ning fact that the competition that robs it of its market comes from
the prisons, to block the doors of which the Society expends all its
energies--the prisons of other States than our own at that. The managers
have a good word to say for the trades unions, which have been very kind
to them, they say, in this matter of brushes, trying to help the boys, but
without much success. The shop is able to employ only a small fraction of
the number it might benefit, were it able to dispose of its wares readily.
Despite their misfortunes the cripples manage to pick up and enjoy the
good things they find in their path as they hobble through life. Last year
they challenged the other crippled boys in the hospital on Randall's
Island to a champion game of base-ball, and beat them on their crutches
with a score of 42 to 31. The game was played on the hospital lawn, before
an enthusiastic crowd of wrecks, young and old, and must have been a sight
to see.

A worse snag than the competition of the prisons is struck by the Society
in the cheap Bowery lodging-houses--"hotels" they are called--that attract
the homeless boys with their greater promise of freedom. There are no
troublesome rules to obey there, no hours to keep, and very little to pay.
An ordinance of the Health Department, which exercises jurisdiction over
those houses, prohibits the admission of boys under sixteen years old, but
the prohibition is easily evaded, and many slip in to encounter there the
worst of all company for such as they. The lowest of these houses, that
are also the cheapest and therefore the ones the boys patronize, are the
nightly rendezvous of thieves and, as the police have more than once
pointed out, murderers as well. There should be a much stricter
supervision over them--supervision by the police as well as by the health
officers--and the age limit should be put at eighteen years instead of
sixteen. There is this much to be said for the lodging-houses, however,
that it is a ticklish subject to approach until the city as a municipality
has swept before its own door. They at least offer a bed, such as it is,
and shelter after their fashion. The hospitality the city offers to its
homeless poor in the police-station lodging-rooms is one of the scandals
of a civilized age. The moral degradation of an enforced stay in these
dens is immeasurable. To say that they are the resort of tramps and "bums"
who know and deserve nothing better, is begging the question.