The inquiry of chief interest, however, relates to _character_. What has been his career up to this time? Who have been his associates? To what species of crime has he been chiefly addicted? Has he, in the fury of unbridled passion, attempted the life of another? of his parent, or associate, or enemy? Has he deliberately forged another’s name? Has he been familiar with scenes of outrage and tumult? Is he a frequenter of the haunts of infamy? Has he good fellowship with a large circle of like characters with himself? These questions, or any of them, if answered affirmatively, would go far to turn the scale against his admission. The acts we have supposed, indicate in the perpetrator of them, a confirmed habit or propensity, which may, perhaps, be corrected; but not by the ordinary discipline of a proper House of Refuge. Nor should the attempt be made to employ it on so unpromising a subject, at the risk of introducing more evil than we can possibly hope to prevent. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive any good reason why a burglar or incendiary at sixteen, should be called a “delinquent,” and put to school, while the same grade of criminals at twenty, are called convicts, and sent to the penitentiary. Age, by itself, is a very unsafe criterion by which to determine the turpitude of crime or the appropriateness of punishment. We do not say that no cases of this class can occur, in which the admission of the party to a House of Refuge, would be expedient; but, as a general thing, we should be disposed to confine its benign influence to those whose proclivity to a criminal career is but feebly though decidedly developed; whose delinquencies exist rather in an impatience or contempt of domestic restraints, than in deliberate violations of public law. The discipline, as well as the construction of Refuge-buildings and the usual means of safe custody, evidently contemplate a very young class of boys and girls, say from eight to twelve years of age, who may be incorrigible truants, disobedient to parents, insubordinate to masters, petty thieves, street-strollers, without a home or worse,--uneducated, unaccustomed to any kind of restraint. Such youth come under the discipline of an establishment, like our Houses of Refuge, with a prospect of great advantage.