by a public appearance as
criminals--and this, properly taken advantage of, might have made
their reformation possible! But, having encountered the object of
their fears, and endured the shame of a trial--shame and fear are
alike gone for ever; and when once they find their way into those
sinks of iniquity, there is very little hope of amendment. From that
period a prison has not the least terror for them. Being a place of
idleness while there, it calls forth the evil inclinations of
its inmates, and as they have opportunities of indulging those
inclinations, it not only loses all its utility, but becomes
incalculably injurious. I heard a boy who had been confined in Newgate
say, that he did not care any thing about it; that his companions
supplied him with plenty of victuals, that there was some good fun to
be seen there, and that most likely he should soon be there again;
which proved too true, for he was shortly after taken up again for
stealing two pieces of printed calico, and transported. This, with a
multitude of similar facts, will shew that there are few who do not
become more depraved, and leave such places worse than when they
entered them. A gentleman who visited Newgate informed me that he had
been very much surprised at finding so many children there; some of
whom were ironed; and on his inquiring the cause of such severity
towards children so young, he was told by one of the turnkeys, that
_he had snuck more trouble with them than he had with old offenders_.
This fact has been verified by the chief officers of the Wakefield
Model Prison,--the boys give most trouble. In the matter of treating
juveniles as delinquents, I am sure we are wrong. I have seen both the
magistrates and the judges insulted on the bench by juveniles brought
before them, and taunted with the following: "You can do no more, you
with the big wig! I wish you may sit there until I come out!" And in
the month of May, 1852, the magistrates of Wakefield were insulted by
a boy 15 years old, who had been taken up as an impostor, with his
arm doubled in a sling, and shamming to be deaf and dumb,--a healthy
strong youth, able and fit for work--and when asked why he did not
work, answered, because he could get more by his own method! Hear!
this ye indiscriminate alms-givers! And, further, when expostulated
with by the magistrates for the sin and wickedness of pretending to
be lame, &c., he laughed at them outright for being so silly as to
suppo