H.—2l.

98

[f. p. fendall.

4. Was that the girl A G ?—Yes. 5. Did you know anything about her character or record at the time when you accepted her as an authority?—l knew she had been, in the Samaritan Home. 6. Did you know she had been committed to this Home by Mr. Bishop?—l understood that, 7. Did you find out what sort of a character she was? —I understood she had been troublesome, but 1 did not know what she had been before. 8. Where did you see the girl?—At the Addington Vicarage. 9. Did you go to see her for that purpose?— No. I was visiting in the ordinary way. 10. Was your letter written at the vicarage? —No. 11. Did you show it to Mrs. Bean?—l showed it to no one but the editor. 12. You know that the punishments administered here are prescribed by regulations?— J knew it is the custom of the Department for all punishments to be registered and reported to the Department. 13. Did you know they could not be given at all except by virtue of the regulations?— That is what I understood to be the case. 14. So they were regulations, of course, which were framed by the Government of which Mr. Seddon was the head? —Yes. 15. Now, the punishment prescribed for serious offences is twelve strokes with the strap, which is very much the same as the punishment given in the primary schools? —I do not know anything about fhe limit. 16. If I am right in my reading that the savagery of the slave-owners of America in their treatment of their black men was something inhuman, do you suggest that the punishment inflicted here under the regulations, drawn up by the Government of which Mr. Seddon was the head, has any analogy whatever with the treatment meted out by the slave-owners of America to their slaves? —1 certainly cannot see that anything is going to result from it of benefit to the individual. 1 cannot see but that it savours of savagery. It is a savage way of dealing with the individual. 17. Do you say that twelve strokes with a strap suggest anything like the barbarous cruelties inflicted in the dark ages? Did you not go rather further than you intended? —I do not say the same. . It is not of the same severity, and may not have the same detrimental effect upon the individual, but it may be the same in kind. 18. Would that not apply to every bit of punishment prescribed for the primary schools?— I think a good deal depends on the age of the individuals. 19. You say that the methods savour of the savagery of some of the slave-owners of American notoriety. That is to say, you place Mrs. Branting and the people who have to administer these regulations on the same footing as the slave-owners of America?—No; I have nothing to do with Mrs. Branting. It was not in my mind to make any reflection on Mrs. Branting. It was the Department I held responsible for the punishment. 20. Do you suggest no punishment at all should be inflicted on sixty bad girls?—lt is the particular kind of punishment. I had in my mind the thought that the cutting-off of a girl's hair is a species of mutilation. We have a right to our own bodily natures, and no one has a right to deprive us of them. 21. You spoke here of two girls hiding in a loft. Were you aware that these girls had seduced four or five other girls to go with them that night?—l understood several contemplated escaping. 22. Did you know these girls had arranged to go to a bad house?— No. 23. Would it have made any difference in your opinion had you known these facts? —Not as to the administration of that punishment. 24. How would you suggest they should be punished ?—I think there are other ways —the deprivation of pleasures. 25. What pleasures?—J imagine from what I have heard to-day that very considerable pleasures are extended to the children, and to be deprived of these would bo a very real punishment. 26. Now, we had letters put. in from one girl particularly who said that it was the punishment of the strap that deterred her from running away?— You may deter a girl and you m a y cow her, but my letter says that the end before us is to improve her character. While you may cow her for a time you do not improve her character permanently. 27. I think once before you very properly took up some case of a boy at Burnham, and wrote to the Department about it, and Mr. Pope saw- you on the subject and satisfied you. Do you remember that ?—Yes. 28. Why did you not adopt the same course in this case?—ln this case, if the Department had sanctioned t]iis punishment, as I had every right to suppose they had, the only way I could conceive of bringing pressure to bear upon them was through public opinion. 29. Why did you not ask the Department if this was true, or go to the Matron and ascertain what these girls, had done, and then consider whether the punishment was too seyere or not? —I do not admit that punishment should be given for that offence. 30. Do you know from general results that the training here makes an immense improvement in the worst girls?—l have had no opportunity of judging. I know a brother-clergyman had one of the girls, apd he said she was absolutely impervious to kindness. That is the closest contact 1 have had with them. 31. Have you any further information that will help the Commission in any way? —Absolutely none. 32. Mr. Salter.] A G told us that the information she gave to you was volunteered by her to you in Mr. Bean's dining-room. That is correct?— Yes. 33. Do you know Miss Howden?—No. 34. Then, she has never given you any information '/-—-None whatever. 35. T may say that the information which A—i — G gave to you was perfectly correct; — that this girl did receive twelve strokes, and knowing the way in which this punishment is inflicted you say, in yoilf opinion, it was barbarous?—l do.