Suggestions for the Repression of Crime; Contained in Charges Delivered to Grand Juries of Birmingham Supported by Additional Facts and Arguments. Tog (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHARGE OF APRIL, 1841. I'HE charge at these Sessions contained, among other matter, a short account of the Recorder's visit to the Warwickshire Asylum for Convicted Boys at Stretton-on-Dunsmoor. This county, I am happy to say, is honourably distinguished?distinguished, I believe, above all others in the country?by an establishment which has hardly yet gained its fair share of attention. I mean the asylum for the reception of boys convicted of felonies. It was begun in the year 1818, by some of the benevolent gentlemen of the county, engaged as magistrates in the administration of justice, and though upon a small scale, so that the good wrought by it is necessarily very limited, it has had considerable success, and it has shown that much may be effected by such means: and probably this result of the experiment is even of more value than the actual benefit conferred on the persons brought under its operation, notwithstanding the importance of that benefit to the individuals who have been its recipients. I have thought it my duty, as the Recorder of this borough, myself to visit the institution, and to judge, as far as I am able, from personal observation, of the success of the experiment. Accordingly, I went last week to Stretton-on- Dunsmoor, where it is situated. It is, gentlemen, no fine edifice?there is no grand portico to astonish the traveller as he passes along?it is simply a farmhouse, and one of rather an humble description. In this farmhouse, to which some buildings are attached, by way of workshops, about twenty boys reside, under the care of a master, Mr. Johnson, who, from his appearance, might be supposed to be a farmer. He is a man of great intelligence, and admirably fitted by nature and experience for the office he has undertaken. I found that he and ...