expense and burden on the county as criminals, and that such protection should be afforded by the county." There are fourteen clauses: the first and fifth may be quoted--"1_st_, That an asylum for unprotected and destitute children be founded in and for the county of Middlesex by legislative enactment, and placed under the direction and management of the justices of the peace for the county." "5_th_, That unprotected and destitute children shall be deemed to include all children above seven, and under fifteen years of age, under the following circumstances: --Children driven from their homes by the bad conduct of their parents; children neglected by their parents; children who are orphans, and neglected by their friends; children who are bastards; and children who are orphans, and have no one to protect them, or to provide for them, or for whom no one does provide; children who, from their own misconduct, have no protection or provision found them; children who are idle and dissolute, and whose parents or friends cannot control their bad conduct; children who are destitute of proper food, clothing, or education, owing to the poverty of their parents or friends, but whose friends or parents do not apply for, or receive parish relief; children who are destitute of employment; and children of the class which become juvenile offenders generally." It is probable that a plan of this description might have a great and beneficial effect in diminishing juvenile crime; and it is conceivable that the clauses of the bill may be so framed as to develop all the good, and avoid the evil. It is to be feared, however, that the bill is founded on partial views. The children who agree with the descriptions given in clause number five, are the offspring of those who reside in poor neighbourhoods, where the inhabitants are already paying high rates,--high in proportion to the poverty of the locality. If this be so, then every possible species of opposition, which can be offered legally or illegally, will be directed against the bill, and against its being carried into operation. The authorities of these poor and populous parishes already find it a matter of extreme difficulty to collect the rates, and are overwhelmed by the number of those poor housekeepers who apply to be "excused their rates" on the ground of poverty. All the schemes of the present day have one good point only, or it may be discovered by minute observation that the original idea was a good one. The bill is brought forth with a grand display of benevolent feeling; and it is passed, after suffering further distortion in Parliament. The law is, after all, found to be inoperative, from the omission or misapprehension of a plain obvious matter of detail, or because it originated from partial views, or came directly from the brain of an unpractical theorist. It is, however, admitted, in the case of the magistrates' bill, that the _original idea_ is a good one. And if it