fairly drawn out, it would be clearly demonstrated that the pecuniary saving to society by every reformation of a criminal offender far exceeded the cost of the process of reform.

Of course it is not necessary for us to say, that if this economical result were not capable of demonstration, if even the reform of a young criminal were far more costly, it would still be the duty of the state to attempt it. This has not only been attempted, but accomplished, in various foreign countries and the publications referred to at the head of this article shew both the mode of operation and the practical results in various other countries.

Moved by one or both of the foregoing considerations, the British Parliament for the first time, in 1854, authorized the voluntary establishment of Reformatory Schools. It may be useful to our readers to state the exact purport of the provisions of the Legislature.

The act 17 and 18 Vic., c. 86 (1854) "for the better care and reformation of criminal offenders in Great Britain, after reciting that "Reformatory Schools for the better training of juvenile offenders have been and may be established by voluntary contributions in various parts of Great Britain, and that it is expedient that more extensive use should be made of such institutions,' "authorizes the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on application to him by the managers of any such Institution, to direct one of Her Majesty's inspectors of prisons to examine and report to him upon its condition and regulations, and any such institution as the Secretary of State shall certify to be useful and efficient for its purpose shall be held to be a Reformatory School under that act. Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools are authorized to visit from time to time any Reformatory Schools which has been so certified, and if, upon the report of any such Inspectors, the Home Secretary shall think proper to withdraw his certificate and notify such withdrawal to the managers, it shall then cease to be a Reformatory School under the act.

The second section authorizes magistrates, before whom persons under sixteen years of age shall be convicted and sentenced to any period of imprisonment beyond fourteen days, to direct, in addition to the punishment for the offence, that such offender be sent, at the expiration of his sentence, to some Reformatory School to be named in such direction, the managers of which shall be willing to receive

him, and to be there detained for not less than two nor more than five years, but the Home Secretary may at any time order any such person to be discharged from such school.

By section 3. Government is authorized to defray "out of any funds which shall be provided by parliament for that purpose," either the whole cost of the care and maintenance of any juvenile offender so detained in any Reformatory School, at such rate per head as shall be determined by them, or such portion thereof as government may think proper.

Authority is given to magistrates to commit to hard labour for any period not exceeding three months, any one who shall abscond, or wilfully neglect, or refuse to conform to the rules of any such Reformatory School. And the Home Secretary is authorized, if he think fit, to remove any such youthful offender from one Reformatory School to another.

In the following year, by 18 and 19 Vic., c. 87. (1855) magistrates are empowered, on the application of any person authorized by Government, to make an order on the parent or step-parent, if of sufficient ability, for the payment of any sum not exceeding five shillings a week for the maintenance of any offender so detained in any such Reformatory School, and this money is authorized to be levied by distraint, or, in default of goods, by commitment.

It will be observed that these Acts do not authorize Government to construct or to contribute towards the construction of a Reformatory School. Any person or body of persons who may be so benevolently disposed, are at liberty to construct and equip such a school. All that Government does is, in the first place, to certify it as adapted for its ostensible purpose. This certificate Government may, in the exercise of its discretion, and judging of course from the reports of its inspectors, at any time withdraw. Magistrates may order young criminals, after the expiration of their period of punishment, to be detained in any such certified school, but the Home Secretary may at any time order the removal of an inmate from one school to another. Government may, if parliament provide the means, defray the whole or any part of the cost of maintenance and training of the inmates in such Reformatory Schools.

Considering the operation of the Act as it affects us

Catholics, it may become a great good or a great evil according to the mode of its administration. The letter of the Act gives committing magistrates the power of directing Catholic children to be detained in Protestant schools, and it gives the Home Secretary the power of either confirming or remedying this injustice.

Assume that magistrates carry out the act fairly, and direct the detention in Catholic schools of all children who have either Catholic parents, or guardians, or who are known to have had Catholic parents, or even if the Home Secretary readily and promptly remedy any instance of magisterial injustice or neglect, and take means to prevent its repetition, then we can recognize the great practical value of the measure. It may, indeed, with much appearance of reason, be contended that the discretional power of doing right involves the possible power of doing wrong, which should not be vested in any one, either magistrate or Home Secretary, and that the act should give express direction for the children of Catholic parents to be sent to a Catholic Reformatory School. We are far from denying that the Act is in this respect susceptible of improvement, but at the same time we know by experience that the operation and results of an act of parliament depend far more upon the spirit in which it is administered than upon its mere letter. We trust that by the magistrates of England, as a body, it will be fairly and properly administered, and if any instances should occur of over-zealous justices adding to the punishment of a Catholic youthful offender, by endeavouring to make a Protestant of him, the Home Secretary has an appellate jurisdiction which we presume must have been given to him for the purpose of enabling him to do right in such possible cases, and we only hope that he will make the mode of appeal to Government more simple and easy, and the decision of Government more prompt than has hitherto been too often the custom when the supreme Government has to remedy the errors of inferior tribunals.

