Note 12 — Chapter XXXVIII · THE HISTORY OF JACOB SMITH.

Although our aim is to render the "History of Jacob Smith" a regular and connected narrative of the initiation of a neglected child in the ways of vice and the career of crime, there are necessarily many phases in the history of juvenile iniquity which cannot be introduced into the text, as it would be impossible that the boy who is telling his story could have gone through all the scenes alluded to. We must, therefore, farther illustrate our aim by means of a few notes, derived from authentic sources: and this course we are the more inclined to pursue, inasmuch as we hope that the episode formed by the "History of Jacob Smith" may have the effect of directing public attention more seriously than ever to the awful nature and extent of juvenile depravity in this metropolis. Mr. Miles, in his "Report to the House of Lords on Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime," places on record the following observations:—

"The women and the girls in these districts live with their men as long as they can agree together, or until one or the other be imprisoned or transported. The very children are prostitutes, living with their "fancy lads;" and it is difficult to say which are the most degraded, the men or the women, the girls or the boys. It is thus that I suppose crime is more engendered in low neighbourhoods, where the poorest and the most idle congregate: and I now beg to continue my remarks upon the second head, namely, the neglect of parents. The various pursuits of these parents call them from home during the greater portion of the day, and their children are left to play and idle in the streets, associating with other lads of more experience than themselves, until, seeing and hearing how easy it is to steal, they commence their career of crime, unchecked on the one hand and applauded on the other. There are some parents who turn their children out every morning to provide for themselves, not caring by what means they procure a subsistence, so that the expense of feeding them does not abstract from their means of procuring gin or beer. Other parents require their children to bring home a specified sum every night, to obtain which they must beg or thieve. Others hire out their children to beggars, for 3d. a day (a cripple is considered worth 6d.); and many women hire children in arms about the same age, to pass them off in the public thoroughfares as twins. Groups of these young neglected vagabonds herd together, and theft becomes their study; even if a child was well disposed, it is not probable that he could escape the contagion of such bad example. There is a community of children, who live and are separated from persons more advanced in years. Moreover, there is so rapid and so certain a communication among them all over the metropolis, that if they discover any of their slang or flash words to be known out of their circle, they will substitute another, which in the course of a day or two will be adopted by the fraternity. There are lodging-houses exclusively for their accommodation, public-houses which are chiefly supported by their custom, and the landlords of both sorts of establishments are ever ready to purchase any plunder they may bring. With this neglect of parents on the one hand, and the faculties to crime on the other hand, can it be expected that these children can resist temptation? The wonder would be if a boy was honest. My conclusion, therefore, is, that the neglect of parents in these low neighbourhoods renders them nurseries of crime. The number of boys in London who live by plunder is very—very considerable: and thus society is maintaining them at a great expense, either in the shape of prison expenses, or by the value of the property they steal, especially when it is considered that the receivers never give one quarter the value: and there is not a boy thief who, on the average, does not expend 5s. per diem."