Association's Report, for the same year, states that ninety per cent. of the whole number committed to prison in that city, during that year, were intemperate. So of 126 received the same year in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, only 32 were registered as temperate, leaving 94 on the list of drinkers, moderate or immoderate; and of 96 received during the same year in the Western Penitentiary, 89 are regarded as having been brought to the felon's home by such indulgence. So in Philadelphia. Of 452 arrests made by the police in the sixth ward, from October 1, 1854, to January 1, 1855, there were 319 for drunkenness; of 282 in the ninth ward, 140 for the same offence; of 245 in the twelfth ward, 142 for the same; and of 308 in the seventeenth ward, 133 for the like offence.

The Inspectors of the Moyamensing Prison, in their Report for 1854, bear the following emphatic testimony on this point: "Full three-fourths of all the crimes that are committed may be traced to intemperance. The rum shops that infest our city furnish a large proportion of our prisoners. It is not of unfrequent occurrence that prisoners of the class alluded to, are but a few hours released from confinement when they are brought back upon a similar charge." The turnkey's Report for 1853, furnished by the Mayor's clerk to the Grand Jury of the March term of the Philadelphia Quarter Sessions, shows that of 9,112 prisoners, 7,852 were for intoxication or for crimes induced by the use of strong drink.

Many more statistics like the foregoing might be adduced, but it cannot be necessary, for it is an admitted fact, requiring really no proof. Who, then, are those generally engaged in selling liquor, and who thus contribute to the increase of crime? A large majority are foreigners, and, though accurate statistical information cannot be had on the subject, there is sufficient to be had to justify the assertion. According to a Report of the Marshal of the city of Boston, in 1853, there were then 1500 places in that city where liquor was sold, of which but 490 were kept by Americans, and the remainder by foreigners, of whom 900 were Irish and 110 German and Swedes. We have no similar statistical information in relation to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities and large towns, but, if obtained, there remains not a reasonable doubt, it would present a like state of facts. But, it will be inquired, "What of it, if it be so? Do you mean, by these general declarations, to ascribe all the evils of vice and crime to the liquor sellers, and to condemn all as being engaged in a business which should be prohibited by law?" It is not necessary here to make a categorical answer to such an interrogatory. Suffice it to say, that the groggeries, which are mainly the cause of the prevailing vice of intemperance, should be prohibited, and that these are chiefly kept by foreigners, while the Americans engaged in the business are keepers of respectable hotels and houses of

entertainment, which are so conducted as to be in a great degree exempt from the charge of contributing to the increase of pauperism and crime. It is the groggeries, many of which sell liquor without license, that are responsible for the pauperism and crime in our country, that make widows and orphans, and contribute to increase juvenile vagrancy and delinquency; and these, it is safe to aver, are chiefly kept by foreigners.

A recent writer states that "alcoholic beverage," which is the euphonious phraseology of the day, has, during the last ten years, "burned $5,000,000 worth of property; destroyed 300,000 lives; sent 150,000 persons to our State prisons, and 100,000 children to the poor houses; caused 1500 murders, 2000 suicides, and has bequeathed to our conntry 1,000,000 orphan children." Be this as it may, liquor is undoubtedly a great source of evil, making orphans, and these, without moral training, growing up in ignorance, poverty and filth, become criminals, as is forcibly described in a recent very able essay on juvenile delinquency, published under the direction of the Board of Managers of the Philadelphia House of Refuge: "Young years are tender and easier wrought upon," said Tillotson, "apt to be moulded into any fashion; they are like moist and soft clay, which is pliable to any form; but soon grows hard, and then nothing is to be made of it." What will be gained by driving the boys from the engine-houses and corners to their "sweet homes ?"

"Sated with exhalations rank and fell."

Nature, demanding relaxation and fresh air, impels the boy to seek pleasure where he can find it. A dozen collect together. They must have amusement. They cannot read; or if they can, they have nothing to read; or if they had, they have no place. Let the reader imagine himself, instead of being seated in a large parlor, in a soft and luxurious arm-chair, reading the latest magazine or popular tale, transported, even with his interesting book in hand, to a small, close apartment, in which are four or five adults and as many children, a pile of reeking clothes on the only table in the room, a red hot stove, in which the bread for a large family is baking, and a "penny dip" shining to illuminate the room. How long will he sit still to enjoy his book? Will he not, in utter despair, rush off to the nearest dram-shop-to the neighboring rendezvous at the corner-or to the engine-house? The boys who "swarm in the streets to pilfer and plague the broad highway," are to a certain extent excusable, and to the utmost to be pitied. They have no place of amusement, no books, no sisters to play on the piano, or sing for them, no games to engage their attention, in a well-lighted and comfortable. apartment. The boy cannot mope-his nature resists that. His young

heart beats gaily in spite of its manifold oppressions. His young muscles ask for relaxation. He desires to have some "fun," as well as the son of his more favored neighbor, who has had a ride in a carriage, or a romp in a large hall, or who has been taken, by Pa or Ma, to hear some celebrated singer. He has no money with which to purchase innocent amusements. He cannot relax his system, after his hard day's toil, at the opera or concert; these sorts of fun are beyond his reach. He must do something; so he gets up a fight, or teazes the passers-by. One thing leads to another—he applies a torch to some building, and then-“ runs with the engine."

"Are our readers still unable to perceive the causes of juvenile delinquency? If so, here is a picture of life among the lowly,' equally true whether painted for London, Boston, New York, or Philadelphia.

