'I know, from my own personal knowledge and observation, that, since

parental responsibility has been enforced in the district, under the
direction of the Secretary of State, the number of juvenile criminals in
the custody of the police has decreased one-half
'I know, from my own personal knowledge and observation, that, since
parental responsibility has been enforced in the district, under the
direction of the Secretary of State, the number of juvenile criminals in
the custody of the police has decreased one-half. I know that many of
the parents, who were in the habit of sending their children into the
streets for the purposes of stealing, begging, and plunder, have quite
discontinued that practice, and several of the children so used, and
brought up as thieves and mendicants, are now at some of the free
schools of the town; others are at work, and thereby obtain an honest
livelihood; and, so far as I can ascertain, they seem to be thoroughly
altered, and appear likely to become good and honest members of society.
I have, for my own information, conversed with some of the boys so
altered, and, during the conversation I had with them, they declared
that they derived the greatest happiness and satisfaction from their
change in life. I don"t at all doubt the truth of these statements, for
their evident improvement and individual circumstances fully bear them
out; and I believe them to be really serious in all they say, and truly
anxious to become honest and respectable. I attribute, in a great
measure, this salutary change to the effects arising in many respects
from the establishment of reformatory schools; but I have more
particularly found that greater advantages have emanated from those
institutions since the parents of the children confined in them have
been made to pay contributions to their maintenance; for it appears
beyond doubt that the effect of the latter has been to induce the
parents of other young criminals to withdraw them from the streets, and,
instead of using them for the purposes of crime, they seem to take an
interest in their welfare. And I know that many of them are now really
anxious to get such employment for their children as will enable them to
obtain a livelihood; and it is my opinion that the example thus set to
older and more desperate criminals, belonging in many instances to the
same family as the juvenile thief, has had the effect of reforming them
also; for many of them have left off their course of crime, and are now
living by honest labor. The result is that serious crime has
considerably decreased in this district, so much so that there were only
six cases for trial at the assizes, whereas, at the previous assizes,
the average number of cases was from twenty-five to thirty, which fact
was made the subject of much comment and congratulation by Mr. Justice
Willes, the presiding judge.'