Appalling as the _effects_ of juvenile delinquency are, I think we may
discover a principal cause of them in the present condition and habits
of the adult part of the labouring classes. We shall find, very
frequently, that infant crime is the only natural produce of evil,
by the infallible means of precept and example. I do not intend to
assert, that the majority of parents amongst the poor, actually
encourage their children in the commission of theft; we may, indeed,
fear that some do; as in the instance of the two little girls detected
in shop-lifting, whose case was detailed in the preceding chapter; but
still, I should hope that such facts are not frequent. If, however,
they do not give them positive encouragement in pilfering, the example
they set is often calculated to deprave the heart of the child, and,
amongst other evil consequences, to induce dishonesty; whilst in other
cases we find, that from peculiar circumstances the child is deprived,
during the whole day, of the controling presence of a parent, and is
exposed to all the poisonous contamination which the streets of large
cities afford; and hence appears another cause of evil. Here children
come in contact with maturer vice, and are often drawn by its
influence from the paths of innocence; as we have already seen in
many instances. What resistance can the infant make to the insidious
serpents, which thus, as it, were, steal into its cradle, and infuse
their poison into its soul? The guardians of its helplessness are
heedless or unconscious of its danger, and, alas! it has not the
fabled strength of the infant Hercules to crush its venomous
assailants. Surely such a view of the frequent origin of crime must
awaken our commiseration for its miserable victims, and excite in us a
desire to become the defenders of the unprotected.

It will, however, be said by some, "Where are the natural guardians of
the child? Where are its parents? Are we to encourage their neglect