persons that I address my concluding words, Mr. Plausible, wishing you nothing worse than that you may live long enough to see the new system in full operation, and be forced to give it a grudging grumbling support."

Thank God we have a public anxious to aid the progress of humanity; and their earnest opinion, though it may take some time to form, and to assume a settled shape and straightforward course, is sure in the end to overrule the plausible objections of old fashioned formality and bigoted resistance.

The general principles of all reformatory institutions in America and Europe are much the same. The fact of any offence committed, or of complete friendlessness and destitution, or, in some cases, an application by guardians on account of a child's ungovernable disposition, is deemed sufficient cause for handing over the delinquent to the care of the Institution, there to remain until he has acquired good principles and habits. He is regularly trained to some course of industry, the care of the Institution ceasing only when he is settled to an honest course of life, and safe from all danger of relapse.

The employment of such persons must vary according to the circumstances of countries. In America and on the Continent boys are usually trained to trades and agriculture. In England a number of them might, we should think, be advantageously received into the army and navy. It should be distinctly understood, that as they are adopted by society, they must be employed in a manner most advantageous for the interests of society. As they are rescued from a worse position than that filled by the children of the honest labourer, they have certainly no claim to begin life on a better footing than them. Decent occupation of the humblest kind is all they should be taught to expect.

On one point all the reports of these reformatory schools agree, that both the boys and girls trained in them become useful, contented, orderly members of society. Not only are they saved from evil, but they are converted to good. Their lives are a blessing to themselves, and a benefit to the community. Let any one contrast the cheerful, honest characters turned out by these societies with the much-whipped, oft-imprisoned, half-starved, confirmed criminals sent forth by our gaols, and say which system-even on grounds of policy-is best entitled to support.

It is a remarkable fact that in every instance, so far as our knowledge extends, these reformatory institutions owe their origin to private benevolence and not to state provision. When their admirable results are made apparent, they have usually been largely assisted by Government aid; but in the first instance they have arisen from social wisdom and philanthropy. This is significant as

to the direction whence we must look for improvement. We doubt the advantage of commencing these institutions on a large scale, or of making it compulsory on rate-payers to support them. sure that there is enough public spirit of the right kind among us to render a beginning by voluntary effort practicable; and we are inclined to think that a private association would be more likely to establish correct and humane principles of management, steering clear altogether of anything resembling penal discipline, than officers directly responsible to Government. The first want, it strikes us, is an act giving discretionary power to magistrates and judges to consign young criminals to the care of reformatory institutions which have given approved securities for their due regulation. Parliamentary grants and local rates might follow in proportion as these institutions were successful and proved themselves worthy of support. As their good effects become apparent, we have no doubt they would wholly supersede the barbarous, inhuman, and worse than useless penal system which at present, to our shame, exists.

In wealthy, intelligent, busy, inventive, Christian England a cruel evil calls aloud for redress. Let us trust that the cry will not long remain unheeded, but that some of those individuals, equally humane and influential, whom it is our happiness to rank amongst our citizens, will combine at last to make an efficient commencement in the great good work of thoroughly reforming the whole spirit and manner of our dealing with juvenile delinquency.

THE FEMALE DRESSER AT A MINOR THEATRE.

(A Thumbnail Portrait.)

(For a Miniature Gallery.)

BY HORACE MAYHEW.

BLACK, slouching, stooping, with battered bonnet, and shoes down at heel, she slinks in and out of the stage-door of a theatre, like the ghost that flits through the pages of one of Mrs. Barbauld's romances. Look at her as she slipshods her wiry way in through that dirty door, cartooned with play bills. Can you mistake her? You cannot possibly imagine she is an actress. Does she look as if she belonged to the ballet? Can you fancy that long bundle of mouldy rags a Fairy, with snowy muslin petticoats and silver wings? No! she wouldn't be allowed to go on as a fishfag, even, in a pantomime to pelt the policemen with mackerel. She has nothing to do with the theatre further than dressing the pretty painted Juliets and Jessicas that make the audience laugh or cry. As for the audience, she never sees it, and the audience never sees her.

Her invisibility, however, before the curtain, is amply compensated for by her utility behind it. To the actresses she is invaluable. Half of their stage beauty they owe to her. The charms of their glittering dresses are plaited by her smoothing care, and even the blooming roses on their cheeks are frequently sown by her floricultural hand. She does it all mechanically, anything but vaingloriously, without as much as a line, red or black, in the bills, without even a thought ever crossing her dingy mind as to the vanity of the life she is lending her time and hare's-foot to!

