The girl in question was the eldest daughter of respectable working people. Her conduct shocked them; but they were unfit to direct her, for during the day her father was out working, and her mother had as much as she could do to attend to her household and to care for her younger children. The girl was sent back on probation to this home; a respectable home, but a home where, in the nature of things, she could not receive the care and guidance she required, having developed this propensity; and she broke her bond simply because she was placed under conditions where there was no reasonable probability of her keeping it. Accordingly she was sent to a reformatory, at a cost to the community much greater than would have been incurred had she been boarded out with the consent of her parents under the care of some respectable person in the country, where she could have been freed from the associations that had proved unsuitable to her. Money may be had, through channels provided by Parliament, for placing people in institutions, reformatory and otherwise; while the statutes do not provide for expenditure in the way suggested. Accordingly the reason assigned for not doing things which obviously might be done with profit is, that there are no powers, enabling them to act in the way suggested, in the hands of the officials. This, if it is an excuse for inaction, is not a valid one everywhere. When the parents of a child are willing to surrender their rights as guardians on cause being shown, and to allow the young person who has offended to be placed under control of some suitable person, all the power required is in the hands of the judge. It is recognised that parents, however respectable, may not be able to give their children such attention as they may require should they contract certain diseases; and there is seldom any difficulty in inducing them to have their ailing child removed to an infirmary for treatment. On the contrary, there are more who seek such treatment for their children than can be accommodated. For want of a better term, what we may call a moral ailment in a young person may as readily defy the resources of the parents as any physical ailment could do; and there are many parents who recognise the fact and would welcome assistance; but instead of helping them we are content to wait until the offender gets worse, and then to free the parent from all sense of responsibility and to make his position more painful than it need be by placing the culprit in one of our institutions. We may hope our action will do good, but the hope is not founded on experience.