The theory upon which governmental institutions are founded, and those established by private citizens or boards are assisted is, that of protecting society from a large, idle, ignorant, vicious population, by providing the means for the temporal relief and social improvement and correction of these classes, so as to bring them to the age of self-support in the case of children, to punish criminals, relieve the poor, and thus gradually return them all to society as sober, enlightened, honest, industrious, and thrifty citizens. For these purposes heavy taxes are laid on the citizens, immense piles of buildings are erected at the public expense, and such institutions are annually maintained or aided at enormous cost to the people. In our November, 1872, number, while admitting and praising the philanthropic motive which sustains these institutions, we regarded them “as really nuisances of the worst kind, so far as Catholic children are concerned, on account of their proselytizing character. Moreover,” we said, “in their actual workings they violate the rights both of parents and children, and we have evidence that these poor children are actually sold at the West, both by private sale and by auction. The horrible abuses existing in some state institutions are partly known to the public, and we have the means of disclosing even worse things than those which have recently been exposed in the public papers.” It is difficult to perceive the success of such institutions as ameliorating or reformatory agents, for our public press is loaded every day with evidences of the enormous increase of crime and pauperism, and with dissertations on the causes of such increase. The public are naturally slow in believing that such institutions, upon which so much treasure has been spent, are failures. Such a reflection is an unpalatable one; it is humiliating to our pride, and damaging to the boasted progress of the XIXth century. It crushes our self-esteem to know that, of all places needing correction, our Houses of Correction need correction most; and that, of all institutions calling for the stern hand of reform, there are none that need so much reformation as our schools of reform. A religious paper called _The Christian Union_ has given strong proof of its dislike to have the public eyes opened to these unpalatable truths, and we do not think we should have returned so soon to this subject but for a rather disingenuous article in that paper, couched in terms not calculated to convince the public that it derived its name from the practice or spirit of the virtue of Christian union, which, while challenging us to expose these wrongs and abuses, declared but too great a willingness to believe “that these charges, so frequently made in Roman Catholic journals, have already received thorough investigation and perfect refutation.”