effectually checked, the only true foundation of success must rest on the just and accurate view of the cause which produces it. It is not to save the youthful delinquent from punishment, but in order to prevent that very punishment from being the instrument of increasing the evil, that I would apply the remedy; and if, long before he has become a public spectacle at the bar of a criminal Court, I could save him from so great and fatal a degradation; if before his heart is hardened in villany, or rendered desperate by a verdict of guilty, I could inflict a punishment which should produce better effects; then, I confidently assert, that a step would be gained in the prevention of crime, which would soon be felt in every part of this extensive empire.

The remedy therefore that I would propose, is not a restoration of those tribunals which formerly existed in every hundred, and every village, in the time of our ancestors; but I would recommend the adoption of the principle in which they originated, viz. the immediate and summary cognisance of offences committed by the youthful depredator; to be heard before an intermediate tribunal, where petty offences may be instantly proceeded against and punished, without sending the offender to undergo the stigma and contamination of a public prison, the publicity of trial, and all those evils which infallibly result from early imprisonment. I would change the law of larceny as affecting offenders of a certain age, and convert the offence into one of a minor character, cognisable by two magistrates, in the same way as offences now are under the Malicious Trespass Act, and many others; and by thus arming the magistracy with the power of immediate conviction, on sufficient evidence, or on confession of the parties, I would empower them to punish the young culprit by whipping, confining him in an asylum set apart for this purpose, or by discharging him without punishment at all.

That this was the principle and practice of the ancient tribunals of this country, no person conversant with the history of England can doubt. By the laws of Alfred, the kingdom was divided into shires, hundreds, and tithings; and each of these had a court or jurisdiction of its own. And in those times, so strict a discipline was kept up, that even in the tithings (or parishes) the inhabitants were obliged to keep watch and ward every night. This must have had a great effect on the prevention of crime; for as soon as any were committed, there was a court-leet or court-baron in every manor to take cognisance of it. The suitors (or jurors) of this court were the vassals of the lord, and the jury was called the homage. They had whips, stocks, ducking-stools, and jails, (which were called cages,) for the purpose of punishment; and there was probably very little interval between the offence and

the trial. But one of the greatest advantages attending this mode of correcting offences was, that the punishment of the offender was immediate, and took place where all his friends and neighbors lived and witnessed it; which must have had a much more powerful effect on his feelings, character, and subsequent conduct, than any distant punishment could have, were the offender out of sight of those whose opinions he cared about. I have no doubt there are few persons who would not rather work at the tread-mill for a month, than sit one day in the stocks in their own village. All mankind are influenced by opinion; and that which they almost exclusively care about, is the opinion of their own friends and neighbors. When boys are sent to jail to the county-town, they care very little for the by-standers. Besides the contaminations they contract from others in the prison, they become hardened by associating exclusively with those whose common condition is that of shame and guilt, but unaccompanied by the emotions which ought to arise from them. They feel no degradation in that society, whatever they might in another; and when they return to their homes, (if ever they return at all,) they find very little sensation has been produced, beyond that which would have been occasioned by their absence for any other purpose. Thus the effect of punishment, by way of example, is lost on the offenders and on the public; and the moral degradation accompanying delinquency is little felt by the former, and little noticed by the latter. It is impossible, from the changes that have taken place in our criminal practice, to restore those local jurisdictions, as they have been superseded by other courts, and by that system of an inde pendent magistracy, which is justly the ornament and safety of this enlightened kingdom. But if the cognisance of offences committed by juvenile delinquents were given to a tribunal, which would proceed with immediate conviction and punishment, the expedients of moral and judicial discipline would come much more in contact with the springs of human action; and if guilt was always exhibited in conjunction with shame, pride would be one of the assistant barriers to virtue.

I am unacquainted with the number of prisoners who have been tried for felony in other counties in England; but in the county of Warwick, nearly one-half of the prisoners are under twenty-one years of age; several of whom were of an age hardly beyond childhood, and are continually returning to prison for petty thefts, some times committed on the very day of their discharge. For what ever propensities he might have had at his first entrance into prison, the juvenile culprit seldom leaves it so good as he entered. He endeavors to acquire by secret fraud or open violence, the means of supporting himself in every profligate pursuit. The

fruits of industry are too slow in their growth to keep pace with the premature perfection of his vitiated passions; and the steps from one crime to another become rapid and gigantic. The wisest bonds of morals are broken asunder before reason is awake, and before he is of an age to appreciate the value of character; and if he does not himself launch out into all the daring exploits of crime, he becomes an easy prey to the designs of old and accomplished villany.

It is therefore to give him a chance of regaining the character he is on the point of losing for ever, that I would delegate to the magistracy of the county that power, as an intermediate tribunal, which our ancestors formerly exercised with so much wisdom and success; and long before the bad propensities of the youthful delinquent are too deeply rooted, and long before he is stigmatised with the name of felon, I would try the effect of immediate and summary punishment.

