PETITION.

To the General Assembly of Maryland:

The Board of Managers of the House of Refuge for Juvenile
delinquents, respectfully ask leave to present to your honorable
body that, by the Act, Ch. 288, passed March 8th, 1856, the
annual sum of ten thousand dollars, for the term of five years,
was appropriated "for the aid, benefit and support" of said Institu-
tion. This sum was less than was asked for, and was known to
be necessary for the purpose, but the board accepted the dona-
tion gratefully.

After many and painful struggles, the Board succeeded in being
able to open the house for the reception of inmates, December, 1855.
All this was effected without receiving one cent from the State
treasury, although the Refuge is emphatically a State Institution,
represented in its Board of Managers, by appointees of the State.
Children from every county, by law, being made receivable, an
annual report of their condition, to your honorable body, being
required, and its object being essentially one in which the whole
commonwealth is most deeply interested, and upon the soundest
principles of public economy. The former reports of the Board,
have presented this point to the attention of the Legislature more
largely than it is now intended to do, but it may be briefly said,
that the delinquents placed by statute under our guardianship,
are members of the State. As minors, it is true, that they are
not yet entitled to the privileges of the adult, but they are never-
theless a part of its citizenship, and have a claim upon the care
of the State; it is on this plea that we ask for them the protec-
tion and support of the public authorities, and then, when by a
practical recognition of this plea, these delinquents are placed
under proper restraints, and by secular and moral instruction and
employment and discipline, and thus reclaimed from their habits
of vice and crime—the State receives the benefit, inasmuch as
society is made more secure in its peace and property, while, at
the same time, the supply of the jail and penitentiary, is cut off
at the very fountain head, and thus the cost to the State as a
mere matter of dollars and cents, is lessened to a degree that few
appreciate.