"Stand before the entrance of that court. Look! There's not a soul down that court-yard but is either a drunkard, or beggar, or thief, or something worse. Write about that! Say how you saw the mouth o' hell, and the twa pillars thereof at the entry-the pawnbroker's shop o' one side, and the gin palace at the other-twa monstrous deevils, eating up men, women and bairns, body and soul. Are na they a mair damnable man-devouring idol than any red-hot statue of Moloch or wicker Gogmagog, wherein auld Britons burnt their prisoners? Look at the barefooted, bare-backed hizzies, with their arms roun' the men's necks, and their mouths full of vitriol and beastly wards! Look at that Irishwoman pouring the gin down the babbie's throat! Look at that raff o' a boy gae 'n out o' the pawnshop, where he's been pledging the handkerchief he stole this morning, into the gin shop, to buy beer poisoned wi' grains o' paradise, and cocculus indicus, and sant, and a damnable, maddening, thirst-breeding, lust-breeding drugs! Look at the girl that went wi' a shawl to her back and cam out wi' out ane! Drunkards frae the breast! Harlots frae the cradle! Damned before they're born.'

"Who will meddle with these social evils? Who will step in between cupidity and its victim? The writer fears there are too many who will answer to the description of such characters as Ralph Nickleby:There are some men, who, living with the one object of enriching themselves, no matter by what means, and being perfectly conscious of the baseness and rascality of the means which they will use every day towards this end, affect nevertheless-even to themselves-a high tone of moral rectitude, and shake their heads and sigh over the deep depravity of the world.' But, we must interfere with such men; we must remove these social evils; we must prevent men from erecting death-breeding kennels. We must prevent your hard-hearted Nicklebys, who creep 'through life by its dirtiest and narrowest ways, and who keep a regular

debtor and creditor account with heaven,' from gloating over the moLaments to their cupidity-the jails and alms-houses.

Where then, ah where, shall poverty reside,

To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride?'"

Mr. Sheriff Watson, one of the founders of Industrial Schools in England, remarks in a letter, "If we could restrict the use of intoxicating liquor out of prison, as you have done it within, a juvenile delinquent would now seldom be seen within its walls; but no ordinary man's wages can stand the drain of the spirit-shop, and the demands of his children for food and education, and it too often happens that the whiskey-seller has the preference, and Juvenile Delinquency, as it is absurdly called, still disgraces our country." A father or mother converted into a brute by the indulgence of a base and depraved appetite, becomes to a family of little children like "a wild boar out of the woods turned into a garden of delicate flowers ;" and nothing short of a miracle can possibly save their children from becoming vagrants. So formidable does the hydra-headed monster, Intemperance, seem to the Inspectors of the Philadelphia County Prison, that they are induced thus to speak of it in their Eighth Annual Report: "The House of Correction, when established, may be the means of reforming a few; but, as long as the cause is suffered to exist, we cannot expect to remove the evil; the only effectual remedy is to break up the low groggeries that are festering in all parts of the city. Let stringent laws be enacted and enforced in regard to the sale of intoxicating liquors, and our citizens will be relieved from the necessity of erecting a House of Correction, and the population of our Alms-house and Prisons will soon be reduced to one-half of its present number."

CHAPTER VII

JUVENILE VAGRANCY.

THE evils of the prevailing vice of intemperance are nowhere more plainly and painfully visible than in the Juvenile Delinquent institutions, the nativities of whose inmates clearly show among what class of our people the vice most prevails. A few facts will show the sources from whence juvenile vagrancy comes. Thus it is reported, by the Massachusetts Reform School, that of 324 inmates in 1849, there were 66 of

foreign birth, of whom 42 were Irish, and of the 268 native born, no less than 96 were of Irish parentage. So of 361 received into the New York Juvenile Asylum in 1853, there were 134 of foreign birth, and 80 more of Irish parentage; and of 278 admitted into the New York House of Refuge in 1850, there were 25 foreign born, and 163 more of Irish parentage. During the year 1853 there were received 112 in the Rochester House of Refuge, 73 of whom were of foreign birth, and of these 40 were Irish. Of 157 admitted into the House of Refuge, in 1853, at Cincinnati, 107 were foreign born. Marshal Tukey, of Boston, made a report to the Mayor of that city in 1849, respecting the number, character, social circumstances, &c., of the street children, in habits of vagrancy, wandering about and contracting idle habits, &c., from which it appears that the whole number of the class of children designated, between six and sixteen years of age, was 1066, which were arranged as follows: of American parents 103, and of foreign parents 963!

These are facts which speak in unmistakable language, but they are by no means all at command on the subject. It has been stated in the publie journals, that of 16,000 commitments for crimes in New York city, during 1852, at least one-fourth were minors, and that no less than 10,000 children are daily suffering all the evils of vagrancy in that city. In 1849, the Chief of the Police Department of that city, called attention to the increasing number of vagrant, idle, and vicious. children of both sexes, growing up in ignorance and profligacy, and destined to a life of misery, shame, and crime, the number of whom were given upon authority and with an exactness which claim confidence. He stated that there were then 2,955 children of the class described, known to the police in eleven patrol districts, of whom two-thirds were females between eight and sixteen years of age. "Most of these children," it was at the same time stated, "were of German or Irish parentage, the proportion of American born being not more than one in five."

Thus facts might be added to facts, showing the enormous amount of juvenile depravity in this country; but enough have been given to show the neglect of HOME CARE, and the necessity of devising means to improve HOME INFLUENCES..

Considering this condition of things in our country to exist, we need not be surprised at a remark of the Earl of ELLESMERE, who recently passed through our country. In presenting to the House of Lords a petition from the magistrates of Manchester, praying for the establishment of reformatory institutions for juvenile delinquents, he referred to what he had personally witnessed. "In the United States," he said, "education was in a more advanced position than in any other part of the world; but he would not be acting disrespectfully to those States in saying that, for want of some system of schools of a reformatory