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Show CRIME IN IRELAND. The report of the prison board, says the Dublin Freeman's Journal, continues the story of the decline de-cline of crime in Ireland. There were only 249 convicts con-victs in the Irish prisons on the 1st of January, as compared with 464 on Jan. 1, 1596, and 893 on Jan. 3, 1S81. There v;as a decrease of a hundred in the committals of all classes. The only unsatisfactory feature was the increase in the number of juveniles convicted. The number under 36 years of age went up from 13, to 192.' The decrease in this class of offenders had been steady and uninterrupted down to 1899, the year following Lord Cadogan's ill-judged ill-judged and illegal tampering with the administration administra-tion of the industrial schools act in the interest of a few pounds of treasury savings. Last year the number was higher than that in 3899. But the number of juvenile criminals is also greater on account ac-count of the indefensible actiou of the magistracy. The prisons board have again to repeat their complaint that magistrates do not make use of their powers under the juvenile offenders' act to avoid sending children to jail. "It is disappointing to find so many juvenile offenders - imprisoned." The board gave a list of cases. The worst came from Cork. No fewer than eight children between the ages of 9 and 11 1-2 were sent to jail from Cork in 3903 for "obstructing the footway." In Galway a little girl of 10 was sent to jail for seven days for trespass ! Is it too much to say that the magistrates who did these things should get a many months as these children got days in prison ? r - - 1 |