A VAIN PETITION. 59 in June, 1785, when moving for leave to bring in a bill 1787 for the better securing the peace/^* After describing the extraordinary prevalence of crime in the metropolis, he referred to the crowds that every two or three months fell a sacrifice to the justice of their country, with whose weight the gallows groaned ^'; and he then mentioned as a cer- tain truth, that of the whole number hanged in the metro- and the polis, eighteen out of every twenty were under the age of °^ twenty-one." To remedy this evil, the Government pro- posed — not to establish a system of State schools combined with juvenile reformatories — ^but to effect certain changes in the regulation of the police. There was no proposal to deal with juvenile delinquents as they are dealt with in the present day ; they were left to take their chance as before. Something might be done, he seemed to think, for — friendless and deserted children who were at present picked up al the age of eight years and regularly educated to the trade of vil- lainy. He should wish them to be taken up and sent to the No reforma- Marine Society ; but as the governors of that institution might possibly object, on the ground of temporary inconvenience, to take them in, he feared it would be necessary to find some other estab- lishment for them. Beyond that, however, the Government were not prepared to go. Legislators in those days, and in much later times. Education did not believe in the efficacy of education as a means of preventing crime. Sir Samuel Romilly mentions that in 1807 he supported a bill which proposed to establish schools for the education of the poor in all the parishes of England ; but, he adds, — " The bill will certainly be lost Many persons think that the subject requires farther consideration and a more matured plan ; but I am afraid that a much greater portion of the House think it people expedient that the people should be kept in a state of ignorance."t i^oiince. • Parliamentary History for 1785, vol. xxv, p. 888. The debate on this motion is full of information on the social condition of England at that time, vhich should be carefully borne in mind in connection with the Expedition to Botany Bay. T Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 207. Digitized by Google
