THE TKEATMENT OF JUVENILE OFEEXDEKS. 22-- 



are carefully kept apart from criminals or adults awaiting- trial. 

 Every town has a Children's Aid Society, the officers of which 

 can arrest without warrant boys under 14 and girls under 16, if 

 found neg-Iected, sleeping- out, begging, etc. ; the Judge frequently 

 appomts the society legal guardians of such juveniles, and th^y 

 are boarded out till 18 years of age. Great care is taken in deal- 

 ing with actual ju\enile criminals, and the "public good" is. 

 always considered ; they can be bound to responsible tradesmen till . 

 21 years of age, or sent to Industrial Schools or Reformatories- 

 accordmg to the special circumstances governing each case. Under 

 14, children may be sent to the homes for neglected children, and 

 the result of all the different preventive organisations and agencies 

 has resulted in a. marked diminution of juvenile crime. Canada 

 has, however, suffered from too short reformatorv sentences, the ■ 

 average for girls up to 1900 being only 8 months, and for bovs 

 17I months; this is now being altered.' It is interesting to note 

 that of the thousands of children emigrated to Canada from fJr. 

 Barnardo's Homes and such like pices, onlv ^ per cent, relapse 

 into crime, largely owing to the excellent Aid Societies. 



Coming nearer home, up to 1905 European juvenile offenders 

 from the Transvaal were sent to Tokai, but on March i, 1909, a 

 Reformatory was started on the Government Farm Houtpoort, in 

 the Heidelberg district, where the staff consists of a warden, 

 schoolmaster, gymnastic instructor, trades instructor, and garden 

 mstructor, children between the ages of 12 and 18 may be com- 

 mitted to the reformatory on conviction for not less than two years 

 or more than five, but they must be discharged when 20, and they 

 may also be apprenticed to some useful trade until 20. A Board 

 of Visitors, consisting of three gentlemen, one lady, and the 

 Resident Magistrate, report on every juvenile who has completed 

 two years' detention, and thereafter yearly, making any recom- 

 mendation they may see fit re conditional release, etc. An indus- 

 trial school was also started outside Standerton for criminal juve- 

 niles under 18. This school is managed bv a housefather and 

 matron under control of a Board of Management consisting of 

 four gentlemen, two ladies and the Resident Magistrate of Stander- 

 ton as chairman. The housefather is assisted bv a head school- 

 master, teachers, mechanician, carpenter instructor, tailor instruc- 

 tor, farmer instructor, laundress, seamstress, cook, etc., the school" 

 was opened just a year ago, and contains 64 boys and 44 girls. It 

 ^\■llI be noticed particularly, I trust, that these institutions are for 

 white children only, the juvenile native criminals are all sent to a 

 farm prison where they are instructed in farming. 



In the Cape Colony, boys are sent to Tokai up to 16 years of 

 age, but they are rarely sent there for a first offence, the custom 

 in Cape Town at any rate is to create the criminal first and trv 

 and cure him afterwards. If a boy of 12, say, for the sake of 

 argument, steals grapes, he is tried in the fuU publicity and un- 

 savoury surroundings of the Police Court, and probably gets a 

 month's imprisonment, which he spends comparatively ' hapoilv, 

 comfortably and easily in the precincts of Roeland Street Gaol,' 

 v.here he associates with habitual criminals, as indeed do persons ; 



