is a favorite employment. There is something
to show, there, for one's labour. A boy who
has run away several times, is planting a
gate-post in the ground (assisted by a smaller
boy), and working with great energy. It is
remarkable of most of the boys that they
work, decidedly with a will, and "go at it"
in a manner cheering to behold. In another
field, passing the pond at which the boys have
fixed hours for bathing, we come to a field of
grass, in which some elder boys are mowing.
To become a mower, is to graduate with
honours in the Farm School.

It is now full noon, and at half-past twelve
the boys will dine; so, we cross fields, and
stiles, and brooks, again, to find the dining-
room. Meanwhile, the boys who are leaving
work, run on before us, and gambol about, and
roll over one another on the grass, with a
confidence in meeting with no check while
they do no wrong, which strongly inclines us
then and there to embrace the chaplain. In
a conversation relating to "Irish boys," and
the more errant of the sons and daughters of
Erin in general, we learn, "O yes, by the by,
we certainly have one steady careful Irish
boy here." On our expressing a desire to be
introduced to this phenomenon, he is called
up, but scarcely justifies his reputation;
having, that morning, "lost" his boots, and
provided himself with such an astonishing
pair of dilapidated canoes from some dung-
hill, that he drags a train of rotten leather,
a foot or so in length, at each of his heels.

The boys all dress like rustic labourers,
in thick field shoes and corduroy trousers,
which they learn to mend for themselves, in
shoemaking and tailoring shops erected on
the farm. They rise at the same time as the
labourers in the surrounding country, and live
on labourer's fare; eating meat only twice a
week. They are vigorous and healthy, thanks
to sufficient, though coarse, food, exercise, and
country air. About three cases of slight sickness
in a twelvemonth are all the ills of flesh
they know.

Though moral discipline and kindness—
a true spirit of religion—are relied upon
for the main work of reformation, corporal
punishment is not entirely taken from the
code. It is administered only as a last
resource; sometimes not once during six
months, and only by the chaplain himself
a week after the commission of the offence.
The ordinary punishments consist in the
subtraction of reward. For all the labour done
by them, the boys are paid a trifling price, at
a fixed scale, according to the nature of the
work; so that each earns from a penny to
eight-pence every week. Out of his earnings
he pays fines proportioned to the week's
offences. The balance in his favour is put
down as cash to his account; but, if the balance
be against him, he is put, according to the
amount of deficit, in a fourth or a fifth class,
and pays by eating bread instead of pudding,
and by other changes in the character of his
provisions. One week's losses are not carried
on against the next week's gains. Each week is
independent of all others. The money earned
in this way is not, of course, given to the
boy, but is spent in accordance with his wishes.
He will buy with it, perhaps, treacle to improve
his pudding, or the prerogative of setting up
his knife, which is the schoolboy's substitute
for setting up a carriage. Sometimes he will
ask leave to spend it on a visit to some
relative, or will save it up for months to pay
his mother's cost in coming down to see him
at Red Hill.

When offences pass beyond the fine and
the fifth class, there is an alternative of
solitary confinement for a short time,
accompanied with gentle admonition. Except in
cases that demand immediate care, the record
of the week's misdeeds is kept, and the misdeeds
remain to be accounted for, till Saturday
in every week; when, after dinner, the awards
are made.

While waiting for the dinner-time, we visit
the boys who are locked up in light separate
cells, for a few hours of reflection. One of them
is an Irish lad of sixteen or older, who, after a
quarrel on the previous night, decamped from
the establishment, and was recovered with a
coat in his possession that did not belong to
him. The coat he declared obstinately that he
had picked up, and no kind of reasoning would
make him tell another tale. We shared, for
some minutes, his confinement; and though he
was one of the most hopeless boys on the
establishment, he spoke kindly—in his absence
—of the chaplain, and recognised the good
feeling at Red Hill. He would like it, he
said, if there were not about three dozen boys,
who teazed him because he was Irish. That
was his view of the case. He was an orphan,
who had been thirteen or fourteen years away
from Ireland. His relatives were an uncle
and aunt in Liverpool, about whose occupations
he seemed unwilling to be communicative.

There is another boy, confined for general
idleness, and lying all along (and very like an
idle boy indeed) asleep on the cool floor, with
his head at the door, like a mat. He is young
—about ten—and small for his age. We have
seen that head, in prisons, many a time. A
sullen, lowering, overhanging, beetle-browed,
heavy head, with confused eyes in it that will
look anywhere rather than at other eyes. As
the chaplain turns it up towards him by the
chin, and says a word or two of gentle
remonstrance, there is no hope in it—very little
accountability—no more power of straight
thinking than there is of straight-walking in
a twisted foot. Touching the difficulty into
which this head has got itself and society, we
would rather advise with our good friend Dr.
Conolly, than with the quarter sessions.

There is another boy, for a graver offence.
Being at work in the carpenter's shop, he
pocketed a knife, and so from good repute is
brought to cellular disgrace. The carpenter
to whom we spoke about it just now, as