The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets — John Shaqi
The Spirit of Youth and the City StreetsAddams, Jane
General
The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets
Addams, Jane
Child rearing; Urban youth
(1) Stealing thirteen pigeons from a barn; (2) stealing a bathing
suit; (3) stealing a tent; (4) stealing ten dollars from mother with
which to buy a revolver; (5) stealing a horse blanket to use at night
when it was cold sleeping on the wharf; (6) breaking a seal on a
freight car to steal "grain for chickens"; (7) stealing apples from a
freight car; (8) stealing a candy peddler's wagon "to be full up just
for once"; (9) stealing a hand car; (10) stealing a bicycle to take a
ride; (11) stealing a horse and buggy and driving twenty-five miles
into the country; (12) stealing a stray horse on the prairie and
trying to sell it for twenty dollars.
Of another dozen it might be claimed that they were also due to this
same adventurous spirit, although the first six were classed as
disorderly conduct: (1) Calling a neighbor a "scab"; (2) breaking down
a fence; (3) flipping cars; (4) picking up coal from railroad tracks;
(5) carrying a concealed "dagger," and stabbing a playmate with it;
(6) throwing stones at a railroad employee. The next three were called
vagrancy: (1) Loafing on the docks; (2) "sleeping out" nights; (3)
getting "wandering spells." One, designated petty larceny, was cutting
telephone wires under the sidewalk and selling them; another, called
burglary, was taking locks off from basement doors; and the last one
bore the dignified title of "resisting an officer" because the boy,
who was riding on the fender of a street car, refused to move when an
officer ordered him off.
Of course one easily recalls other cases in which the manifestations
were negative. I remember an exasperated and frightened mother who
took a boy of fourteen into court upon the charge of incorrigibility.
She accused him of "shooting craps," "smoking cigarettes," "keeping
bad company," "being idle." The mother regrets it now, however, for
she thinks that taking a boy into court only gives him a bad name, and
that "the police are down on a boy who has once been in court, and
that that makes it harder for him." She hardly recognizes her once
troublesome charge in the steady young man of nineteen who brings home
all his wages and is the pride and stay of her old age.
I recall another boy who worked his way to New York and back again to
Chicago before he was quite fourteen years old, skilfully escaping
the truant officers as well as the police and special railroad
detectives. He told his story with great pride, but always modestly
admitted that he could never have done it if his father had not been a
locomotive engineer so that he had played around railroad tracks and
"was onto them ever since he was a small kid."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account