AFTER CRIME AND BEFORE CRIME.

57

Prison at Pentonville-how little it seems to care for those who, born to the heritage of crime, are yet anxious to escape from the fate which lies in wait for them, I saw in the Dormitory attached to the Field Lane Ragged School. It would be well if society would now and then look anxiously and intelligently in "on this picture, and on this."

For a

After crime, the modern outcast is an outcast no longer. Magistrates and other high functionaries become interested about him. The public are called together to witness his trial. He becomes a topic for the press. Grave judges and busy juries inquire into the vicissitudes of his career. day at least he is the hero of a court of justice. His name and history are placed on the records of the nation. A palace is prepared for his reception. Pentonville Prison-built for the accommodation of 500 prisoners, and occupied by a usual average of 450-cost more than £100,000, and its general economy is regulated on a scale of almost regal magnificence. Including interest on the first outlay and ground-rent, the yearly expense of its maintenance is not less than £22,000. This sum, divided among the average of 450 inmates, would give nearly £50 as the cost of each criminal per annum in the jail. At this expense to the public, the man is lodged in a commodious room, about the size of a small parlour in the houses of the middle classes, ventilated on the most approved principles of science, and supplied with streams of warm air and cool air by machinery so nicely adjusted, that for months the temperature does not vary more than a degree or two. The room is furnished with other fittings-such as a bell to call the servants, stools and tables, very excellent beds, water basin-which, by a judicious contrivance, is supplied at the discretion of the inmate with hot or cold water -and so forth. The diet is worthy of the lodging-plentiful in quantity, well cooked and served, and excellent in point of quality. Without exertion of his own, the Pentonville prisoner is sure of a good dinner every day to eat, and a snug bed to sleep on every night. He has mental advantages equal to these material ones. A library is provided for his use, and a pile of books belongs of right to the furniture of his cell. A school and four schoolmasters are provided and paid to cultivate his mind; a chapel is erected, and two clergymen engaged to look after his morals. Archbishops and Ministers of the Crown think it needful to visit him at times, and press and parliament manifest the liveliest interest in his condition.-Now look on the other picture!

I describe only what I know and what I saw. Visiting the Field Lane Ragged Schools, and talking with some of the homeless savages who wander about our streets, I was told that an attempt was in progress of being made to carry out an idea long and frequently urged in the pages of the Athenæum -namely, to provide a refuge for such abandoned youths or children as come to the school in the day, but have nowhere to go at night. I at once went to see the place in which this dormitory is set up. It is in Fox's Court, in the heart of that mass of narrow passages and crowded courts-none of which can be called a thoroughfare-bounded by Victoria Street and Skinner Street on two sides. I am familiar with many of the worst parts of Paris, Liverpool, and Edinburgh—but I have seldom seen a place into which a stranger would go with more justifiable fear. In the centre of a labyrinth of dark and crooked courts-courts into which the sunshine never comesare a stack of most wretched cottages. One of these is the Refuge. The court itself is full of miserable objects for naked poverty rather than rampant crime hives there-ragged and dirty urchins, pale and haggard women, and brutal and stunted men, in whose forms and faces scarcely a trace of human character is to be seen. The poor man who is placed in the Refuge to take care of the few coverlets and mattresses showed me over the dilapidated house. There are three rooms above the ground-floor, wretchedly small-not more, indeed, than ten feet by six or eight. In the attic the inmates sleep -in the next floor below, they eat-in the next, they work. The ground floor is occupied by the man who is in charge and his wife. The stairs are narrow, worn, and broken-and not to be mounted without risk of a fall.

All the rooms are bare-except the attic, in which four small mattresses lie on the floor-and some time in their past history have been lime-washed. I had seen all these rooms without seeing the boys; on inquiring for them, I was told they were below at work. On my expressing a wish to see them, a candle was procured; and a low door was opened, leading to a dark and yet more dilapidated stair, down which we went into a hole, where we could do little more than crawl on hands and feet—a hole for having made which it would not be easy to divine the builder's purpose, but certainly it was never intended to be occupied by living creatures. The walls are bare brick, and have never yet been plastered or limed. There is no floor; the ground is a loose grave-like soil, which exhales a damp, foetid smell. Two small holes let in a few faint rays of light into this kennel; so that when my eyes had become a little used to the place, I could see the dusky forms of four young fellows, squatted down and employed in chopping wood. In this wretched kennel they earn at this labour the food which is given and the shelter which is afforded to them. I spoke to them all. They were very grateful for food and shelter even on such terms. Though frequently oppressed with pains in the head, (who shall wonder?) they had entirely escaped cholera, even when people were falling victims to it on every side of them, a fact which they thought explained by their having something to eat regularly. To see them thus grateful for so little was the most painful thing of all. How sad a tale it told of the sufferings from which they had fled to the charities of the Dormitory !*

