THE EARL-KING;

OR, THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY AND THE JUVENILE MENDICANT.
WHO lurks in the slums? Who goes ragged and wild?

A villanous father and vagabond child;

That urchin roams prowling, of swag in pursuit,
By begging and stealing to keep the old brute.
"Oh father! oh father! that rum cove d'ye twig?
He looks so hard at me-he know's I'm a Prig!
To hook it, and mizzle, my best way would be."
No, stoopid, that cove ain't no crusher-not he."
"Oh father! oh father! he keeps looking here;
He's coming to nab me-that 'ere blessed Peer:
It is the Earl-King with his Book and his School."
"No, no, 'tis some pantiler only, you fool."

"Hi! wilt thou come with me, neglected young wretch?
I'll shield thee, I'll save thee, from jail and Jack Ketch;
In work and in study thy time I'll employ,

And feed thee, and clothe thee, and teach thee, my boy."

"Oh father! oh father! you'd best let me go;

There's the Earl-King's new Hact; and they'll take me, I know:
And you'll have to fork out too, yourself, by and by."
"Oh gammon, oh gammon! that 'ere's all my eye."

"Come, come, and be taught, you young varlet, I say,
Or else, silly child, I shall walk thee away."
"Oh father! oh father! I know'd I was right;

The Earl-King has grabbed me!-got hold of me tight."

The nice father put down his pipe and his pot,

And around him, bewildered, he stared like a sot:

"Hallo! young beggar, vere are yer ?" he said,

But the poor boy to school with the Earl-King had fled!-Punch.

HONEST MEN AND TRUE.

INSCRIBED TO THE FRIENDS OF THE RAGGED SCHOOL MOVEMENT.

HERE'S to the honest men and true,

The patriotic band,

Who for the progress of the poor,
Assume a noble stand.
Who strive from base degeneracy
A million souls to win,
To lift them from their misery,
Dread ignorance and sin.
With banner flaunting in the breeze,
See, see them sweep along;
They fear no foe, where'er they go,
Truth makes the weakest strong.
The thoughtless man may scoff and jeer,
The proud one pass them by;
Free from dismay they keep their way,
Resolved to do or die.

The Ragged School hath been a step
To honour and renown,
Implanting many a happy smile,

Where else had hung the frown;
Instructing many a pilf'ring hand
To work for honest .bread,
Restoring to vitality

The seeming lost and dead.

We laud the warrior, though he come
With hands besmeared in gore,
Fresh from the field where thousands lie,
To tread this earth no more;
Fresh from the field where carnage sits
High on his blood-red throne,
Or mighty cities prostrate sink

In smould'ring ashes lone.
And shall we hold our meed of praise
From those whom thus we find
Hard struggling in a bloodless fight,
For injured human kind?
From those who in a Christian land
Are doing Christian deeds,
And sowing in youth's fertile soil
Truth's life-enriching seeds ?
No, no! but with approving smile
We'll welcome one and all,
Good men and true, your duty do,
Whatever may befal.
Look up, look up! press on, press on!
Dispute each inch of ground,
The battle won, your task is done,
And brows with chaplets crown'd.
JOHN GEORGE WATTS.

Plans and Progress.

LETTERS FROM SHOE-BLACKS WHO HAVE EMIGRATED. THE following letters have been lately received from two boys who were employed in the Ragged School Shoe-Black Society up to the time of their leaving this country for Canada and Australia :

"SIR,-As you wished, I write to tell you that I have arrived safely in Canada. I have got a good situation eighteen miles from Toronto. On coming out into the country, I was engaged by a gentleman of the name of Captain MacLeod, who gives me 12s. 6d., cy., a month. One of the boys has got a situation with Mr. Cameron, of the Commercial Bank in Toronto. Any boys you may send out will be sure to get work in this country, and will be employed immediately.

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We were eight weeks on the voyage, and four days coming from Quebec to Toronto. I delivered your letter to Mr. Mendell, who kept me for two days, and then sent me in the country by the railroad. The next day I got this place, where I am very comfortable and happy. I like this country, and hope I shall get on well.

"Give my compliments to Mr. Drayton and to Mr. Howard, for they were very good to me; and to the woman in the coffee-shop. If you write, please address to the care of Captain MacLeod.

