The Spirit of Youth and the City StreetsAddams, Jane
General
The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets
Addams, Jane
Child rearing; Urban youth
Of course they continually required more, and had spent as much as
eight dollars a night for cocaine, which they used to "share and share
alike." It sounds like a large amount, but it really meant only four
doses each during the night, as at that time they were taking
twenty-five cents' worth at once if they could possibly secure it. The
boys would tell nothing for three or four days after they were
discovered, in spite of the united efforts of their families, the
police, and the residents of Hull-House. But finally the superior boy
of the gang, the manliest and the least debauched, told his tale, and
the others followed in quick succession. They were willing to go
somewhere to be helped, and were even eager if they could go together,
and finally seven of them were sent to the Presbyterian Hospital for
four weeks' treatment and afterwards all went to the country together
for six weeks more. The emaciated child gained twenty pounds during
his sojourn in the hospital, the head of which testified that at least
three of the boys could have stood but little more of the irregular
living and doping. At the present moment they are all, save one, doing
well, although they were rescued so late that they seemed to have but
little chance. One is still struggling with the appetite on an Iowa
farm and dares not trust himself in the city because he knows too well
how cocaine may be procured in spite of better legislation. It is
doubtful whether these boys could ever have been pulled through unless
they had been allowed to keep together through the hospital and
convalescing period,--unless we had been able to utilize the gang
spirit and to turn its collective force towards overcoming the desire
for the drug.
The desire to dream and see visions also plays an important part with
the boys who habitually use cocaine. I recall a small hut used by boys
for this purpose. They washed dishes in a neighboring restaurant and
as soon as they had earned a few cents they invested in cocaine which
they kept pinned underneath their suspenders. When they had
accumulated enough for a real debauch they went to this hut and for
several days were dead to the outside world. One boy told me that in
his dreams he saw large rooms paved with gold and silver money, the
walls papered with greenbacks, and that he took away in buckets all
that he could carry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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