The acts which lead children to arrest are nearly always games. They are games which are against the law only because they are played on the street, and games which through their nature involve an infraction of the penal code. In the first class we find baseball, football, jackstones, singing, and marbles. In the second we find stealing, fighting, destruction of property, and similar violations of the code of social procedure. But the point which is overlooked by the law, and in a large measure by the law enforcer, is that both these forms of play are to the child merely or mainly play, representing a perfectly normal childish instinct which has, in many of the cases of arrest, been distorted through a morbid street environment. The following is an analysis of 170 of the cases here being considered: Total arrests for moral but illegal play: Bonfires 19 Disorderly conduct (shouting and harmless disturbances) 13 Football 4 Baseball 22 Snowballing 2 Throwing various missiles 24 -- Total 84 Total arrests for immoral and illegal play: Assault 8 Disorderly conduct 6 Burglary 12 Putting out street lights 2 Stealing 42 Throwing various missiles 16 -- Total 86 The attitude of the law with reference to the innocent class of acts leading to arrest is suggested by the wording of the charges preferred against various children: Charged with annoying and interfering with others and endangering their safety and property by playing with a hard ball on a public street. Charged with playing game called baseball on the public street, thereby interfering with free use by persons of that street. Charged with another ... with playing on the sidewalk of the public street a game called pitching pennies, thereby obstructing the sidewalk and interfering and annoying persons on the public street. Charged with another boy with obstructing the sidewalk while playing a game called pitching pennies. (Note that while in the previous case the boy was charged with pitching pennies and thereby obstructing the sidewalk, in this case he is charged with obstructing the sidewalk while pitching pennies.) Charged with playing a game called craps on the public street to the annoyance of persons thereon. (Note that this arrest also was for obstructing the street and not for gambling.) The law deals with the child from one standpoint only--the annoyance he causes the adult passerby, and the store windows he breaks.