A number of our citizens, with the present writer threw themselves into a somewhat original method for benefiting the young "roughs" and vagabond boys of the metropolis. This was known as the effort of the "BOYS' MEETINGS." The theory of these original assemblages was, that the "sympathy of an audience" might be used to influence these wild and untutored young Arabs when ordinary agencies were of no avail. The street-boys, as is well-known, are exceedingly sharp and keen, and, being accustomed to theatrical performances, are easily touched by real oratory, and by dramatic instruction; but they are also restless, soon tired of long exhortations, and somewhat given to _chaff._ The early days of those "Boys' Meetings" were stormy. Sometimes the salutatory exercises from the street were showers of stones; sometimes a general scrimmage occurred over the benches; again, the visitors or missionaries were pelted, by some opposition-gang, or bitter enemies of the lads who attended the meeting. The exercises, too, must be conducted with much tact, or they broke up with a laugh or in a row. The platform of the Boys' Meeting seemed to become a kind of chemical test of the gaseous element in the brethren's brains. One pungent criticism we remember--on a pious and somewhat sentimental Sunday-school brother, who, in one of our meetings, had been putting forth vague and declamatory religious exhortation--in the words "Gas! gas!" whispered with infinite contempt from one hard-faced young disciple to another. Unhappy, too, was the experience of any more daring missionary who ventured to question these youthful inquirers. Thus--"In this parable, my dear boys, of the Pharisee and the publican, what is meant by the 'publican?'" "Alderman, sir, wot keeps a pot-house!" "Dimocrat, sir!" "Black Republican, sir!" Or--"My boys, what is the great end of man? When is he happiest? How would _you_ feel happiest?" "When we'd plenty of hard cash, sir!" Or--"My _dear_ boys, when your father and your mother forsake you, _who_ will take you up?" "The Purlice, sir (very seriously), the Purlice!" They sometimes took their own quiet revenge among themselves, in imitating the Sunday-school addresses delivered to them. Still, ungoverned, prematurely sharp, and accustomed to all vileness, as these lads were, words which came forth from the depths of a man's or woman's heart would always touch some hidden chord in theirs. Pathos and eloquence vibrated on their heartstrings as with any other audience. Beneath all their rough habits and rude words was concealed the solemn monitor, the _Daimon,_ which ever whispers to the lowest of human creatures, that some things are wrong--are not to be done.