Probably it would be better still if the law were altered to allow of their detention till twenty-one. There would then be a sufficiency of time to allow of their learning some useful occupation. If this were done, and a start were also given them on their discharge, I feel persuaded a greater amount of success would ensue. Better still would it be if all reformatories--adult as well as juvenile--were entirely in the hands of the State, for then a greater length of time could be allowed for reforming purposes. In the eradication of criminal instincts, or for the cultivation of good habits, time is an important factor, for good qualities are not like mushrooms--they do not spring up in a night. Another great difficulty, too, would disappear if reformatories were State institutions. Before a boy can be received at either industrial school or reformatory, he must be declared by a medical officer to be of sound health and constitution, and free from physical or mental defect. It by no means follows because a boy is weakly, has bad eyesight, or has some mental peculiarity, that he cannot become a criminal; the reverse is true, for just because he possesses one or more of these defects he is the more likely to become a criminal. Reformatories and industrial schools have the right of refusing any boy, and being philanthropic societies, they are quite in the right when they exercise their own judgment. But it happens that boys with defects go uncared for, with this result, that their defects become more emphasized and their instincts more and more criminal, and ultimately the workhouse or prison has to receive them. A State reformatory, to which our magistrates can commit any boy, as a matter of right and not of favour, with the positive knowledge that such boys, even with their defects, would be kept, taught and trained till twenty-one years of age, would be an inestimable boon, and would confer lasting good on the community.
A strange being was Jane, or, rather, ‘Miss Cakebread,’ as she loved to call herself. Helpless, homeless, and penniless as she was, I question whether any lady other than the Queen attracted the attention of the public so long, or had so many paragraphs written about her as poor demented Jane Cakebread. For years all England laughed and grew merry over Jane, heedless of the tragedy that attended her, and of the cruel farce, so long drawn out, that was enacted with regard to her.