same mainly as a result of their appearance before "The Beak (the slang term used to designate the magistrate).

"

I do not think it fair to attribute to any one amusement the cause for child delinquency. We should rather look to a multiple of causes which, taken as a whole, exercises pernicious influence. This combination may be summed up as follows, each factor serving as a contributing cause: The War spirit, the absence of father, the mother engaged on war work, uncertain conditions at home, the influence of cinemas, pernicious literature, lack of home instruction, want of protection and recreation, absence of religious essentials, and absence of suitable parental control.

I am not a pessimist, nor do I take a despondent view of the increase in delinquency on the part of children. It is probably quite abnormal, due to temporary causes, but whether abnormal or otherwise, we have arrived at a period when preventive measures should be framed and undertaken to meet and suppress this anti-social spirit and experience. It is possible that we shall find after due examination of the matter that much of the so-called juvenile delinquency is the result of desirable energy, uncontrolled and misdirected. If this proves to be the case, and it is most probably, we must be willing and ready to provide for the expenditure of time and money and means whereby the energy shall be employed in a befitting manner.

Until 1914 War with its horrors was unknown to the children of this country. Previous wars that we have been engaged in have been in countries separated from us by the great seas. To-day the narrow channel of water that we formerly thought divided us from the Continent is now seen to link us to that same Continent of war. There is hardly a house to be found in the land from which some member of the family has not gone to the War. In many instances. it is the father who is the soldier or sailor. As a consequence of the War, mothers are engaged directly or indirectly in war work, and can give but little attention to children and home affairs. On the report of a big action a condition of tense suspense and anxiety naturally reigns in the homes of those who have relatives at the Front. Children pick up the threads of their elders' conversations and seek relief to the suppressed excitement by grouping themselves together, while their uncontrolled energy oftentimes finds an unlawful outlet.

The gambling spirit is strong in the children of to-day. A few lads who had been sentenced to be birched at the city police-courts, whilst awaiting the arrival of the divisional surgeon, beguiled the time

in a discussion as to whether it would hurt, and betting small sums of money that they would not cry. They even invited the police officer to take a share in the betting. One boy made a bet that he would call out loud each stroke as he received it to prove he had not cried, and he faithfully kept his promise. In this instance bets were lost and won.

I may say that when evil knowledge of the world is seen in the young it is impossible to hide the truth. Boys of a roving type have degenerated by contact with the streets without hindrance, and it is our duty to turn them off the streets by finding healthy and suitable recreation and employment. Boys who have broken into warehouses and dwelling-houses have confessed that they have seen the like adventures portrayed in the pictures. This has hardly the meaning that some would infer, but it has, however, been forcibly brought home to my mind that the idea of working in numbers to commit offences was a direct outcome of the reading of pernicious literature and visits to bad types of cinemas, where scenes of an excitable character impress themselves upon the minds of immature, imaginative boys, and I believe their misdeeds were oftentimes their mode of interpreting what they had seen.

The cinema depicts and leads up to climaxes in the subjects filmed : this is its business as we now see it. Healthy and unhealthy matter and impossible situations are impressed on the child mind. The child is ever receptive and creative, and unless the pictures have the necessary "smack" they do not appeal to certain classes of children. There is being displayed to-day such dauntless courage as never before has been seen in the history of the world. This record of great doings should have the effect of ousting from the life of the street child such poor counterfeits of daring as are only too often now displayed in the picture palace. Manufactured courage and evil situations are the worst possible means of influencing the child mind.

The boy or girl is usually fully conscious of the spurious nature of these scenes, and because they are spurious they defeat the very object they are supposed to convey-the moral. That is why the influence of the cinema deserves more serious consideration than hitherto it appears to have had. The so-called moral of these moving pictures has its tragic side. It is generally lost, indeed frequently it is never gripped at all, the law-breakers are just caught by the pictures, and the lesson of the picture is overlooked by the juveniles until perhaps it is painfully brought home at the City Police Court. All pictures appeal to boys. To attribute to one picture more than another powers for injury would

be absurd. The picture house is the inducement for most of the boys and girls. They do not study the bills. It is just the pictures they want. In many instances to get to the picture palace they steal, and the main class of offence for which most juvenile delinquents are charged is that of stealing.

The cinema has come to stay. It may be a great power for good, or it may become a terrible instrument for evil. The moving picture movement is still in its infancy. Educational and other authorities should arrange to give exhibitions in various school centres, and they should be of an educative and recreative character. Lecturers fully conversant with the subjects portrayed could be employed to explain the pictures, and no doubt such exhibitions would be attractive and instructive, and would draw large numbers of our wandering youths. Historical and other subjects connected with this and other countries. might be produced with much profit to all. If the right sort of picture could be shown after school hours and at night when boys and girls parade the streets much good would be accomplished. Sunday schools, Bands of Hope, Boys' Brigades, and all like organizations could view with beneficial effects the film presented to them with suitable subjects depicted.

