training ship was under consideration, and The Morning Chronicle of Halifax, Novia Scotia, quoted largely from Mr. Hall's letters and papers on the subject, and urged the merchants and others to make a move in the direction indicated.

CHAPTER III.

MAGISTERIAL OPPOSITION TO THE SHIP.

"At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan."

YOUNG.

"Your plan I love not; with a number you
Have placed your poor, your pitiable few,
There in one house, throughout their lives to be,
The pauper-palace which they hate to see.
That giant-building, that high bounding wall,
Those bare, worn walks, that lofty thundering hall!
That large loud clock, which tolls each dreaded hour,
Those gates and locks, and all those signs of power:
It is a prison, with a milder name,
Which few inhabit without dread or shame."

CRABBE.

"And then the Justice

In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,-
And so he plays his part."

SHAKESPEARE.

ETTING a training ship afloat, which Mr. Hall had done by his own exertions, as Mr. Hugh Taylor had said, did not end the matter; nor yet end the labours of those who were wishful for the success of the undertaking. It was stated at the first annual meeting that the Newcastle Guardians hesitated to send boys; and one of the Gateshead Guardians

had said "he hoped the pauper boys of Gateshead would never fall so low as to have to go to a training ship." At the annual meeting in 1870 Mr. Hall had to express his regret that there was still room for eighty or a hundred more boys in the ship, and "he was sorry to say that during the past six months they had received from Newcastle only ten or a dozen boys." Meeting an objection that some parents were ready to part with their children he said, "but they were by no means so ready to part with their money, hence the outcry they made before the magistrates when the contribution towards the maintenance of the children had to be enforced. By a wise provision of the Act those parents, who were able, could be made to contribute according to their means towards the support of their children."

The Mayor of South Shields, Mr. Strachan, remarked, "It was much more important that the authorities should look after a lad before he became a criminal than punish him afterwards." Mr. Glynn said the point on which the difference between the committee and magistrates had risen was " as to proper guardianship, the magistrates holding that if the children had parents they were not without proper guardianship, even if they were neglected by those parents. Mr. Hall had applied to the Secretary of State for his opinion on the clause in dispute, and it coincided with that of the committee; but yet the effect of that opinion upon the magistrates seemed to have been diametrically opposed to what they had hoped for, as for three months not a single boy had been sent to the ship."

The difficulties which beset this method of dealing with the neglected ones of our streets were fully explained in a paper which Mr. Hall read in 1870 before the Social Science Congress in Newcastle. He said :

"The object of the present paper is to show, briefly, the facilities which training ships afford for opening out a sphere of usefulness to our outcast and destitute boys.

"While we must all deplore the gigantic proportions which pauperism and crime have assumed, let us cherish the hope that the important educational measure which has been passed during the last session of Parliament will, in due time, diminish the mass of ignorance which exists in our midst, by bringing home to the poorest the advantages of education, and consequently decrease the causes which lead to the number of neglected children in our streets, and to the necessity for increased gaol accommodation here, as elsewhere, required by the overcrowded state of our prisons.

"Such a diminution of pauperism and crime as we hope for, must, necessarily, be a work of time, and these increased educational facilities will, by no means, supersede the necessity for industrial schools, which, whether as training ships or otherwise, are already provided for under a previously existing Act of Parliament.

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Training ships have been established under several different systems. The first, in order of time, are those founded and supported entirely by voluntary effort, such as the Warspite in the Thames, which has a large income, derived from donations which have been invested, and supplemented by annual subscriptions. The Chichester, in the Thames, and the Indefatigable, in the Mersey, are also supported by voluntary subscriptions exclusively.

"Another class consists of those which have been established under the Reformatory Act, and serve as reformatory ships for juvenile criminals, such as the Cornwall, on the Thames, and the Akbar and Clarence, on the Mersey, the last mentioned being devoted exclusively to Roman Catholic boys.

"The third system is that established under the Industrial Schools' Act, 1866, where private benevolence is supplemented by Government aid in providing for destitute boys before they are actually allowed to drift into the ranks of criminals, and

become subjects for a reformatory. Under this system is established the Wellesley, on the Tyne, the Southampton, at Hull, the Mars, in the Tay, the Cumberland, in the Clyde, and the Formidable, at Bristol.

"The Havannah, at Cardiff, is certified under the Industrial Schools' Acts, 1861 and 1866, and to which free boys or day scholars are admitted.

"There is, also, now fitting out, for service on the Thames, the Goliath, capable of holding five hundred or six hundred boys, under the Metropolitan Poor Act (1867) Amendment Act, under the management of the Forest Gate School District, which comprises the parishes of Whitechapel, Poplar, and Hackney, and supported out of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund.

"An attempt has been made to establish, at Cork, under the Industrial Schools' Act, the Gibraltar and the Creole, the one for Roman Catholic, the other for Protestant boys; and similar attempts have been made at other ports; but the difficulty of meeting the first outlay for the outfit, which may be estimated at from £2000 to £3000 (as the Government only lend the hulls of the ships), has, hitherto, prevented their establishment. This outlay would be of trifling importance to the Government, but, in provincial towns, with local charities to support, it is sufficiently large to impede the extension of a movement, in all respects, so worthy of encouragement.

"To entitle the committees of those vessels placed under the Industrial Schools' Act, to the Government grant, all boys must be taken before the magistrates, and by them sent to the ship. The Government contributes for those established in England 58. per head, per week, and in Scotland, 48. 6d., towards the cost of maintenance. The cost of education and maintenance on board may be estimated at 7s. 6d. to 8s. per head, per week. The Government allowance is insufficient, while, possibly, but for these institutions, a large per-centage of the boys would, undoubtedly, if left to themselves, drift into