could be trusted to go into Bristol on messages, and even “thievish girls” could be sent out to shops with money, which they never thought of appropriating. But although the success of the institution was so gratifying, it had no legal sanction; it had consequently no power to deal with runaways, and the great mass of juvenile delinquents were still sentenced to prisons, from which they emerged, like the man into whom seven devils entered, in a state far worse than their first. Mary Carpenter’s work was not only to prove the success of her methods of dealing with young criminals, but, secondly, to convince the Government that the established system was a bad one, and thirdly, and most difficult of all, to get them to legislate on the subject. A long history of her efforts to obtain satisfactory legislation for children of the perishing and dangerous classes is given in her life, written by her nephew, Mr. J. Estlin Carpenter. It is enough here to say that in the House of Lords, Lord Shaftesbury, and in the House of Commons, Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr. Adderley (afterwards Lord Iddesleigh and Lord Norton), were her chief supporters. Mr. Lowe (now Lord Sherbrooke) was her chief opposer. Liberal as she was, born and bred, as well as by heart’s conviction, she confessed with some feeling of shame, that the Tories “are best in _this_ work.” At last, in 1854, her efforts were crowned with success, and the Royal Assent was given to the Youthful Offenders Bill, which authorised the establishment of reformatory schools, under the sanction of the Home Secretary.