trtttro to tlit eiritur.
REFORMATORY SC]IOOLS.
Yagley, 23d October 1855. Sin.-The notice in-the last Spectator of the proceedings in Worcestershire concerning Reformatory Schools seems- not quite accurate, and I shall be glad if you will allow D30 to correct it.
The expression "the failure of the attempt to establish" such a school in this county, appears founded on the fact that a Committee of Quarter-Sessions on the subject has been just discontinued, after doing little or nothing. But that Committee made no attempt to establish a-school, because, as is noticed in another part of the-paper, Parliament haegiven. no- power to do so out of the rates. This may be referred to in. the words," our-present lax county system," though they do not seem !pile appropriate. The Committee was meant only to look into the question, and memorialize Government for further powers.
And, so far from the attempt to establish-a Reformatory School here having failed, it is just about to be made, in the-ordinary way of a voluntary effort, headed by Sir John- Pakington : for helloes not think, that we must or can "wait for" the greater efficiency of the voluntary principle, though. he has mimivings as to its full success, in which I agree with him.
The sentence about a:Reformatory Institution in the article "Petal Ser- vitude Reform," almost seems out of place, as all the-rest of the article re- fele, not to euoh institutions, which are lbr young- criminals, but to the ticket-of-leave system, and the subjects are distinctthough: connected. But if, when it is said that "society is not competent to take the matter into its own hands," "the matter" means that of Reformatory Schools, besides that if would be too rapid a conclusion from the case of a single county, the as- sertion could only be true; in the writer's own view; if the thingcould only
be done by Parliament or by Quarter-Sessions ; whereas, institutions
nstitutions
are-springing up inmost counties by- voluntary efforts.. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Lyrrinzross. ES.—I think is also a mistake to say that the-Recorder of Birmingham has condemned the ticket-of-leave system., His recent.charge, if I am not mistaken, was rather in defence of it.
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