Since 1910, the number of cases dealt with in Juvenile Courts has risen from 33,598 to 49,915 in 1918, the increase having taken place chiefly since the outbreak of war. Included in the latter total were 28,843 boys and 1,364 girls under the age of 14. Statistics show that a conviction is recorded in about 50 per cent. of the number dealt with annually, the majority of which are disposed of by fine, whipping, or committal to a Reformatory School. Of those cases in which the charge is proved, though no order made for _conviction_ (about 35 per cent.) the bulk of the cases are disposed of by Probation, Recognizances, Dismissal, or committal to an Industrial School. Only in the number who were placed on Probation, and in the number whipped, is there any great variation since 1910 in statistics as to the manner in which cases were dealt with, as shown above. In the case of probation, in 1910 3,568 cases or 10·6 per cent. of the total dealt with, were so disposed of: in 1918, the number had risen to 5,868, or 11·8 per cent. of the total. A large rise is shown in the number who were whipped, _viz_:--1,562 in the former year, and 3,593 in the latter, or 11·9 and 13·1 per cent, respectively, of the total _convicted_. In 1913 (the latest figures available), 6,972 children and young persons, dealt with in Juvenile Courts, were committed to Places of Detention, 4,073 of whom were on remand, 1,910 to await removal to Industrial Schools, 11 to await trial, and 147 under sentence. Nearly sixty per cent. of the total cases were committed from the Metropolitan Police District and Liverpool. Public concern is not, however, only with the delinquent child. It is also with the many thousands of children who are the subject of physical or mental defect, or of insufficient care and supervision during the age of adolescence. During that period, after having left the public elementary schools, boys and girls are thrown into the outer world to earn what wages they can without regard either to the special aptitude they may possess, or to any security that the occupation they choose is one in which they have any chance of remaining permanently employed. It has become manifest to those dealing with young offenders on discharge from Prison, or other Institutions, that one of the principal causes leading to the commission of criminal acts is to be found in what is generally known as "blind-alley" employment, _i.e._, employment obtained casually and thoughtlessly by young persons on leaving school in which they cannot be maintained on attaining maturity.