ON ROAD TO CRIME.

Auckland Star, 2 September 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

ON ROAD TO CRIME.

VAGABONDS' SEMINARY. REHABILITATION MOVE. SCHOOL TO SAVE YOUTH. Tramping the highways of Great Britain are 50,000 vagrants—men with no definite objective in life, ready for any mischief that may suggest itself —and 2000 of them are boys under 21. So says Mr. Frank Gray, and he ought to know, for he runs a public school for them. It may not be a eeat of high learning, but it is strong enough on sport, cricket, ewimming, boxing and ping-pong. And the competition for the honour of "cockhouse" is intense. A Pressman paid a visit to Gray House, this seminary for vagabonds at Bicester. It ha 6 been going since last February, and it has turned out SO graduates already. But not all of them have been an honour to the school. Mr. Gra3', the head and founder, knows his tramps, for he has walked the_roads of England and put up at the casual wards with the real hobos. And out of his toil and pains came the idea of the "school" to save youth from the lawless life of the open road —and the prisons. Contaminated by Criminals. His idea is that the youths ought not to go to the casual wards and be contaminated by association with hardened criminals, but have a place apart. Hence Gray House, which is a segregated portion of the Biceeter casual ward. Twentyfive lads are usually there, and they came from Scotland, the Midlands, Ireland and tho South of England. They are a floating population, for jobs are regularly being found for them. Ton of them were weeding and waterin", in the big market garden, produce of which is trucked into Oxford and sold. Two were in a yard breaking up motorcars for sale as scrap. Others were turning rough timber into garden seats, making door mats from inner tubes, and turning out concrete building blocks. The kitchen staff—all boys of the jjouse—were preparing tea and discussing the chances of a win in the cricket match against a village team. They seemed reclaimed and happy youths. But Mr. Gray is wise from long experience. He told of one boy on whom he staked his

reputation—a clever youth. who became a grand cook, went out to a job in an hotel and, in a month or two, had his wages raised and was on hie way to becoming a chef. Then he reverted to his old game —the cracking of automatic machines. He wae caught. But Mr. Gray doesn't get disheartened. "I like to think that 40 per cent of the boj r s who leave are making good," he said.

'Way down in Texas there is a negro who thinks that to say " the law is an ass " is putting it too politely. He got six yeare for stealing six cents.(3V£d). " I reckon it's because of this inflation they're talking about," ho grumbled.