I wish to make this statement simply and without comment-the contrast speaks most powerfully for itself. I will ask two questions, and conclude. When it is known to the castaway that any act of robbery would cause him to be removed from the hardships of Fox's Court to the comfortable quarters of Pentonville-is he undeserving of sympathy who has enough of untaught and native virtue to resist such a temptation? Is it wise or consistent in the State to lavish her vast resources on the offender after he has committed a crime-and yet to neglect him in that stage of his career when a little help, a little guidance, might save him from a life of depredation? Many a thing which passes by the name of heroism in the world is mean beside the courage that resists under such circumstances. Crime should not be formally recognised as the door which leads from the wretchedness of the cellar to the luxury of the saloon. It is for such men as make your readers to ponder these things well.-Athenæum.

THE CLAIMS OF THE DESTITUTE.

We have received, through the kindness of an unknown friend, a paper, calling itself "An Appeal on Behalf of the Croydon Ragged Schools." But on perusing it, we scarcely found one word said respecting the Ragged Schools in that locality, nor any particulars given as to their special necessity or wants. It is as much an appeal for the Ragged Schools in Spitalfields, or the Isle of Man, as for those on the Surrey side of the metropolis. But so truthfully and earnestly does the writer urge the claims of our neglected "juveniles" upon the attention and sympathies of Christians generally— upon those who ought to have cared for them-that we cannot help transferring a large portion of it to our pages, believing that wherever it is read it must prove serviceable to the good work generally, and not less so to that locality which it owns as its birthplace :

"It is important that it should be clearly understood for whom it is that Ragged Schools are intended; since it is found that much misapprehension exists on this subject, in consequence of which they have often been confounded with National and Sunday Schools, and with other similar institutions, established for the children of labourers and mechanics. Now this is not the class of persons for whose benefit Ragged Schools are designed. They are intended only for a lower class-infinitely lower in social position, although perhaps superior in a sort of evil intelligence, if evil

*This Dormitory has since been discontinued, but will be re-opened, we trust, under more favourable circumstances.-[ED.]

THE CLAIMS OF THE DESTITUTE.

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indeed can be called intelligent. These may be subdivided into several classes, differing in their degree of poverty or vice; and amongst them are comprised many decayed or dissipated labourers and artisans-men who were not brought up in absolute penury or habits of dishonesty, but being unable or unwilling to work, have yielded to bad example or evil inclination-having fallen from their own sphere, they are gradually absorbed into the one below it.

"Now it appears to be so obviously the duty of those who desire to promote the welfare of their fellow-creatures, to assist in reclaiming the children of these abandoned and destitute parents from the evil influences and the vicious habits and pursuits to which they are exposed, that but little need be said upon this branch of the subject, at least to those to whom these remarks are addressed. They at least cannot be ignorant that it was thus the great Teacher taught-taught by precepts which they are bound implicitly to obey, in parables which they cannot misunderstand, and by example which it is their happiness humbly to attempt to follow. Since He hath plainly announced that the repentance of a sinner is welcomed with exultation by the angels of God, surely it is no mean and unworthy office to aid, feebly and imperfectly as it may be, in accomplishing that joy. If He hath held up to our admiration the lovingkindness and compassion of him who watched for his erring child, and met him while he was yet 'a great way off,' who stopped the poor penitent's long prepared confession of sin and unworthiness with kisses and embraces, and welcomed him home with feasting was it meant that our poor prodigals should still be left to grovel with their swine, outcast and abandoned ? If He hath chronicled to undying fame the piety of that man who was neighbour to him that fell among the thieves, think you that He will not favourably regard the efforts of those who would preserve their poor neighbours from the far worse fate of becoming thieves themselves? If you can think so, then, and not till then, will you despise and oppose the institution of Ragged Schools; then, like the priest and the Levite of old, may you wrap your robes closely around you, and avoiding alike the pain of witnessing, and the labour of relieving, the misery of your fellow-creatures, complacently pass by on the other side.

