12 TlMEHRI. 
to the Health authorities to deal with undrained yards, 
leaking houses, rotten tenements unfit for human habita- 
tion, and lodging houses crowded to suffocation, then 
fresh powers should be obtained from the Government. 
But the best of Laws are of no avail unless they are 
put into force. 
An attempt has been made of late years to check the 
increase of crime by the reformation of juvenile crimi- 
nals. The Industrial School at Onderneeming has been 
opened since 1879 and has certainly been in one way a 
great success ; but I very much doubt whether the boys 
are in many instances trained from crime. Too 
frequently we find them falling back into their old 
courses, mingling with their old associates and entering 
into a bolder and more reckless career of vice and crime, 
ending too often in a convict cell at Massaruni. Where 
numbers of bad boys are brought together they mutually 
contaminate each other ; the morale of the school is very 
low, and although everything is done to teach the boys 
decency, industry and morality, very few I tear practise 
them when away from their master's eyes. It is a pity 
and a mistake that when a boy is discharged from the 
Industrial School he is taken by the police in custody to 
his native place, and sometimes en route is detained in a 
Police Station for some hours. When finally discharged 
this police restraint leaves a sort of criminal taint on the 
boy, which it is difficult for him to shake off. The boys 
should leave the school at 16 years of age and be 
apprenticed to any respectable person willing to take 
them for two years, during which time they might be 
more or less under the control of the Superintendent 
and should be encouraged to appeal to him in any diffi- 
