These boys are often taken in hand by professional burglars, who use them to keep watch, posting one of them as a sentry, perhaps employing another to squeeze through some small aperture and open the doors of the place to be burglarized, for the fact of their whole lives being passed upon the streets their education is of that character which tends to make them quick, bright, smart and skillful in all things, and, when added to natural gifts of intelligence, render them very dangerous as thieves or thieves' assistants. Readers of Charles Dickens will recall, in this connection, the use to which burglar Bill Sykes applied little Oliver Twist. Many of these gamins have houses under the docks. The floor is laid just above high-water mark. It is boarded in on all sides with lumber stolen, day by day, from adjoining yards. Here they pass their leisure time in comparative safety and quiet, and considerable comfort, as the whole gang contribute to furnishing up the club-rooms. Stoves, chairs, tables, benches, and other evidences of taste, are to be found there, and an occasional cheap picture, circus bill or flash theatrical poster ornaments the sides of this not uncomfortable place. Here the members play cards, dice and other games, drink beer, smoke and otherwise enjoy themselves. These houses sometimes exist for years unknown to the police, and many a boy, detected in the commission of some petty theft, has run along the pier, pursued by the policeman, when, suddenly scrambling over the pier, he has disappeared, leaving the wondering officer to guess what had become of him. In some portions of the town, garrets are made use of as club-rooms and places of rendezvous, and are exceedingly well arranged. These places are used as storehouses, too, for the safe-keeping of stolen articles of all kinds.