"I wish to thank you very much for your kindness to me, and remain, "Your respectful Servant,

I have seen

"DEAR SIR,-I have great pleasure in writing to you at this time, as the Great Britain leaves here on New Year's Day. There is a great many people coming here at this time. There is 5,000 people living in tents the other side of Melbourne. Servants is getting good wages here, as there are a great many going to the gold diggings. I have a good situation about four miles from Melbourne, and I like the colony very much. Mr. Moss. He has married Miss Clare. He has lately been ordained minister of the chapel at Praban. I have been quite well, thank God, and there is large gold mines found here. And I have sent to you and Mr. Hand to my teachers, and have had no answer to them. I think it very strange. And things is very dear here. Work is plentiful and it is well paid for. I am getting £50 a year, board, lodgings, washing. And I have not seen MI have seen some of the others, and they are quite well. You must excuse me, for I have not time to write any more, for I long to know how you all are, for I often think of the happy hours that I have spent in the Ragged School with you and Mr. Herbert, and tell him that I have sent to him, and when I write I shall be able to say more. So no more at present from your servant, John Richard Hall. And I hope God will bless us all. God bless us.

"JOHN RICHARD HALL, care of Mr. J. G. Miles, at Mr. Wharton's, Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria, New South Wales."

As there cannot but be numerous failures in the application of every system designed to effect the reformation of young persons, and many difficulties are encountered by those who conduct institutions for this purpose, it is the more needful to record for their encouragement those cases in which success has been granted to their endeavours.

The two emigrants who tell their own stories in the above letters are instances of this description in far-distant parts of the globe, and publicity is given to these letters in order to stimulate other lads to good conduct. Besides this influence from a distance, similar effect is produced upon those who are still under training, when a former school-mate visits the place of his education, and by his improved appearance excites the ambition of his companions to follow his career of industry. Thus a shoe-black, who has been for more than a year the "page" in a gentleman's family, lately appeared at his former quarters in Off Alley, and astonished his red-coated associates by the grandeur of his livery, resplendent with buttons. And again, at the Euston Square Railway Station may be seen a well-dressed young man selling newspapers-one would scarcely think that he also had been two years ago accustomed to carry his box and brushes in the streets. A short time since, a purse of sovereigns was found by one of these boys, and only a few days ago, a bill drawn for £69. Both were faithfully delivered to the police; but though such conduct is not uncommon amongst the inmates of our schools, dishonesty, alas! occurs in this as in all other communities, where the human heart has opportunities for manifesting its depravity by the life and conversation.

Several shoe-blacks, who had been educated with anxious care, and encouraged by every incentive to honest industry, have been dismissed at various times for repeated misconduct; and after this, one or two of them immediately set up on their own account, in the very occupation which they were so unwilling to follow steadily when controlled by authority.

A very beneficial effect has been produced upon the boys of the Society by the institution of a regular half-holiday granted once in three weeks. Not a few, however, of the lads thus privileged decline to abandon their work when they happen to be posted at some lucrative station, where (at this time of the year) 5s., or even 9s., may be earned in a single day.

It has been already mentioned that the system of shoe-blacks in uniform has been extended to several towns of Great Britain. They are also to be found in Alexandria, and even in Sicily, where we learn from a correspondent that "shoe-blacks abound."

We may mention that there has been invented for the shoe-blacks' uniform a new description of "badge," the construction of which is very ingenious, and may be of use also for other purposes.

In concluding these remarks, it is thought right to state that the Committee of the Shoe-Black Society are increasingly sensible of the responsibility undertaken by them in providing for some fifty boys, thus dependent upon their Institution for employment. Experience as it is gained, is carefully applied to the improvement of their system, and while instances of ingratitude on the part of the boys are frequent enough to cause anxiety, and failures occur to repress undue confidence, yet the Committee, and those

connected with the schools which co-operate with them, are greatly encouraged in their work by many evidences of good results produced by a steady perseverance in promoting industry, and an humble endeavour to reclaim sinners by teaching them the saving truths of the Gospel.

PROFESSIONAL BEGGARS AND JUVENILE THIEVES.
SECOND PAPER.

THE subject of juvenile delinquency, and of street begging and vagrancy in connexion with it, is deeply interesting to every philanthropist. It has puzzled many legislators and many jail chaplains, as well as Ragged School teachers. The number of neglected children that still infest our streets doing mischief, begging or stealing, and corrupting one another, presses heavily on every thoughtful mind, especially if that mind be under the influence of Christian motive, and impelled by the Christian duty of caring for others as well as for ourselves.

