54 report — 1859. 



The school-rooms are on different floors and most commodious ; the only 

 want is a play-ground, which from the situtation is unattainable. 



Considerable difficulty was all along felt in confining the operations of 

 the schools strictly to those children who required their aid, and excluding 

 those whose parents or friends were able to maintain them at ordinary 

 schools ; and this was a most important matter, both in order to spare the 

 funds of the schools and to satisfy the public mind. 



To meet this difficulty the "Child's Asylum Committee" was invented and 

 has been most successful. The duty is carefully to investigate every case 

 in all its circumstances, and admit or reject, or hand over to some other in- 

 stitution, as may be found proper ; in short, to interpose an effectual check 

 betwixt the little mendicants and the school, in order to prevent what was not 

 unlikely to happen, — a resort to street begging in order thereby to get at the 

 good food of the school. 



At first it met daily at 10 a.m.; but this soon became unnecessary, because 

 there were not daily cases to examine, but it is still summoned whenever its 

 services are required. 



It was instituted in December 1846, and is a numerous committee, being 

 composed of gentlemen who are either Magistrates of the City or Commis- 

 sioners of Police, or Members of the Poor Law Boards of St. Nicholas and 

 Old Machar, Directors of the House of Refuge, or Members of the Joint 

 Committees of Management of the Boys' School and the Juvenile School; 

 in short, of members of all the public bodies interested in the matter. 



The inquiry is most searching into every circumstance which can guide 

 in coming to a decision suited to the case, and its working has been most 

 satisfactory ; very few, almost none, have been admitted to the schools since 

 184-6 who were improper objects ; and it has not unfrequently happened that 

 remonstrances and counsels given to parents had the happy effect of bring- 

 ing them first to feel and then to undertake and discharge the duties they 

 owed to their hitherto neglected offspring. 



During the first five years this Committee investigated the cases of 700 

 destitute children, most of whom were admitted into one or other of the 

 schools, and 198 of these were brought up to the Committee by the police. 



The Ladies' Committee of the female schools make precisely similar 

 inquiries into all the cases brought to their notice before admission. 



The progress of the schools has been steady, and their good effects have 

 become more and more visible every succeeding year, and have been demon- 

 strated only more clearly by facts which at first seemed to militate against 

 them. 



One remarkable proof is derived from returns furnished by the rural 

 police. 



It was a well-known fact that children of very tender years were sent out 

 by worthless parents to wander alone through the county to support them- 

 selves by begging and petty thefts, and that still greater numbers accompa- 

 nied their parents to add force to their claims for charity, while a few were 

 lent or hired for the same purpose to parties who had no suitable children of 

 their own. 



The constables of the rural police were instructed to return as correctly 

 as possible the number of these children whom they encountered in their 

 daily rounds. From the nature of the case the returns cannot be absolutely 

 correct ; but still they approximate to the truth, and the variations from year 

 to year give information of much value. 



