A LONDON SCHOOL SCANDAL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6511, 9 January 1882, Page 5

A LONDON SCHOOL SCANDAL.

DETESTABLE CONDUCT OE A SOHOOLMASTBB, A more atrocious scandal has not lately been dragged to light than that connected with the St Paul’s Industrial School, in the East of London, concerning which a Special Committee of Inquiry has been sitting for some days at the offices of the School Board for London. The inquiry has brought out a string of barrowing and heartrending stories of systematic cruelty and cowardly tyranny exercised by the officials of that school over the small boys placed under their charge, which cannot be read without burning indignation and shame, and it has also brought to light a record of failure in supervision and inspection which will certainly make the believers in the infallibility of School Boards and School Board arrangements mb their eyes with astonishment. For the last five or six years there has been no meeting of “ managers ” of the school, and although Mr Thomas Scrutton and the Government Inspectors paid occasional visits, the school seems practically to have been left to tbe management of the Superintendent, a man named Hinchcliffe, and his assistants. Under this administration a state of things was brought about compared with which that at “ Dotheboys Hall,” as described in “ Nicholas NicMeby,” seems to have been only moderately bad, if not actually merciful. The unfortunate boys of St Paul’s Industrial School—placed there, forsooth! that they might be rescued from the danger of falling into criminal ways—seem to have been kept at starvation point, and to appease their ravenous hunger stole even the bread given to the house-dog; they were mercilessly beaten even for trivial offences, and were condemned to a scanty allowance of bread and water and to imprisonment in a dark cell, on very slight provocation. Such food as they had was served with disgusting negligence; their clothes were ragged and dirty; they slept on hard iron bedsteads, and everything about them bore witness to the same miserable and shameful disregard of the commonest comforts and necessities of child-life. It is stated that one poor child, who was ill, being unable to complete his allotted task of sack-making, was beaten with a birch rod the very day before he died. Another boy took poison to escape the torture and oppression to which he was subjected by the officers in charge of the school. At length, however, Mrs Burr, a member of the London School Board, had her attention and her suspicions aroused with respect to this institution, and she has persisted in her demand for enquiry and for reformation with an energy and determination which deserve the warmest acknowledgment. The School Board seems at first to have been strangely indisposed to take action in the matter, and Mrs Surr carried her case to the Home Office, and succeeded in getting an order for inquiry. Meantime an event occurred which gave a startling impetus to public and official interest in this matter. Some of the boys of the school, driven by misery and despair, attempted to set fire to the building, and for this offence the superintendent, Hinchcliffe, had the audacity to bring eight of them before a magistrate, and thus to court an investigation of his own conduct and that of those associated with him. The story told before the magistrate, and ultimately before Mr Justice Hawkins, led to some emphatic remarks by those gentlemen on the state of the institution thus brought under their notice. The Home Secretary, after his inquiry, sent an order for the removal of the superintendent and the thorough reorganisation of the school and of the system under which it has been managed. The special Committee appointed by the School Board have just brought their inquiry to a close, after hearing a statement from Sir Scrutton to the effect that “ though the evidence adduced and adduoible was conflicting.” u many grave irregularities had occurred without the knowledge of the managers,” and acknowledging the necessity for a change of staff and entire reorganisation. The Home Secretary, however, it is unde, stood, is arranging for a criminal prosecution. Meanwhile he has resolved to withdraw the official certificate from the institution. It will, therefore, be closed and the children removed.