The thought that Chicago boys are the criminals who terrorize the city, rob houses and flats, hold up citizens on the streets and assault women is distressing. It was much pleasanter to attribute these crimes to desperate men from elsewhere, descending upon Chicago like raiders and leaving the city again as soon as possible. But that is a misconception. We ourselves have reared most of our criminals. They are a Chicago product. They have received their notions of right and wrong here among us. We are responsible for them. What is the matter with Chicago? What are the elements in its life that breed criminals? What causes thousands of young boys to take up a criminal life? What must we do to change conditions? These are questions that should engage every good citizen in anxious endeavor to find answers to them. If we are to reform criminals and lessen crime, we must first learn how to reform our own city. PREVENTING CRIME BETTER THAN CURE. Instead of attempting to prevent crime, we wait until after the crime is committed, then burden ourselves with the expense of apprehending, trying, convicting and imprisoning the criminal. Our first duty is to adopt those measures that will prevent the further commission of crime. Among the problems of Chicago there is no one, perhaps, that is more baffling than that of the vicious boy. His years protect him from the rigors of the law, and it is a difficult matter to know just what to do with him. There are all sorts of organizations formed for his aid and his reformation. There is the Juvenile Court, for instance, and there are innumerable homes and shelters, and still the problem is not solved. The boy looms large in the public eye these days, when he is sent to prison for life for murder and spends long years in durance for burglary and other serious crimes. The story of the car-barn bandits and their tragic end is too recent to need more than a passing reference. The car-barn bandits met an ignominious death on the gallows. Rudolph Gamof will spend the remainder of his years behind prison bars and it is quite likely Alfred Lafferty will know what hard work means in Pontiac or some other such institution before he is once more at liberty. THE END OF THE GAMIN. It will be remembered that little Gavroche, the gamin in "Les Miserables," came to his death on a barricade in the streets of Paris. It was during the fatal insurrection of 1830. The lad allied himself with the insurrectionists and found he was in his element. He did prodigies of valor and was robbing the dead bodies of the enemy of cartridges when he was shot. Even after he had been shot once and had fallen to the earth he raised himself to a sitting posture and began to sing a revolutionary song. "He did not finish," says Hugo. "A second bullet from the same marksman stopped him short. This time he fell face downward on the pavement and moved no more. This grand little soul had taken flight."