ILLINOIS PENITENTIARY.--We understand that this institution is leased for a term of years to a person, who allows the State a certain sum for the labor of the convicts, &c. The report before us embraces the years 1851 and 1852. On the first of January, 1851, the prison contained 170 convicts. Since that time 38 have died, 41 have been pardoned, 1 has escaped, and 168 have been discharged by expiration of sentence--making the whole number discharged within the past two years, 248. During the same period, 295 have been received, and the whole number now in confinement is 207. Fourteen only were born in the State of Illinois! NEW STATE REFORM SCHOOL.--The Legislature of New Hampshire at its last June session, received a report from a Board of Commissioners for the establishment of a State Reform School, to be located in the town of Concord, the cost not to exceed $35,000, and to be planned for the accommodation of 300 boys, but finished at present for 120. An eligible site has been obtained, and we hope soon to hear that the institution is conferring wide and lasting benefits upon the community. JUVENILE OFFENDERS.--At the Somersetshire Sessions, held lately at Wells, England, an interesting discussion took place on the subject of the punishment and reformation of juvenile offenders. The subject was brought before the Court by the reading of a circular, in which the magistrates were called upon to adopt a memorial to the Marquis of Lansdowne on this important subject. Mr. Lloyd Baker said he had had the subject under his consideration for the last fifteen years, and he laid before the Court statistics referring to the criminal career of a number of youths at that moment confined in the Gloucester County Prison, showing that they had been, most of them, previously convicted once or twice; that this kind of punishment, instead of having a moral effect upon them, appeared only to have hardened them in crime by their coming in contact with other bad adult characters, and that their trial and imprisonment had cost the county from $75 to $100 a-piece. His argument was in favor of an entirely new system of juvenile reformation. He was followed by other magistrates, who spoke of the course imposed upon them, to sentence mere children to confinement in a prison, as a most unsatisfactory one. There was no moral effect in such punishments, but, on the contrary, the effect was to break down the first barrier to crime, and it was found that the shame of imprisonment was overcome. One of them expressed an opinion that what was wanted was a public receptacle for offenders of this class who were not properly "prisoners," but unfortunate individuals who, by neglect of their parents, had been led into error. He did not see why it should not be made compulsory upon such parents who so neglected their offspring as to lead them to crime, to