"If, then, it be incumbent upon Christian men and Christian women to endeavour to redeem these Pariahs of our race and country from their degraded condition, and to purge society from the foul reproach which their presence brings, let us consider how this duty has been performed hitherto. What have the influential classes amongst us done or left undone, in this respect, previous to the institution of City Missions and Ragged Schools? When have they visited these poor and fatherless in their affliction-these captives in their captivity? What exertions or sacrifices have been made, what care and labour have been used, to free society from these evil influences, which are for ever bubbling up, as it were, from below, and leavening the whole mass? The course which has been followed, and the results to which it has led, and to which it could not fail to lead, may not inaptly be illustrated by reference to a story with which many of us are familiar.

"We are told that a little child had wandered from his mother's side, and alike unwarned and unconscious, had approached the edge of a precipice. The heedless mother turns, and sees with horror the danger to which her boy is exposed. She knows instinctively that this is not the time for chiding-a threat, a frown, even an unkind look or word, and the little one will draw back, and fall into the chasm. She utters no word, but, swiftly as silently, she bares her bosom to the winds; the truant sees from afar the white gleam of the well-remembered treasure; he leaves the danger far behind, and flies into his mother's open arms, and is saved; and both are savedthe one from a fearful death, and the other from irreparable guilt and shame.

"Guilt and shame-and has society incurred no guilt or shame in respect of its helpless, wandering children? Have they been met with open arms and loving looks, and invited and allured from the threatening danger? or have they been driven back with menaces, and stripes, and frowns, until they have recoiled and fallen over the precipice? —a precipice of ten-fold horror; for beneath it, in dim recess, lie hidden death and destruction, not of the body only, but of body and soul.

"Is there any exaggeration here? Is the picture too highly coloured? Alas! no; for what is the history of thousands and tens of thousands of destitute children, who, had they lived at this time, might have been the inmates of Ragged Schools, and would at least have had a chance of rescue from their sorrowful fate? Few words will suffice to tell their story; for all that we know of them is, that they were born of thieves and vagabonds-they were nurtured as thieves and vagabonds-as thieves and

vagabonds they lived-and still worse, as thieves and vagabonds they died. The Pharisees of their time, as they swept proudly by, saw little else in their misery but a cause for exultation, that their own virtues had exempted them from such sin and sorrow. Statesmen busied themselves in devising laws to punish what they might more easily have prevented, vainly fancying that the consequences of early neglect could be compensated by late severity. Moralists and philosophers saw, in the various aspects of depravity and ignorance which these poor creatures exhibited, only so many phenomena in morals to be disputed about; and they discussed the cause and effect of what they saw, as they would have worked out a problem in mathematics or an experiment in chemistry. Doubtless, many kind and gentle hearts felt for these poor victims of the world's neglect; but neither the labours of statesmen, nor the theories of the philosopher, nor the pity of the pitiful, availed them aught. Year after year, and generation succeeding generation, they were left to fulfil their several cycles of idleness and ignorance of viciousness and crime. No kindly voice was ever heard to warn them from following the broad way and the green.' No friendly hand was extended to beckon them away. The world was not their friend, nor the world's law;' for indeed it found them bad, but left them worse.

'Shall, then, these things continue, and shall we stand by with folded arms and resigned mien, as if we were beholding the working out of some dread and inexorable doom, rather than the consequences of our own criminal neglect? Shall they not only continue, but shall the efforts of those who would fain attempt a remedy be thwarted and ridiculed? and shall this hindrance and this ridicule come from those who are or would be thought the poor man's friends? It may be that we and those who work with us are foolish and wrong, but if so, let it be shown by those arguments which alone should have place in such a controversy. Scoffing and ridicule are poisoned weapons, and from them at least those who design to benefit their kind deserve to be free.

cr

"Is it because these children are poor, and mean, and vile, that we should pause and hesitate, and that we should shun them as if they were leprous? Is it not rather because they are poor, and mean, and vile, that they most want our help, and that we may not withhold it from them? Should not this very worthlessness awake our compassion, and command our aid? How beautifully has nature provided for the care and nurture of a helpless child! Its very weakness is strength and power; for, like the wonder-working staff in the wilderness, it strikes the rock of the most rugged nature, and brings forth a stream of gentleness and kindness before unknown. But why should the physical infirmity and helplessness of children receive alone our sympathy? If it be true, as indeed it is, that