It matters little that systems of education are improved, the number of schools increased, and large sums raised and expended on National and British, and Ragged Schools, if a nursery for crime is still permitted to exist in our midst, which sends forth increasingly its baneful plants to deface and corrupt all around them. Do what we will, it appears, under our present laws, careless parents will neglect, and vicious parents will pervert, and even destroy their own children, to enrich themselves, and to gain their own ends. But the question occurs, Have we done all that we might have done in this matter, and could we not, by some further step in regard to the parents especially, do much towards remedying the great evils we see around us? It is acknowledged on all hands, that street begging is a great evil, that poor children starving in the street, often shoeless and ragged, forced to beg, and even to steal, by their unnatural and unfeeling parents, is a sin that need not, and should not, be permitted. Then why not at once proceed to remedy it? Let us consider what a few persons of experience and judgment in the matter say about it. Let us call witnesses, and first let us begin with a lady. Miss Carpenter, in her work on "Juvenile Delinquency," page 340, says :

"Where Christian effort has done its utmost, and has failed to influence, the alternative is, either that the children shall grow up to ignorance or vice, society tacitly consenting, since it sees and does not interfere, or that a vigilant police surveillance of the street shall, under magisterial authority, compel attendance at an Industrial Feeding School of all such children as infest the streets, thus necessarily growing up to be injurious to society. In such cases the expenses of their food should be borne by the parents where practicable, in others by the parish."

Again, at page 132, she says:

"Who can say that it would be an unjust interference with the liberty of the subject,' to compel such children as are a plague, a nuisance, and a burden to society, and preparing to be yet more dangerous to it, to attend an Industrial School? Who does not see that it would be the highest economy in the guardians of the poor, instead of giving sixpence and a loaf,' weekly to a pauper child, to transfer the money to a place where it can be taught to work as well as to eat? And who can doubt, that parents ought to be made in some way to feel the responsibility to God and to man, when they have

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brought into the world those who must become members of society at no distant period?'

The particular nature of the required measure is very clearly laid down in Miss Carpenter's book at page 379, to which we may refer any of our friends for more particular information. The same lady corroborates these statements in her evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on Juvenile Delinquency.*

The next shall be that of a Commission appointed in 1846, by the Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex, to report to the Court their suggestions for checking the growth of juvenile offences. Petitions founded on the report of the Commission, were presented to both Houses of Parliament. It was desired that various clauses of a proposed Act should provide that " An asylum should be established by legislative enactment, for affording religious and moral training to such children of the destitute and dangerous class, as may be brought before the local magistracy, and destitute of proper guidance; that the asylum should be under the control of the sitting justices, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and to Government inspection; that the cost of erecting and maintaining the same be defrayed out of a county rate, the parents of the child being compelled to pay for his maintenance, as directed by the Poor Law Act."

The Chief of the Police in New York shall be our next witness. In his report to the Mayor for 1850, he calls attention to a growing and deplorable evil existing in that community, of vagrant, idle, and vicious children of both sexes, who infest the public thoroughfares, docks, etc., and he recommends that some method "should be adopted whereby such children should be compelled to attend our schools regularly, or be apprenticed to some suitable occupation," which he says “would tend in time more to improve the morals of the community, prevent crime, and relieve the city from expense, than any other conservative or philanthropic movement with which he is acquainted." The County Prison Board of Aberdeen gave strong evidence in favour of Industrial Schools, with compulsory attendance, and say, they "would recommend the establishment of such schools, and their support at the public expense." The Rural Police Committee of Aberdeen also state, that by the activity of the police, the system of sending out children to beg has ceased to be profitable, and has therefore been abandoned; and give a table, showing the result of the Industrial Schools, and the forced attendance, as follows:

Some years ago, thirty-three learned judges of the United Kingdom fully concurred in the belief that good moral, religious training, commencing with infancy, is the only means which can be resorted to with any hope of success, in reforming the rising generation; and that it is most important to extend the love of knowledge to the lowest and the poorest of the people. Lord Denman expressed a sanguine hope, that moral training, followed by the means of obtaining a decent livelihood, will so materially diminish the amount of crime, as to make it a rare exception amongst the lowest classes, instead of threatening, as it now does, to become the rule.