Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and HygieneHall, G. Stanley (Granville Stanley)
Science
Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene
Hall, G. Stanley (Granville Stanley)
Adolescence; Children -- Health and hygiene; Educational psychology
Arrant cowards singly, they dare and do anything together. A gang
stole a team in East New York and drove down the avenue, shopping to
throw in supplies, one member sitting in the back of the wagon and
shooting at all who interfered. One gang specialized on stealing baby
carriages, depositing their inmates on the sidewalk. Another blew up a
grocery store because its owner refused a gift they demanded. Another
tried to saw off the head of a Jewish pedler. One member killed
another for calling him "no gent." Six murderous assaults were made at
one time by these gangs within a single week. One who is caught and
does his "bit" or "stretch" is a hero, and when a leader is hanged, as
has sometimes happened, he is almost envied for his notoriety. A
frequent ideal is to pound a policeman with his own club. The gang
federates all nationalities. Property is depreciated and may be ruined
if it is frequented by these gangs or becomes their lair or
"hang-out." A citizen residing on the Hudson procured a howitzer and
pointed it at a boat gang, forbidding them to land on his river
frontage. They have their calls, whistles, signs, rally suddenly from
no one knows where, and vanish in the alleys, basements, roofs, and
corridors they know so well. Their inordinate vanity is well called
the slum counterpart of self-esteem, and Riis calls the gang a club
run wild. They have their own ideality and a gaudy pinchbeck honor. A
young tough, when arrested, wrenched away the policeman's club, dashed
into the street, rescued a baby from a runaway, and came back and gave
himself up. They batten on the yellowest literature. Those of foreign
descent, who come to speak our language better than their parents,
early learn to despise them. Gangs emulate each other in hardihood,
and this is one cause of epidemics in crime. They passionately love
boundless independence, are sometimes very susceptible to good
influence if applied with great wisdom and discretion, but easily fall
away. What is the true moral antitoxin for this class, or at least
what is the safety-valve and how and when to pull it, we are now just
beginning to learn, but it is a new specialty in the great work of
salvage from the wreckage of city life. In London, where these groups
are better organised and yet more numerous, war is often waged between
them, weapons are used and murder is not so very infrequent. Normally
this instinct passes harmlessly over into associations for physical
training, which furnishes a safe outlet for these instincts, until the
reductives of maturer years have perfected their work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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