Quarterly Report of Farts and Progress.

SINCE the appearance of our last number many events of importance have happened within the pale of our Church, many controversies have been advanced a step further, and the fruit of some of those measures which have been but lately taken is already beginning to appear. And, first, we shall speak of the

RETIREMENT OF THE LATE BISHOPS OF LONDON

AND DURHAM.

We

Their successors are now appointed, and are working harmoniously and conscientiously in their new and important posts. On this point we shall speak again before we have done; but we must now allude to the addresses which have been presented to the retiring prelates. In those presented to the Bishop of Durham, we see little to remark on. do not expect in valedictory addresses of this kind a very rigid accuracy, and the career of Bishop Maltby had been marked by much courtesy and suavity of manner, as well as much real and genuine kindness. But we were a little surprised to find in those presented to Bishop Blomfield expressions which would have been exaggerated, even if applied to a Heber or a Porteus. The effect of this want of judgment has been many sufficiently severe reflections in the public papers, and a suspicion in the minds of many among the laity that the language of adulation is so customary from the clergy to their bishops that they can hardly ever overdo it. Many signatures were withheld which would gladly have been appended to more temperate documents; and save Dr. Burgess, the editor of the Herodian "Clerical Journal," and his colleagues, who seem to think that too much flattery can never be bestowed on a bishop, all would have been satisfied.

THE BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH'S LETTER.

THIS remarkable and interesting document is well worthy the consideration of all the great land-owners and employers of labour throughout the kingdom. It is the first time that we have seen the perfectly right view taken of the case. Many persons are quite satisfied with things as they are, and deprecate all reform because it must, as they imagine, interfere with their own interests or their own quiet; many more

as the

are quite willing to see abuses rectified, provided they are not called upon to make any sacrifice of time and labour. Thus we have the "Clerical Journal" upholding the optimism of all existing institutions; and many revolutionary papers proposing a kind of agrarian law among the clergy, to bring all bishops and curates down to the same level. It is a great mistake to suppose, as some do, that the ultra-conservatives are Tractarians and the ultra-reformers are Evangelical; doctrine has little to do with it. Many of the latter are eminently conservative. Perhaps the "Record" itself is as much a conservative journal in Church matters "Guardian;" perhaps more so. The Tractarians are very desirous of many changes, and the recent judgment in the Denison case will make them still more so; and it is unfair to the Tractarian party to call such a paper as the "Clerical Journal" Tractarian, as is frequently done, merely because of its contemptible sycophancy. But to return to the Bishop of St. Asaph. He shows that all Church endowments were in the beginning voluntary offerings, and suggests that the great land and cotton lords of our time should do as their ancestors did in days that are past, and endow the more necessitous churches on their estates. Whether such advice as this will be very acceptable to the Marquis of Westminster remains to be seen; at all events, it is wholesome and apostolical.

THE BISHOP OF LONDON'S CHAPLAINS.

A PARAGRAPH has been extensively circulated in all the papers that Bishop Tait, desiring to make a compromise between the "Broad Church" and "Low Church" parties (so runs the expression), has selected two gentlemen of widely different opinions to be his examining chaplains-one, the Rev. A. P. Stanley, the other, the Rev. Frederick Gell, fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. Had Mr. Gell been selected by the Bishop of Carlisle, and Mr. Stanley by the late Bishop of London, nobody would have wondered for a moment. Both are gentlemen of high character and considerable academic attainments; but it will be a very curious puzzle to the clergy of the diocese, and especially to those about to enter into holy orders, which of the two chaplains will represent the views of the bishop, or whether either of them will do so. Nor are the differences such as are usually looked upon as minor ones; each can hardly help thinking and feeling his colleague to be egregiously in the wrong, and we confess to some interest in knowing how so unusual a plan will work.

FACTS AND PROGRESS.

191

THE REFORMATORY MOVEMENT.

THE meeting of the National Reformatory Union, held at Bristol last August, is producing good fruit by the extension of the system which it was intended to promote and improve. A great increase has lately been made to the number of certified reformatories, and an additional impulse has been given to those already in existence. There are now two large "Unions," whose centre is in London-" the National Reformatory" having its office in Waterloo-place, and “the Reformatory and Refuge" in Pall Mall. The supporters of each society are earnest and zealous reformers of prison discipline, and advocates of preventive measures. The latter institution has proposed prizes for Essays on this movement; and four prizes have lately been adjudged by the Rev. Sydney Turner and two coadjutors. These works will be published, and as they proceed from persons practically engaged in the work, they will doubtless present the results of judicious experience.

The county of Monmouth has taken the first step by forming a provisional committee, and collecting funds to the amount of at least £500. The chaplain at Usk has urged the magistrates to exertion; and the following letter to the Chairman of the Quarter Sessions is so full of material for thought, and of motives for action, that we present it entire. It is equally applicable to every county, and must approve itself to every Christian reader, as a document fraught with practical wisdom and happy illustration:

REASONS FOR A REFORMATORY.

A Letter to S. R. Bosanquet, Esq., Chairman of Quarter Sessions, Monmouthshire.

"MY DEAR SIR,—I have already addressed to the local papers a letter containing some of the reasons which have forced themselves on my notice, for establishing a Reformatory School for juvenile offenders, in the county of Monmouth. That letter has already been submitted to your perusal, but from the conversations I have had with you on the subject, and the anxious care with which you promote the efforts already set on foot amongst us, I am led to hope that a few further considerations may be found to be of some use in furthering the object in view--and may not be unacceptable to yourself.

