ght way and but the single strand broken,
what then of the other?

Mike's was the day of Irish heroics. Since their scene was shifted from
the East Side, there has come over there an epidemic of child crime of
meaner sort, but following the same principle of gang organization. It
is difficult to ascertain the exact extent of it, because of the
well-meant but, I am inclined to think, mistaken effort on the part oL
the children's societies to suppress the record of it for the sake of
the boy. Enough testimony comes from the police and the courts, however,
to make it clear that thieving is largely on the increase among the
East Side boys. And it is amazing at what an early age it begins. When,
in the fight for a truant school, I had occasion to gather statistics
upon this subject, to meet the sneer of the educational authorities that
the "crimes" of street boys compassed at worst the theft of a top or a
marble, I found among 278 prisoners, of whom I had kept the run for ten
months, two boys, of four and eight years respectively, arrested for
breaking into a grocery, not to get candy or prunes, but to rob the
till. The little one was useful to "crawl through a small hole." There
were "burglars" of six and seven years; and five in a bunch, the whole
gang apparently, at the age of eight. "Wild" boys began to appear in
court at that age. At eleven, I had seven thieves, two of whom had a
record on the police blotter, and an "habitual liar"; at twelve, I had
four burglars, three ordinary thieves, two arrested for drunkenness,
three for assault, and three incendiaries; at thirteen, five burglars,
one with a "record," as many thieves, one "drunk," five charged with
assault and one with forgery; at fourteen, eleven thieves and
housebreakers, six highway robbers,--the gang on its unlucky day,
perhaps,--and ten arrested for fighting, not counting one who had
assaulted a policeman, in a state of drunken frenzy. One of the gangs
made a specialty of stealing baby carriages, when they were left
unattended in front of stores. They "drapped the kids in the hallway"
and "sneaked" the carriages. And so on. The recital was not a pleasant
one, but it was effective. We got our truant school, and one way that
led to the jail was blocked.

[Illustration: Craps.]

It may be that the leader is neither thief nor thug, but ambitious. In
that case the gang is headed for politics by the shortest route.
Likewise, sometimes, when he is both. In either