This is a regularly organized form of amusement, which has existed to the writer’s personal knowledge for a decade or more on the middle west side. As far as the boys themselves are concerned, it is a game and nothing more. The crimes committed are incidental to the game. The elements the boys are striving for are the dramatic adventure in obtaining stolen goods, the excitement of gambling, which to them is no crime, and the physical joys of the soda water, cigarettes, motion picture shows, etc., which follow the game. These boys start out to seek adventure, excitement, and a “treat.” Unguided and irresponsible, and with a tradition of lawlessness based upon the hostile indifference of their elders, they have gone after their ends without regard to consequences, with the result that before their game is over they will have obtained money under false pretenses, committed larceny, and gambled; for any one of which acts they are criminally liable. Yet punishment for any one of these acts leaves the zest for adventure, the lust of gambling, and the tastes for sweets and cigarettes as strong as ever. A child is arrested for burglary and is tried on the specific charge of “entering an inhabited dwelling in the night season with intent to commit a felony.” Yet this may have been simply an unguided expression of the child’s dramatic play instinct. The boys may have organized into a gang of robbers and may, for the game of the thing only, have committed the burglary. Thus there was no criminal intent on the part of the marauders. Gang fighting, another common and serious offense, is a product of the complex gang organization which is the basis of all boy life in the streets of New York. It has its sources either in gang rivalry or in the infliction of a wrong by one gang upon another, which results in a long series of retaliatory fights, sometimes extending through many months. From being simply physical contests between gang and gang, these fights often become neighborhood feuds in which small boys are maimed and on rare occasions killed outright, windows are broken, and all kinds of neighborhood outrages are perpetrated. There is a great distinction between these organized gang fights and the smaller misunderstandings which result in fights between two small boys. Gang fights are a part of the traditional play life of the New York boys. Except among the older boys they are carried out in the spirit of play, and the theft, destruction of property, and mayhem which accompany them are regarded as incidental.