jectionable, even when they do not
quarrel.

They bump against the people, women included, especially young women.
They push respectable people into the gutters, and respectable people
complain to the police. An extra force is told off to keep order, and to
put Tom, Dick and Harry down.

Sunday night is the worst night of all! for now these youths are out
in their thousands; certain streets are given up to them, and become
impassable for others. Respectable folk are shocked, and church-going
folk are scandalised! Surely the streets are the property of respectable
people! and yet they cannot pass through them without annoyance.

At length the street is cleared and patrolled, for respectability must
be protected, not that there has been either violence or robbery. Oh
dear, no! There has only been foolish horse-play by the Toms, Dicks and
Harrys who, having nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do, having,
moreover, been joined by their female counterparts, have been enjoying
themselves in their own way, for they have been "at play."

It is astonishing how fond of water the unwashed children of the
underworld are! It has an attraction for them, often a fatal attraction,
even though it be thick with dirt and very malodorous. During the summer
time the boys' bathing lakes in Victoria Park are crowded and alive with
youngsters, who splash and flounder and choke, splutter and laugh
in them. They present a sight worth seeing, and teach a lesson worth
remembering.

The canals of Hoxton, Haggerston and Islington, too, dirty and dangerous
as they are, prove seductive to the boys who live close to them. Now the
police have an anxious time. Again they must look after Tom, Dick and
Harry, for demure respectability must not be outraged by a sight of
their naked bodies.

So the police keep a sharp outlook for them. Some one kindly informs
them that a dozen boys are bathing in the canal near a certain bridge,
and quickly enough they find them in the very act. There the little
savages are! Some can swim, and some cannot; those that cannot are
standing in the slime near the side, stirring up its nastiness. They see
the policeman advancing, and those that can swim get ashore and run
for their little bits of clothing, tied up in a bundle ready for
emergencies. Into the water again they go for the other side! But, alas!
another policeman is waiting on the other side at the place where they
expected to land, so they must needs swim t