“Go around stealing for fun. Go out to [a town ten miles from the city] for apples, pears, and things. Steal off baker’s team; take basket of doughnuts and pies. Take milk out of doorways. Take bananas off banana team. Steal clothes off of clothes lines; sell to ragman. Steal junk; sell it to another ragman.” “Steal coal and wood. Build fires. Steal anything we could get hold of off of fruit stand. Steal wood off farmer’s team coming into the city.” “Hit a Sheeney. He drop his bag and another fellow take it.” “Stole pigeons. Broke into slot machines. Get lager beer Saturday nights off beer teams.” The boys’ own reports of their thefts sum up as follows:-- (1) Things to eat (apples, pears, cakes, pies, oranges, bananas, etc.) 198 different things (2) Things to sell (lead, coal, wood) 23 (3) Things used in games (balls, bats, gloves, etc.) 48 (4) Tools (saws, hammers, knives) 36 (5) Jewelry (watches, rings, etc.) 24 times (6) Animals and birds (dogs and pigeons) 24 (7) Money 80 ---- Total, 433 things and times There was no use in asking the boys how many times they had taken fruit; life would be too short to take down the answers. CHAPTER V FURTHER ACTIVITIES OF THE GANG There is probably no more characteristic difference between boyhood and middle age than the strange _Wanderlust_ of youth. We adults are content to work year after year at the same desk, and think ourselves lucky if we can warm our feet year after year over the same register. But the boy,-- “He must go, go, go away from here,” and “the old spring fret comes o’er him” at all seasons of the year. _Migratory Activities_ The migratory impulse takes a sudden rise at the dawn of adolescence. Nearly all boys with good, red blood in their veins are touched by it. It appears to come as a strong wave at the gang age, and then gradually subsides; but it rarely entirely disappears. Boys in their gangs love to tell and to hear stories of adventure, and there is no question that the gang is often a direct agent for stirring the call of the wild. In forty-four (67 per cent) of the sixty-six gangs there are records of the travel of one or more of the group. A boy who has taken some adventurous trip is a hero, and his stories are listened to with great zest. Boys rarely go off in large companies, for it is impossible for them all to get away at once. Commonly, not more than three or four go at a time; often a boy and his companion together; sometimes a boy goes alone. In the following records, I have, as before, suppressed such geographical names as would be meaningless to most readers, and substituted for them some suggestion of the distance, or indicated whether the journey was from country to city, or the reverse.