Instead, therefore, of the law now affecting young culprits for simple larceny, (by which I mean those minor offences which subject them now to trial at the sessions,) I would change the corpus delicti into an offence of a lesser character, cognisable by two magistrates; who should be empowered on sufficient evidence to convict the offender, and sentence him to such imprisonment in an asylum set apart for such convictions, and supported by the county rate, as they should think the nature of the offence, and the benefit to the boy himself should require: such imprisonment not to exceed a limited time, to be appointed by the act, and to be shortened afterwards according to circumstances. If a discharge with whipping, or a discharge only, shall appear sufficient, then this to be at the option of the magistrates.

The advantages resulting from this alteration in the law are too manifest to need repetition-immediate punishment, the avoiding the contamination of a jail, of the disgrace of a public trial, and of the stigma of a verdict. The effects likely to be produced on the offender's mind, and that of his neighbors, by the offence and the punishment being immediately connected together, must have a decided effect in checking a repetition of the crime. The magistrates themselves under this new enactment will have the power of inflicting a minor punishment, and one from its nature infinitely more likely to deter others from committing similar offences. A boy, hardly above the age of childhood, is detected in an offence, which, if at school, would have subjected him, and has subjected his superiors in rank and fortune, to a flogging or a task. It is his first offence; his master gives him an excellent character, and will continue him in his employment, the theft is an ounce of cheese, four oranges; a bun, or the removal of some article two or three

inches from its place, but without taking it away. The magistrate feels disposed to discharge the culprit; and is of opinion, that neither public justice, nor the welfare of the boy, demand his committal. But the felony is clear, and he has no option: and a boy of ten years of age is sent to jail for two or three months, till the next jail-delivery releases him. No bill is found, or if found, the culprit is acquitted; and if convicted, his previous imprisonment, his youth, and his master present in court to take him back to his employment, operate on the mind of the court to give him a nominal punishment; and the boy is dismissed with confirmed vicious inclinations, and with a depravity of mind previously unknown and unfelt. Now these cases, and similar, are daily increasing; and I will ask, if the commitment of boys under these circumstances does not infinite and incurable mischief? Does not the confinement in jail among men of profligate and immoral habits often create vice, where none had before appeared? and when he is dismissed from his dungeon, will he return to society with the same feelings of shame and repentance with which he left it? Early imprisonment is therefore a double curse; for it not only does not remedy the evil, but it increases it; and lays the foundation of a career of profligacy and vice, which inevitably will lead to the gallows.

Great indeed have been the improvements of late years in our criminal code; and many important and salutary laws have passed for the protection of the public. But, as the end of all law is the prevention of crime, and the reform of the offender, we are bound so to apportion our punishments that both these objects may be effected for punishments by man were never intended, nor can we so apportion them, as to be an atonement for the offence committed; they are meant as the most effectual means to deter by example those whom precept has no power of restraining. The mere change therefore from lenient laws to severe, or from severe to those of a milder character, is a question of political expediency, and must depend on circumstances in a great measure unconnected with immorality. Thus, crimes which are easily committed, and which would be ruinous to a commercial country, if not vigorously checked, are visited with punishments apparently more adapted to offences of deeper dye, but of rarer occurrence. If, therefore, not merely the same result, but greater benefit shall accrue from changing a felony to an offence cognisant by the magistracy as a malicious trespass, the alteration will be a double blessing, by mitigating the severity of the laws, and at the same time preventing a breach of them; and he who now, by the neglect of parents or pressure of distress, bad company and bad example, is hourly exposed to have all these evils fixed for ever by early imprison

ment, may have a chance of being rescued by that parental arm which will interpose between him and confirmed degradation.

And indeed it is this interposition which is the real object I propose, and the most satisfactory argument in its favor. For who are the objects of the alteration? Those who, prior to that age which the law has fixed for the termination of infancy, ought to be under the control of parents, guardians, or masters; to watch over their offspring or apprentice, to restrain him by proper coer cion, and educate him in virtuous and religious principles. When therefore, by the loss or neglect of his natural guardian, the youthful delinquent is thrown on the world without any guide to direct or befriend him, instead of being subject to the utmost severity of the law, he will experience only its protection; and he will find already appointed as the legal guardians of his infancy, those who, by judicious restraint and by well-timed instruction, will supply the place of his own relatives. It will be an "act for appointing guardians for the deserted and friendless," rather than an addition to our Criminal Code; and instead of being a law of punishment, will be the dispenser of blessings.

I

There is another consideration in favor of the alteration I have proposed, which in the view and on the ground I have taken on this interesting subject, is of secondary importance. I allude to the reduction of the county expenditure. I have no means of ascertaining the expenses of prosecutions in other counties; but in the county of Warwick they average £5000 per annum. Now, out of the number of prisoners tried for felony, nearly one-half are under age; and supposing that two-thirds of such number were proceeded against in a summary manner, it follows that the expenses of prosecutions would diminish £1500 per annum, besides a reduction of expenses both before and after conviction: and if I may calculate on a diminution of crime, in consequence of thus cutting off its most prolific source, the pecuniary saving would be very important. But I repeat that this is a consideration which ought not to weigh a feather in legislating on the subject; for the alteration proposed should stand or fall on its own merits.

' Commitments for Felony in the County of Warwick for the last seven years.