ment they are all, save one, doing
well, although they were rescued so late that they seemed to have but
little chance. One is still struggling with the appetite on an Iowa
farm and dares not trust himself in the city because he knows too well
how cocaine may be procured in spite of better legislation. It is
doubtful whether these boys could ever have been pulled through unless
they had been allowed to keep together through the hospital and
convalescing period,--unless we had been able to utilize the gang
spirit and to turn its collective force towards overcoming the desire
for the drug.

The desire to dream and see visions also plays an important part with
the boys who habitually use cocaine. I recall a small hut used by boys
for this purpose. They washed dishes in a neighboring restaurant and
as soon as they had earned a few cents they invested in cocaine which
they kept pinned underneath their suspenders. When they had
accumulated enough for a real debauch they went to this hut and for
several days were dead to the outside world. One boy told me that in
his dreams he saw large rooms paved with gold and silver money, the
walls papered with greenbacks, and that he took away in buckets all
that he could carry.

This desire for adventure also seizes girls. A group of girls ranging
in age from twelve to seventeen was discovered in Chicago last June,
two of whom were being trained by older women to open tills in small
shops, to pick pockets, to remove handkerchiefs, furs and purses and
to lift merchandise from the counters of department stores. All the
articles stolen were at once taken to their teachers and the girls
themselves received no remuneration, except occasional sprees to the
theaters or other places of amusement. The girls gave no coherent
reason for their actions beyond the statement that they liked the
excitement and the fun of it. Doubtless to the thrill of danger was
added the pleasure and interest of being daily in the shops and the
glitter of "down town." The boys are more indifferent to this downtown
life, and are apt to carry on their adventures on the docks, the
railroad tracks or best of all upon the unoccupied prairie.

This inveterate demand of youth that life shall afford a large element
of excitement is in a measure well founded. We know of course that it
is necessary to accept excitement as an inevitable part of recreation,
that the first step in recreation is "that excitement which stirs the