians of such Young Offender, all sums paid to the said county for the maintenance of said Offender in said Reformatory, if they shall be of ability to repay such sums at the period of the committal of such Young Öffenders, and for the recovery of same shall have all the remedies provided by the second section of an act passed in the tenth and eleventh years of her Majesty, entituled, An Act to make Provision for the Punishment of Vagrants and Persons offending against the Laws in force for the Relief of the Destitute Poor in Ireland: And if at any time during the detention of such Young Offender in such Reformatory the Parent, Step Parent or Guardian of such Offender shall become of ability to repay the whole or part of such sums, then the Guardians of the Poor of said Union shall be entitled to sue for and recover same, as aforesaid."

In our opinion this section, formed upon the provisions of the 44th section of the 1st and 2nd Vic., c. 56, the 2nd section of the 10th and 11th Vic., c. 84 (Irish Poor Law Acts), on the 6th section of the 17th and 18 Vic., c. 86 (the English Youthful Offenders' Act), and on the 5th section of the 17th

and 18th Vic., c. 74 (the Scotch Reformatory Schools Act,) is most excellent, reasonable, and necessary. The county is charged in the first instance with half the cost, but with a remedy over against the Electoral Division; the former arrangement is convenient, the latter is just, because, if the young offender be a a pauper, it is only fair that the Electoral Division to which he may belong, and which neglected its duty of training him in the Workhouse, or of saving him from crime, by checking his vagrant habits, should support him when his vagrancy shall have made him a criminal. This is the principle of the Scotch Act; this is the principle contended for most ably in the April number of the Edinburgh Review; this is the principle urged upon the Legislature by the Inspectors-General of Prisons in the last paragraphs of their Report above quoted: it is the principle well expressed by Mr. Carleton Tufnell, in his Report on Parochial Union Schools, and quoted, with approbation, by Lieutenant-Col. Jebb, in his last Report on Convict Prisons in England, in the following passage :

"Guardians are not always so open to considerations of ultimate as of immediate economy; and many a pauper who now, before his death, costs his parish 1007. or 2001. might have lived without relief, had a different education, represented perhaps by the additional expense of a single pound, been bestowed upon him in his youth. This is strictly retributive justice; and I think it would be good policy to increase its effect, and would give a prodigious stimulus to the diffusion of education, it the expense of every criminal, while in prison, were reimbursed to the country by the parish in which he had a settlement. What a stir would be created in any parish by the receipt of a demand from the Secretary of State for the Home Department for 80%. for the support of two criminals during the past year! I cannot but think that the locality where they had been brought up would be immediately investigated, perhaps some wretched hovels, before unregarded, made known, and means taken to educate and civilize families that had brought such grievous taxation on the parish. The expense of keeping criminals, as of paupers, must be borne somewhere; and it seems more just that it should fall on those parishes whose neglect has probably caused the crime than on the general purse.”

It will be observed, that whilst the Electoral Division is held responsible, the great principle of Parental Responsibility is not forgotten; and provision is made to meet even the case of a parent unable to pay at the period of committal but becoming of ability to do so previous to the liberation of his child; in which event he is bound to pay not alone

the future cost of maintenance, but also all arrears of the expenses previously incurred.

We sincerely hope that if this Bill become law, not one principle of this section shall be omitted, or weakened in effect. It will teach Poor Law Guardians that they cannot avoid the duty cast upon them of providing for the proper care of the young pauper, and it will show to parents that they cannot escape with impunity, if they neglect to watch over the conduct of their children. It places no extra burthen on the Union, which should support the young criminal as a pauper, and it justly relieves the county of his support in gaol.

The fifth section is framed upon the fourth section of the Juvenile Offenders' Act, and provides for the punishment of absconding or refractory juveniles.

The sixth section is formed upon the third section of the Scotch Reformatory Act, and provides that persons aiding, or attempting to aid, in the escape of absconding juveniles may be committed for three months, with hard labor, to the common gaol of the county, on default of payment of a penalty not exceeding five pounds.

The seventh section is one of very great importance, and its provision cannot be too highly commended. They secure efficient and worthy officers for the Reformatories, and they afford a complete check to that favoritism which has led to those mischievous and corrupt nominations so justly reprobated by the Inspectors-General in their Report already quoted. The section is as follows:

"VII. All the Reformatories of Ireland shall be inspected by an Inspector or Inspectors, to be nominated and appointed by the Lord Lieutenant, or other Chief Governor or Governors of Ireland, and all Superintendents, Chaplains and other Officers of such Institutions shall be Appointed and Removed by the Lord Lieuteuant as aforesaid; and every such appointment shall be probationary only, for and during a period of six months, and shall not be or become absolute until the said Inspector or Inspectors shall have certified in writing under their hands that the person so nominated is a fit, proper, and efficient person to be appointed to the office, the duties of which he shall have been discharging in pursuance of such probationary appointment.

