Indeed, there is no knowing where such a system will end, for if the children are suffered to go to such places, they may in time pledge that which does not belong to them; and so easy is the way of turning any article into money, that we find most young thieves, of both sexes, when apprehended, have some duplicates about them.

Those persons, therefore, who take pledges of children (contrary to the act of parliament, whether they know it or not,) ought to be severely reprimanded; for I am persuaded, that such conduct is productive of very great mischief indeed.
Taking children to _fairs_, is another thing which is also productive of much harm.

At the commencement of the first school, seventy or eighty children were frequently absent whenever there was a fair near London; but the parents were afterwards cured of this, and we seldom had above twenty absentees at fair-time.

Several of the children have told me that their parents wished to take them, but they requested to be permitted to come to school instead.

Indeed the parents, finding that they can enjoy themselves better without their children, are very willing to leave them at school.
It is a difficult matter to persuade grown persons of the impropriety of attending fairs, who have been accustomed to it when children; but children are easily persuaded from it; for if they are properly entertained at school, they will not have the least desire to go to such places.
I cannot quit this subject without relating one or two more very bad habits to which children are addicted, and which are, perhaps, fit subjects for the consideration of the _Mendicity Society_.