hio, the best type of
Americans, whom we boast to be the backbone of our cities. The mother,
who has aged and sickened since the trial, can only say that "Davie
was never a bad boy until about five years ago when he began to go
with this gang who are always looking out for fun."

Then there are those piteous cases due to a perfervid imagination
which fails to find material suited to its demands. I can recall
misadventures of children living within a few blocks of Hull-House
which may well fill with chagrin those of us who are trying to
administer to their deeper needs. I remember a Greek boy of fifteen
who was arrested for attempting to hang a young Turk, stirred by some
vague notion of carrying on a traditional warfare, and of adding
another page to the heroic annals of Greek history. When sifted, the
incident amounted to little more than a graphic threat and the lad was
dismissed by the court, covered with confusion and remorse that he had
brought disgrace upon the name of Greece when he had hoped to add to
its glory.

I remember with a lump in my throat the Bohemian boy of thirteen who
committed suicide because he could not "make good" in school, and
wished to show that he too had "the stuff" in him, as stated in the
piteous little letter left behind. This same love of excitement, the
desire to jump out of the humdrum experience of life, also induces
boys to experiment with drinks and drugs to a surprising extent. For
several years the residents of Hull-House struggled with the
difficulty of prohibiting the sale of cocaine to minors under a
totally inadequate code of legislation, which has at last happily been
changed to one more effective and enforcible. The long effort brought
us into contact with dozens of boys who had become victims of the
cocaine habit. The first group of these boys was discovered in the
house of "Army George." This one-armed man sold cocaine on the streets
and also in the levee district by a system of signals so that the word
cocaine need never be mentioned, and the style and size of the package
was changed so often that even a vigilant police found it hard to
locate it. What could be more exciting to a lad than a traffic in a
contraband article, carried on in this mysterious fashion? I recall
our experience with a gang of boys living on a neighboring street.
There were eight of them altogether, the eldest seventeen years of
age, the youngest thirteen, and they practically lived the life of