Whilst the reform of the adult and hardened convict is of very high import, the welfare of society is even more profoundly influenced by the result of its efforts directed towards the prevention of crime in the first instance; and the value of prevention (which by common consent is at all times higher than that of the best possible cure) may be said to bear an inverse ratio to the age of the individuals who are saved from committing themselves to a career of crime. The surest method of permanently reducing the number of criminals lies in the comprehensive employment of agencies especially devoted to the prevention of juvenile delinquency. Anti-social habits formed in childhood are in after years only eradicated with the greatest difficulty, the criminal child too often being the father of the criminal man. During the latter half of the eighteenth, and early in the nineteenth century, the manufacture of juvenile criminals went on apace. Bow Street Runners on the look-out for blood-money were careful not to interfere with a promising youngster until he had actually committed a felony; parish constables would not trouble to pursue a culprit upon whose conviction only half expenses were allowed; and the reluctance of the general public to prosecute was especially pronounced when the offender was of tender years. Meanwhile scoundrels of the Fagin type, trading on the impunity enjoyed by child-thieves, grew rich on the plunder collected by their pupils, who, sooner or later, received the finishing touches to their criminal education in the public gaols at the public expense. The extent of the evils which resulted are incalculable; but competent experts were of opinion that nearly sixty per cent. of habitual offenders had been initiated into their dishonest career before they were fifteen years of age.[232]