who said he had been absent seven weeks, and they would
have nothing to do with him. Mr. Baron Garrow, in feeling terms,
lamented that a child of such tender years should be so depraved. He
added, 'I suppose, gentlemen, I need only to ask you to deliver your
verdict.' His lordship then observed, that he would consult with his
learned brother as to the best manner of disposing of the prisoner.
They at length decided, that although it might seem harsh, the court
would record against him fourteen years' transportation, and, no
doubt, government would place him in some school; if he behaved well
there, the sentence might not be carried into full effect."

I remember a query being once put to me by a person who visited the
Spitalfields Infant School at the time it was under my management:
"How can you account for the fact, that notwithstanding there are so
many old and experienced thieves detected, convicted, and sent out of
the country every session, we cannot perceive any dimunition of the
numbers of such characters; but that others seem always to supply
their places?" The foregoing instance of the systematized instruction
of young delinquents by old adepts in the art of pilfering, affords, I
think, a satisfactory answer the interrogatory.

The dexterity of experienced thieves shews, that no small degree of
care and attention is bestowed on their tuition. The first task of
novices, I have been informed, is to go in companies of threes or
fours, through the respectable streets and squares of the metropolis,
and with an old knife, or a similar instrument, to wrench off the
brass-work usually placed over the key-holes of the area-gates, &c.,
which they sell at the marine store-shops; and they are said sometimes
to realize three or four shillings a day, by this means. Wishing to
be satisfied on the point, I have walked round many of the squares in
town, and in more than a solitary experiment, have found that _not one
gate in ten_ had any brass-work over the key-hole; it had moreover
been evidently wrenched off,--a small piece of the brass still
remaining on many of the gates. Having practised this branch of the
profession a considerable time, and become adepts in its execution,
the next step, I have been informed, is to steal the handles and brass
knockers from doors, which is done by taking out the screw with a
small screw-driver: these are disposed of in the same manner as the
former things, till the young pilferers are pr