how is it that the moral and mental ruin which we now see spreading so far and so fast, excites so little of our attention—nay, more, is so often visited with our anger? If we feel sympathy and sorrow for a child that is blind, why should we be filled with anger and disgust for one whose moral and intellectual vision has been seared and blasted from his infancy, and that, too, from the neglect of those who were bound to care for him? If we pity a poor idiot, how much rather should we feel for him whose faculties have been depraved and distorted from the high and holy uses for which they were designed? Are we indeed so weak, so much the creatures of sense, that we are unable to appreciate and measure those miseries, of which the expression cannot be seen or heard? Or is it that we are so proud and pharisaical, that we will not condescend to care for things so worthless? Base, and mean, and rude, and ignorant as those children are, be assured that they are not quite worthless, for was it not for them that our common Saviour died? was it not with them that he made himself one, when he said, 'Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me?' Low-born and poor they truly are, but we may remember that they are joint heirs with us of a great inheritance, and we may remember, too, that it is at our peril that they are spoiled of their portion.

"If the wicked and the ignorant are ever to be raised from their abasement, it can only be by the use of means, and those means are the labours of better and more enlightened men. Superior purity and excellence are not to be regarded as exalting men, so as to separate them from the vicious and the bad; these, like all other

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acquirements, are burthened with accompanying duties, and not the least is the office of restoring the lost, and assisting the fallen. So surely, therefore, as the sparrow falls not to the earth unwatched and uncared-for, so surely will an account be required of what we have done to preserve from a greater fall those who are of far greater value. So surely, too, will that question of fear be one day put to each of us, 'Where is Abel thy brother?' And remembering this, should we not strive that it may not also be said, 'The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.'

"If, then, the institution of these schools can be shown, as we think it may, to be a good and pious work, how strong ought the objections to be which should induce us to withhold our aid from them! To affirm that they are not perfect in design or execution, is merely to say of them what may as well be said, or rather what must be said, of every human institution; what we have to consider is, not whether the schools are free from objection, but rather, what are the faults which are inseparable from the system, and are these of such a character as to outweigh the advantages?

*

"It is not to be supposed that the task of educating ignorant and vicious children, and giving to them those desires and dispositions for which their previous pursuits have unfitted them, is either an easy or a pleasant one. There is nothing of the romantic in such an occupation, nothing to captivate the fancy or please the taste, and there is much that is painful and irksome; yet may such teaching he found not unprofitable, either to the teacher or the pupils, for in this, as in all other things in which mercy plays a part, it is indeed

"Twice blessed:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.'

"The teacher who would do his duty in a Ragged School must resolve in a great degree to abandon his favourite pursuits, to do violence to his tastes,

'To spurn delights, and live laborious days,'

in order to seek the welfare of those whom almost all the world besides seems ready to abandon in despair, who are frequently quite insensible to the benefit designed for them, and disposed to regard the efforts of those who would serve them with suspicion, and to repay them with ingratitude. More than this, he must not be surprised if he finds that his labours are despised and misrepresented by many, and appreciated but by few. He who can thus hold on his course consistently and bravely, can hardly fail to come forth from it a better and a wiser man; for who would not be rendered wiser and better by the constant exercise of patience and long-suffering, of self-denial and resolution ?.

"Nor are these virtues required or exhibited in a less degree because the sphere of a Ragged School teacher's labours is a humble one. Providence has not dealt with us so unkindly as to limit the use of heroic qualities to heroic occasions. An actor may acquit himself well in his part, although the stage be mean and the spectators ignorant and vulgar; and the same qualities which at other times and under other circumstances might have raised a man to the rank of a hero, or insured his canonization as a saint-may be traced in the conduct of a City Missionary or a Ragged School teacher. His work may be despised, but if well and boldly done, it can never be despicable. His profession will compel him to associate with the sordid and depraved, yet his motives may be the loftiest and the purest that can influence a human being. The age of chivalry has passed away, yet chivalrous feelings and generous designs survive; and men may now, as of old, ennoble themselves in many ways if they would make proof of their fortitude and self-devotion. Although our countrymen are no longer called upon to go forth 'as far as the sepulchre of Christ,' yet, for those who are content to range themselves under his banner, there are still fields to be won and heathens to be vanquished. To us is preached a crusade far holier and worthier than those which carried our fathers to the plains of Palestine. We are vowed to a new knight-errantry-to succour those who have no other human helper-to relieve them from the thraldom of ignorance and vice; and into the contest with these enemies of our race we bring a system and a discipline such as the world has never yet exerted in such a cause. Nor should we pause, although no renown is to be earned, no trophies to be won. The tattered pennon, the crushed helmet, and the splintered spear, are not for us. Not ours the shrill-voiced trumpet and the clamour of armed men. We boast not of burning villages and ravaged harvests, and fellow-creatures