On the assumption, then, that this Act be justly administered, it offers to Catholics a fair opportunity, if they only exert themselves to use it, of securing the return to virtue of those young members of our Church who may unfortunately have fallen into evil courses. A blessed opportunity this, which those amongst us who have the means will surely not allow to be lost. The provisions of

the Act moreover make this no such overwhelming tax upon us, but on the contrary offer so many inducements and so much aid towards this work of charity, as to increase the weight of our responsibility, we had almost said of our guilt, if we, the Catholics of England, in future allow any poor young erring member of our body to remain unreclaimed, and instead of the kind and melting influences of reformatory discipline, to become yet more hardened in vice, to the injury of society and the scandal of our religion. This Act of Parliament for the first time holds out the prospect of Government aid being given towards education in proportion to real need, and not as at present, in proportion only to the amount of private contributions, by the application of which latter erroneous principle much obtains more, while those who have little to give can get little or nothing given.

In this case, upon the assumption we have mentioned, the very principle for which we contended in our former article upon Lord John Russell's and Sir John Pakington's Education Bills, has been adopted. Let private zeal and charity build, establish, and equip a Reformatory School, so that, after inspection by one of the Inspectors of Prisons, it can obtain the certificate of the Home Secretary, that it is adapted for its purpose, and let it afterwards be so conducted as not to lose this certificate, and then government will pay a certain weekly sum per head for all the inmates of such an establishment, which sum we trust will be nearly, if not quite equivalent, to the actual costs of maintenance, according to some reasonably low but approved scale. Here government proffer to do precisely what we asked them to do with the general education grant, and we trust that means may yet be found of distributing the latter fund according to the same equitable principle. If this were done we believe it would be found to be the only practicable, and at the same time, the most efficacious mode of solving the difficult problem of imparting, in our mixed religious state of society in this country, a good religious education to all by the means of government aid, without unfair neglect of, or undue partiality towards any. Here, however, in this Reformatory School Act, we have the boon offered to us. Shall we with anything like corresponding zeal avail ourselves of it? We have but to purchase the lands, construct the schools, and establish in them suitable instructors, and

then we have reason to believe that government will provide the maintenance of the inmates. And well indeed, and with most prudent economy and sensible foresight may it do so, in order to have young offenders returned into society reformed characters, to add to its strength and welfare, instead of hardened criminals to plunder and prey upon its resources, and vitiate its physical and moral composition. With such inducements shall we Catholics fail to do that comparatively small share of the work which remains for us to accomplish? It is not merely a duty, but a retributive duty, for how many of these poor Catholic children would have been saved from prison, if hitherto we had performed our full duty of providing the means of good religious education for all? If a poor child, born and bred in the midst of poverty, and wretchedness, and filth, and too often, alas, of vice also, uninstructed, or ill-instructed in religion, not taught any habits of industry, or order, or cleanliness,-not skilled in any employment by which to acquire a decent regular livelihood, having little or no incentive or encouragement, either within it or around it, to virtue or good behaviour, what wonder if such a poor neglected child commit some petty depredation as apparently its only means of subsistence! And for this first offence, and all its consequences in the career of crime, who is most responsible before the Almighty? The poor untaught almost helpless child, or its more wealthy neighbours, who ought to have provided for every such child a school, where it might have been taught its religion, its duties in life, and how to fulfil them, where its disposition and character might have been kindly inclined towards good behaviour, and where, if it did not acquire some useful art, by which to maintain itself in after life, it might at least have been made apt to learn and accustomed to obey, and might have entered upon the struggle of life with well formed habits of order, docility, industry, honesty, cleanliness, and truthfulness. If all Catholic children had began to work their difficult way through the world in this country, fortified with a sound religious education, how large a deduction would there have been made from the number of Catholic youths now unfortunately included in the class of juvenile offenders. If, then, we have by our neglect in any degree passively contributed to the increase of crime, it only remains for us now to offer the best atonement in our power, 1st. by