Suggestions and Remedies for the Prevention and Arrest of

Juvenile Delinquency.

Children are only on rare occasions found by the police to be guilty of committing any depredations upon the public single-handed. It is usually in groups that they develop anti-social characteristics. The views that I expound are founded upon my own observations. I believe there is an increasing tendency on the part of the parents to allow their children to seek recreation and keep late hours without due regard to the quality of such recreations and an utter neglect of the baneful effect likely to result. Our responsibility has materially increased since the outbreak of the European War. For freedom and liberty we rely to-day upon British honour and character. These elements are seen in our glorious fighting men and the noble women of all classes labouring in our munition shops. In the blood of our fighters there circulates the spirit of adventure. Healthy animal spirits must be allowed for in our children, and there must be a safety valve action. The outlet of animal spirits can be directed not by an emulation of the deeds of Deadwood Dicks and Jack Sheppards, but by a direction through some healthy occupations which shall be influential in the

training of character and the development of powers for future discipline.

The success of such organizations as Church Lads' Brigades, Boys' Life Brigades, and last, but not least, the great organization known as the Boy Scouts, has demonstrated that healthy boyish spirits can secure an adequate outlet in a wholesome disciplined manner. We must think and act for others who are not wholly capable of thinking and acting for themselves. We must grip the matter at its roots and make it impossible by legislation for children of less than 21 years of age to contract unsuitable marriages. Young people under 21 years of age cannot have it laid to their account that they are worldly wise, even though they fall into the common errors of youth and think they are. Having obtained their majority, it can reasonably be assumed that their early training has ceased, and that its beneficial action still remains operative.

Early marriages have much to answer for. Children are brought into the world by little more than children, with the result that there is a direct absence of parental control, and a lack of interest in home surroundings which later is reflected upon the child in such a manner as to be entirely prejudicial both to its physical health and its mental and moral training.

Persons of sound Christian sympathy and interest ought to be ready to give helpful counsel to young people. A happy environment, welldignified, decent surroundings gives the parents self-respect, and selfrespect all unconsciously inculcates compatibility with surroundings, and encourages a feeling of self-satisfaction, which is an inspiration in every form of life work. The duty of keeping a high standard lies jointly with the parents and the State.

Family life is not a mere incident in the life of a people. Until a few years ago the State recognized the value of child-bearing by no other means than that of registration of birth, a mean, selfish and beggarly way of admitting that as a nation it is well to know how many souls there are forming its numbers, how the tide of population is ebbing and flowing of the responsibilities for the period between the flow and the ebb-life and death-the State has shown but little concern. The nation personified by cold officials in the shape of registrars and the like is wont to thrust into the parent's hand a paper, informing him of the pains and penalties incurred by neglecting the infant's vaccination.

Every child is either a son son or daughter of the nation, and the

indelible hall-mark of national responsibility has been placed upon each of our coming citizens. A statesman decided this in the present century by placing to the credit of every mother of the working classes the sum of £1 10s. as a recompense for the risks of motherhood. This was a move in the right direction.

Something more must be done than registration and vaccination. The State must take a positive and convincing interest in the life of the child and a human interest in the welfare of the mother. The consistency of training is the duty of the parents, and where found wanting must be aided by the State. The child as it grows must have the foundation laid for obedience and self-restraint without conscious effort. Character is the factor which counts in the make-up of a child. Wisely trained by sound instruction and guiding hands, the child becomes amenable, and acquires without conscious effort self-directing powers.

Legislate how we may, invoke what aid we may like outside the home circle and without the parents' influence, and our efforts will be in vain. We must secure a beneficent parental influence.

. A revival of religious life is one of the essential factors in our scheme for betterment. The moulding of character, the fashioning of nature should be a labour of love in those responsible for our future citizens. The instilling of religious principles, the training to industry, the choosing of their companions is not a matter that a right-minded parent would dare to leave to the child. We learn by experience; it must ever be so. The surest kind of experience, and the soundest, is to make the child feel the individuality of its elders. Let us look upon the child as a national asset. The State with all its resources will be as naught for the benefit of child life unless its principles are applied in a scientific manner.

Difficulty is experienced in sounding and locating the responsive note in a child's mind., To a mind ever undergoing change in thought and character universal methods must be adopted, and they must not be parochial and local, but broad-based and sound.

The delinquent child guilty of offences against the community and brought before the magistrate is the victim of errors of omission and sins of commission. The duty of parents enforces upon right-minded people the proper discharge of that liability, but to those individuals whose moral faculties are not sufficiently developed, or where developed are not employed, the State should step in with firm and drastic

measures.