He was, however, wearing prison socks and shoes.
This showed that he was a very poor boy, whose own shoes, if he had any, were in a bad state.

Justices and magistrates, an entirely ignorant class as a rule, often remand children for a week, and then perhaps remit whatever sentence they are entitled to pass.

They call this 'not sending a child to prison.' It is of course a stupid view on their part.
To a little child, whether he is in prison on remand or after conviction is not a subtlety of position he can comprehend.

To him the horrible thing is to be there at all.

In the eyes of humanity it should be a horrible thing for him to be there at all.
"This terror that seizes and dominates the child, as it seizes the grown man also, is of course intensified beyond power of expression by the solitary cellular system of our prisons.