But some may ask, Have these youth never been taught? They have. But what? They have gone to school to learn -to thieve. This has been their education.

Regular schools for the training of boys in thieving have long existed in London. The discovery of such a school, in 1585, by Fleetwood, the Recorder, is thus related:

"Among the rest they found out one Wotton, a gentleman born, and some time a merchant of good credit, but fallen by time into decay. This man kept an alehouse at Smart's Key, near Billingsgate, and after for some misdemeanor put down, he reared up a new trade of life; and in the same house he procured all the cut-purses about the city to repair to his house. There was a school-house set up to learn young boys to cut purses. Two devices were hung up: one was a pocket, and another was a purse. The pocket had in it

certain counters, and was hung up with hawk's-bells, and over the top did hang a little scaring-bell; the purse had silver in it; and he that could take out a counter without any noise, was allowed to be a public foyster; and he that could take a piece of silver out of the purse, without noise of any of the bells, was adjudged a judicial nypper, according to their terms of art. A foyster was a pick-pocket; a nypper was a pick-purse or cut-purse."

Nearly 200 years afterwards, the "Annual Register" for 1756, under date of March 25, thus describes a similar school:

"

At an examination of four boys detected at picking pockets, before the

Lord Mayor

, one of them, admitted as evidence, gave the following account:-A man who kept a public-house near Fleet-market, had a club of boys, whom he instructed in picking pockets and other iniquitous practices. He began by teaching them to pick a handkerchief out of his own pocket, and next his watch, by which means the evidence at last became so great an adept that he got the publican's watch four times in one evening, when the master swore that his scholar was as perfect as one of 20 years' practice. The pilfering out of shops was the next art. In this his instructions to his pupils were, that at such chandler's or other shop as had hatches, one boy should knock for admittance for some trifle whilst another was lying on his belly close to the hatch, who, when the first boy came out, the hatch remaining on jar and the owner being withdrawn, was to crawl in on all-fours, and take the tills or anything else he could meet with, and to retire in the same manner. Breaking into shops by night was the third article; which was to be effected thus. As brick walls under shop windows are generally very thin, two of them were to lie under a shop-window as destitute beggars

asleep in appearance to passers by; but, when alone, were with pickers to pick the mortar out of the bricks, and so on, till they had opened a hole big enough to go in, when one was to lie, as if asleep, before the breach, till the other accomplished his purpose.

It is remarked in Knight's "London:"-

"Dexterous and accomplished as are the followers of the several varieties of illegal industry in London, perhaps above those of any other community in the world, their genius has not, at least in modern times, shone with any remarkable lustre in the inventive line. Their favourite modes of entrapping their prey seem to be nearly the same in the present day as they were two or three hundred years ago... pocket-picking in all its forms was practised as cleverly, and taught'as elaborately, in the London of the times of Elizabeth and James as by the ... hidden real life of our own day. But probably the reason of this is really the excellence of these old tricks and wiles-their perfect serviceableness for their purpose, and nice accordance with the principles of human nature, as proved by the wonderful success with which they continue to be employed, after having been in use for so long a series of years ; innovation is not to be heedlessly ventured upon in pocket-picking any more than in politics."

In illustration of the truth of these observations, one of the missionaries of the states:-

".

"Another mode of training for theft is still practised by a man who keeps several boys, and lives by their plunder. He trains them on his own pockets, or on the pocket of the female with whom he lives.

"

But the more common mode of training is in lodging- houses kept for this class. They practise on each other, the most expert always acting as teacher. This is the mode in which most of those who have been passed through my hands have been trained."

Nor is the disposal of stolen property very materially different now to what it was. A second missionary of the states:-

"

The following truly remarkable case, related by one of the missionaries of the , as having recently occurred to him, illustrates the fearful amount of iniquity which may arise from a single individual in the corrupting of youth. While walking down one of the new streets in the East of London, he was followed by two youths. Proceeding onwards, he came up to six men, standing at the end of a narrow street. He saw at once to what class they belonged, and addressed them. The two

What an amount of evil among the juvenile population had this one man effected! And what an amount of good has the small sum expended on his reclamation, by God's blessing, effected ! Who can fail to see how much better it is, financially as well as morally, to seek rather to reform than to punish, especially where there is a willingness to reform ?

And yet to how small an extent has this more economical, more merciful, and more Christian plan been pursued ! In one street only, in the south of London, there now exist 1,500 destitute and criminal juveniles, for whom there is not even a school provided; and in another single street, in the east of London, 1,000 children of a similar class were found last year without any other school than one conducted by Papists in a private dwelling-house. Is it to be wondered at that juvenile crime exists, and even increases, in the metropolis, when the class from which it springs is so often neglected? What else, under such circumstances, can be expected, but that it should be perpetuated and multi- plied ?

It ought also distinctly to be understood, that there are very many indeed of this class who are willing to be reformed, and brought under Christian instruction and training, and that the means only are requisite to enable

[1] Maitland's " London," i., 269, from Stow's "Survey."

[2] Vol. iv., pp. 225-6.