Let us run through her numerous duties. They are as long as a lawyer's bill. Don Giovanni's conquests do not present a more numerous catalogue. She hooks and eyes the dresses of the actresses. She executes their errands. She feeds all their little whims and appetites, and is ready at a moment's notice to run round the corner if they should want anything. Run?-no-it can scarcely be called running, for the dresser is generally rheumatic, and ill-tempered, too (and ill-tempered people never run, unless it is after a person for the sake of dealing him a kick or a blow); but still, it is strange, her limbs, as well as her sympathies, move wonderfully quick at the electric touch of silver. Her movements require some such touch as that to speed them on, for every one is calling for her at the same time, and it is, of course,

impossible for her to oblige every one. Nevertheless every one is "a dear" with her who can afford to pay for it; but, naturally, her favourite is the actress who pays the best. For her she will, good creature, do anything. She fetches the billets-doux and the messages and bouquets that have been left for her at the stage door. She will run out in the rain and bring anything she requires, and "Lor bless you! don't want anything for it." What soft whispers she pours into her ear when she comes back! She has seen some one outside waiting for her "pet;" but the rest is communicated in a long breath of confidential whispers.

She is all mystery, like a Victoria melodrama, like a tea-table of old maids when a fresh faux pas is being discussed. Her voice, whether from a prolonged cold or a life-habit of whispering, rarely rises above the intra-oral tone of a secret. You would imagine she had been speaking all her life through a key-hole, or had been the celebrated whisperer who is engaged for the elegancies of mural conversation at the whispering gallery of St. Paul's.

This inveterate mystery haunts, shrouds every one of her actions. Her feet are even more dumb than her voice. She steals into a theatre, and steals out of it, like a long thin ray of black bombazeen. Her caution is worthy of a Minister for Foreign Affairs. She will not bring in a glass of cold water excepting under her apron. She is unpleasantly superstitious, and sees coffins in cinders, winding-sheets in coals, corpses in candles, and black omens in everything. She can tell you from a consultation with her coffee cup a prophecy founded upon the very best grounds-that "the season will be over in a week." Listen to her, and she will make the most sanguine lady that ever went upon the stage in the hopes of proving herself cleverer than Miss Woolgar, or of eclipsing Mrs. Nesbitt, wish herself back again at school, working bead braces for the handsome pet parson of the parish. She's been in the theatre now, on and off, these five-and-twenty years, and, "mind, she tells you, for she can see very plainly how things are going on, there won't be no salaries paid on Saturday." She then inquires whether you do not feel very faint? and no wonder when you are worked to death in that dreadful way-she wouldn't stand it-three pieces every night-she would see every blessed manager at the bottom of the Red Sea first night-it's too bad! She fairly wonders, that she does, that you're not regularly knocked up; and then, whiningly (only there is rather more water than whine in it), she calls you her" poor child." These bitter gushes of consolation reach at last their highest gushing point by her inquiring, in the tenderest tone of sneakishness, whether" she can't get you something-something nice and warm, dear?" and if the delicate hint is responded to (and if salaries have been paid lately, it generally is) the steaming

article is smuggled in under the said black apron, which has really all the expansiveness of charity in the multitude of things (we cannot call them sins) it covers.

With what a masterly air-how her dead, fishy eyes sparkle-as she stirs up this" something nice and warm." She is in her glory. An air of happiness seems to shine round her, like light round a glow-worm. She takes a sip, stirs it again, then hands it to the poor actress, accompanied with the sweetest assurance that "it will do her a world of good." The dresser, however, is most discreet. One of Hobbs' locks is not more difficult to pick than a secret out of her lips. Ask her for whom the something "nice and warm" is intended, her answer will be "only for a poor dear soul who feels very poorly." This discretion is generally rewarded by the "change" finding its way into her pocket, which, by the by, is about as big as a kangaroo's pouch, and, full as it generally is, there always seems, like a carpet-bag, to be room for something else in it.

But, poor melancholy creature! she needs these stray gifts badly enough, for she is always ailing. To believe her she is always ailing; she is never without the toothache, or the spasms (oh! those dreadful spasms! and the innumerable drops of brandy that are thrown upon the raging fire of the pain to allay it!) or her corns trouble her, or she has got "an awful sinking," whatever that may be, or else she is troubled with a bad pain in her side; and to silence these ailments she is always referring to a stone bottle, which seems to contain a white liquid, and which she secretes, like a talisman, about her person. Summer or winter, she's always "dreadful low to be sure;" but if it is raining her spirits sink lower than ever, under the damp prospect of a walk home, and she unrolls before her little auditory a long panorama, that is most moving in its details, of all the distresses, pecuniary and legal,. that have occurred in the theatre since she has known it. She horrifies them with the hair-breadth escapes of the managers, and their elopements with the cash-box through the pit entrance, as the officers in question have entered through the stage-door. To comfort them still further, she points out the very spot where poor Miss Clara de Montmorenci (though that was'nt her real name) sat for three hours on her little bundle, that contained her shoes and things, in order to hide it from the rude grasp of "those brutes of officers." She flies, like an owl, from one dark spot to another, hooting and croaking in her flight, and terrifies her "dear young ladies" to that extent that they do not know where they are, and are fined for keeping the stage waiting.

The dresser is almost the last in the theatre, for she is bound to