JUVENILE OFFENDERS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
the case before me last week, alluded to in. your article on " The Punishment of Children" in your last issne, the youngsters were not discharged with a caution, as you suggest: They were remanded—as should have been stated in the paragraph from which you quoted—for seven days to the workhouse, for the purpose of inquiring into their antecedents and surroundings. This morning, after such inquiry, I have sent two of them to Industrial Schools ; one remains in the workhouse for another week under medical treatment, and be will then probably be disposed of in a similar manner. Magis- trates will, I am sure, be much obliged to the Home Secretary, if he will take the subject of the treatment of these children in hand. The power to use the birch rod may well be extended to cases where at present it cannot be used, and it may be that the suggestion to enforce the fines against the parents, which has been made, is worthy of consideration. But the recent Summary Jurisdiction Act has made it more difficult to get fines from parents for Reformatory and Industrial School contribu- tions, and if the same process must be gone through in any further legislation in the way of fining parents on account of their children, it will go far to render any such enactment difficult to enforce.—I am, Sir, &c., I. STAMFORD RAFFLES.
City Magistrates' Once, Dale Street, Liverpool, September 21st.
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