The resolution to be a "professional" comes later with some lads than with others. Until well on into their teens, and sometimes even into their twenties, there are those who merely drift, stealing when they can and managing otherwise when they can't. Finally they are arrested, convicted, and sent to state prison. Here there is the same criminal atmosphere that they were accustomed to in the open, only more of it. Go where they will in their world, they cannot escape it. In prison they form acquaintances and make contracts against the day when they will be free again. They are eventually turned loose. What are they to do? The "job," of course, that they have talked about with a "pal" in the "stir" (penitentiary). They do it, and get away with two or three thousand. This decides them. They know of more deals, and so do their cronies, and they agree to undertake them and divide the plunder. So it goes on for years, and finally they have "records;" they are recognised among their fellows and in police circles as clever "guns;" they have arrived at distinction. Only one who has been in the criminal world can realise how easy it is for a boy to develop on these lines. He who studies prison specimens only, and neglects to make their acquaintance while they are still young and unhardened, naturally comes to look upon them as weird and uncanny creatures, to be accounted for only on the ground that they are freaks of nature; but they are really the result of man's own social system. If there were no slums in this country, no criminal atmosphere, and no unknown thieves to protect the known, there would be comparatively few professional offenders. The trouble at present is that when a boy gets into this atmosphere, once learns to enjoy criminal companionship and practice, he is as unhappy without them as is the cigarette fiend without his cigarette. Violent measures are necessary to effect any changes, and there comes a time when nothing avails. Before closing this chapter it seems appropriate to refer to some of the peculiar characteristics of professional offenders. The most that can be attempted in the space of one chapter is a short account of a few of their traits as a class, but an interesting book might be written on this subject.