ON THE ABERDEEN INDUSTRIAL FEEDING SCHOOLS. 



The following is the Return for Ten Years. 



55 



Compare these returns with those already given from the prisons and from 

 the industrial schools, and the result is as clear as figures can make it, that 

 precisely as the schools are in vigorous operation or not, so the number of 

 youthful vagrants diminishes or increases. 



We have now had seven more years' experience, and the results are equally 

 instructive though produced to some extent by circumstances which at the 

 time were most unsatisfactory. 



To bring these out we must again have recourse to the Prison and Police 

 returns. 



Commitments to Prison. 



Juveniles apprehended. 



It will be observed that a very sudden and remarkable increase took place 

 in 1853, 1854, and 1855, both of commitments of criminals and of juvenile 

 vagrants met by the police. The school managers were completely perplexed 

 and somewhat dismayed. Were the principles on which they had acted 

 unsound ? or had they failed to apply them aright ? Was the great enterprise, 

 hitherto so successful and a cause of so much thankfulness, after all to prove 

 a delusion ? They could not believe it, and yet the increase of offenders was 



* City of Aberdeen. f Not one of these 4 belonged to the City or County of Aberdeen. 