Provided always that all Officers of such Reformatories shall profess the Religion of those Young Offenders for whose reception the Institution shall be especially set apart, as by the second Section of this Act provided."

The concluding sections, eight and nine, are these:

"VIII. All legal proceedings taken by any Reformatory shall be carried on in the name of its Superintendent, and all monies paid to any such Institution shall be paid to the credit of its Superintendent for its benefit.

IX. All rules for the Management of Reformatories shall be drawn up by persons to be nominated and appointed by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and shall be approved by the said Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, before adoption into any Reformatory Institution.

We are fully aware that to the passing of this Bill it may be objected, that it contemplates a new demand upon the Consolidated Fund; and doubtless it does so, but in the future the drain upon that Fund will be lessened by the very advance here claimed; because, through the establishment of Reformatories, the increase of crime must be checked, and consequently the amount of accommodation required in our Convict Prisons must decrease; and with that decrease of crime will come a proportionate decrease of expenditure-for it must be remembered that the Consolidated Fund bears the entire cost of the support of all criminals sentenced to Penal Labor. By the reformation of the young offender the country will be relieved from the cost of repeated convictions; from the expense of his prison support; from the evil of his corrupting example, and from the loss which his habits of plundering inflict on the community. These are but the worldly considerations and arguments supporting this measure, but a holy, and grave, and paramount argument rings in the eternal wisdom of the Redeemer's warning-" Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."

We are not, however, without the means of calculating, approximately, the cost. In the year 1853, one of the Inspectors-General of Prisons, Mr. James Corry Connellan, was examined before the Committee of the House of Commons, or Criminal and Destitute Children, and he gave the following important evidence on this point

:

I have taken as a fair basis two of the county gaols of Ireland, in which I find that the daily average of prisoners was about this numduring the year 1851. In the county of Galway gaol the daily average, in the year 1851, was 404, and in the gaol of Nenagh, in the North Riding of Tipperary, there were exactly 400. It is very re. markable that the total cost of each prisoner (we have no power of distinguishing the cost of juveniles as the never keep the account in gaols, although it might be done in future) is £6. 14s. 10d. per head

in Galway, and £6. 14s. 4d. per head in Nenagh. The expense of the staff of officers in Galway is £1,130, and in Nenagh £955. The difference is created by the higher salaries of the governor and local inspector in Galway. It must be recollected that this includes everything, except the interest of money which the gaol cost in building. I presume that growing boys employed in agricultural labour and worked hard would require a more generous diet than our prison diet, which is brought as low as is compatible with health. I think also you would require, if the reformatory establishment were carried out on the principle of Mettray, a larger staff than exists at the two gaols I have named; I would therefore give £8 for each of the 400 boys, which would amount to £3,200. I next give the cost of the building; and here I am sure that I have made a most extravagant estimate, for building is very cheap in Ireland. I have put it at £10,000, but I really feel great certainty when I state that the sum of £6,000 would be sufficient for the building, which necssarily would be very plain and simple. We will take it at £10,000, and the interest of that amount, at four per cent., would be £400.

4194. Mr. Adderley.] Including the purchase of the site?—I take a rent for the land; I take 200 acres, at £1 per acre, £200.

4195. Mr. J. Ball.] Do you include the rent in the average of £8 per head?-No.

4196. Mr. Fitzroy.] You include nothing but diet in the £8 ?I include everything in the £8 per annum, which represents the 400th part of the total expenditure. I will give £200 for contingencies, so as to make a round sum of £4,000. If we take the labour of 400 boys, for 50 weeks, striking off two weeks for interruption of weather and illness, I put the worth of their labour at 6d. per day, or 3s. per week. I apprehend that, in the first instance, it would not be worth that amount; but that after the institution had been a year in operation, we might safely calculate upon that amount. At Mettray, they profess to give £8 per annum as representing the earnings of the boys. These, by my calculation, would amount to £7. 10s.; so that there would be a balance of £1,000 as against the institution chargeable upon the State. I conceive that the estimate for the building is at least £4,000 too high, and that £140 (at four per cent.)might consequently be deducted from the £1,000.*

These calculations are important, as they show the amount requisite to carry out fully the Reformatory principle where Government interposes; but, by the Bill before us the number and size of the Reformatories is left to the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, and it is probable that, even allowing for the increased cost of all materials and of labor, that all the accommodation required, during the next five years, could be

Mr. Senior, the Poor Law Commissioner, was examined before the same Committee, and agreed in all all essentials with this calculation made by Mr. Connellan: see the evidence of both gentlemen, at length, in IRISH QUARTERLY Review, Vol. IV. No. 16. pp. 1203 to 1223.