"No one can feel more strongly than I do the importance, and indeed necessity, of providing, in some way, for ALL prisoners on discharge, both adult and juvenile. The destruction of nearly all the good effected by the discipline of the prison, and the dissipation of almost all good impressions received, is attributable

to the difficulty which many liberated prisoners are under, of finding any mode of earning their bread immediately on their discharge from the prison walls, without again immersing themselves in those scenes of sin and dissipation, the evil influences of which had previously led them to crime. No greater kindness, therefore, I believe, could be shown towards those who, by breaking the laws, have experienced their penalties, than by making some merciful provision for affording them or assisting them to find a place of useful and honest employment, as soon as the penalties demanded for their offences are completely paid. And it should be remembered that as full one fourth part of our discharged criminals are young men and women, or rather great boys and girls (above 15 and under 21,) there is a hope that many for whom such provision should be made, would not be too old to receive a permanent bias for goodand that the desultoriness, which almost always at this period of life accompanies criminal habits, would be exchanged for fixed habits of industry and application.

"Nevertheless, though such a provision for our adolescent and adult population, would be a most desirable and benevolent stepstill it is not of such primary and pressing importance that, for it, we should defer to carry out arrangements which demand our immediate attention for the young. I mean for children under the age of fifteen, whom we propose to make the objects for a Reformatory School. In this sentiment, since I know you perfectly agree with myself, I make use of this means for mentioning to the county some reasons, yet further, which present themselves to me, more especially in my duties as chaplain-why this proposed Reformatory School appears to be at present so urgently needed.

6

"Mr. Barwick Baker, of Hardwicke Court, Gloucester, whose interest and success in the reformation of boys, is generally known, has suggested to me one additional reason' why a school is needed amongst us-it is this: If you cut off the weeds before they seed, your future crop will be lessened by one-half in number, and one-half again in intensity;' which means, if we can remove those boys who, being experienced and mature in crime, corrupt, create, and train a brood of thieves like themselves, before they thus multiply themselves, you will not only remove those juvenile offenders themselves, but also that family of evil-doers whom they are preparing to pervert into their own ways.

"The suggestion, however, though important, only partially applies to this county, where there is a smaller proportion of trained and expert thieves, than in Bristol, Gloucester, Cheltenham, and other large towns of the county in which Mr. Baker resides. It does not appear to me, that we have so many trained and practised young thieves (who have studied the classics of crime, and graduated in the seminaries of sin,) as little, hasty rogues who have become thieves by sudden impulse, temptation, or parental mismanagement. There are in the county some few families of such, some one member of which the prison is seldom without; others

FACTS AND PROGRESS.

193 appear to collect in troops in various spots at Newport and the mining parts, where property is exposed, which they watch their opportunity to pounce down upon, and carry off. This stolen property is seldom more than a lump of coal, or a piece of iron or wood. Others live by getting a little of these things honestly, and adding to it a great deal dishonestly obtained, which they carry about and sell. Others are small boys and girls, who are looking in the shop windows, or standing near stalls through the day, till a favourable moment occurs for pilfering the object gazed at and coveted, when they rush at it and make off. Others are put up to petty crimes by men and women too big or too marked to perpetrate them themselves, or else, hearing them boast of their success in theft, aspire to imitate their crimes and are caught. One other sad class only I allude to that of young girls who, I believe, abound at Newport especially, who are enticed into disreputable houses as servants and errand girls, and who, in the mass of vice and crime with which they are there familiarised, undergo a training which tends to their utter ruin, and in which, under the strong encouragement they meet with from those who instigate them to sin, all parental influence is generally lost.

"Now, without alluding again to the utter inadequacy of a prison on the separate, or any other system, to meet the requirements of these juvenile cases-the incongruity of placing a little child (of, it may be nine, or ten years old) under the drill (if I may so designate the discipline) of a well-organised prison, expressly and admirably adapted to grown-up men and women; or dwelling upon the impossibility of imparting to the young solitary, by an occasional visit, any instruction or impression which it is likely to carry out and adapt to the exigencies of its after-life-I would, chiefly, now press on your notice the practical inutility of a short imprisonment for children, when followed by immediate liberation. The average period of imprisonment for such juveniles at Usk is under five weeks. It is true, sir, the law is vindicated by such a punishment, the sentence is executed, and justice satisfied. But is all that is due to that child, to other like-situated children, and to society, also done? The sentencing authority has assumed the position of a parent in taking the rod to chastise the child; but if it abandon the child when punished, does it not deny the child it has adopted? The punishment inflicted is to the child a graduation in crime: though he may have learned no evil in the prison, he comes out looked upon by others as more up to all evil than he was before. He is more exposed to neglect and repulse from the good, more open to temptation from the bad. If the helpless child is sent out uncared for, even if the prison has been made to him, as it ought to be, a most dreaded place; even if he has been (as in most cases I believe boys ought to be) flogged when here, he goes away, carrying with him indeed a warning and a dread, but, what means can the pilferer have recourse to for support, different to what he had before? He rejoins his troop of thievish lads, or returns to his drunken, negli

VOL. XLI.

Ο