Note 17 — Chapter XXXIX · CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF JACOB SMITH.

Every juvenile delinquent is as anxious to rise in his "profession" as the military or naval officer, or the member of any other hierarchy. But with the votaries of crime the apex of promotion is—the gibbet! Mr. Miles says, "I have questioned many boys of shrewd understanding concerning their opinions, and the opinions of their associates, as to their ultimate fate (for all thieves are fatalists). They look upon their inevitable doom to be either sooner or later transportation or the drop! It is difficult to imagine a state of more gloomy wretchedness and more despairingly horrible than the self-conviction of condign punishment, without one gleam of hope to clear the melancholy perspective. Punishments and whippings are therefore useless, for the mind is prepared to endure more, and every imprisonment is only looked upon as another step in the ladder of their sad destiny. The lad is hopeless, consequently reckless in his conduct,—hardened to the present, and irreclaimable as to the future. It is not by prison discipline that reformation can be effected: the temptations, the facilities, and the love of idleness are too alluring. Crowds of young thieves will wait round a prison-gate, to hail a companion on the morning of his liberation, and to carry him off to treat him and regale him for the day. I have asked boys under sentence of transportation if they thought they could reform, if returned again upon society, and the general reply has been, 'No.' Their reasons for that conclusion I give in their own words:—'If we were to be free to-morrow, we must go to our old haunts and our old companions, for where else can we go? If we try to be honest we cannot, for our 'pals' (associates) would torment us to return; in short, we should only have to come back here at last, but we are now going to another country, where we hope to be honest men.'

"I have, moreover, questioned many lads as to what method they would adopt to prevent other boys from falling into crime, and their remarks have been, 'Stop playing in the streets, for a pocket is soon picked, and there are many who show others how to do it;—and the next thing is to stop those cursed receivers; for if a receiver knows a boy to have dealt with him, (that is, to have sold him property,) he will make him go out to thieve; he will never let him rest; and even should we get into employment, he will teaze us till he makes us rob the master, or will tell of us to the police.' These remarks prove the boys to be good judges of their own cases; so, like a skilful physician, they know where to apply the remedy; and as I feel convinced that many of these urchins possess every requisite to be good and useful members of society, so am I certain that their reformation, in a majority of cases, is as practicable, under proper means, as their ultimate ruin is now certain, under the present system."