Before Boyville was thought of, a personal investigation into the
home-life of over a hundred boys was made, and this covered a period
of three years. Of the one hundred who were graduating from the street
work as newsboys not more than thirty were engaged in a business that
would lead them to fortune or fame. Seventy were satisfied with making
a living by earnings of vice and petty crimes. It was learned that a
boy who was permitted to go on in his own way would have no useful
training for later work. The seventy boys followed the rule of men in
wrong-doing. “No man is guilty until caught,” is the general rule of
men who make it a business of stealing.
The progress of any humanitarian legislation is gradual.
No one ever stopped to make inquiry about a newsboy. He lived in a
business, and social circle, all by himself. He was left to shift for
himself and in a most unequal battle.
When investigation revealed the deplorable fact that seventy per cent.
of our newsboys were being educated and trained with their faces
towards jails and penitentiaries, the question arose, how can we
reduce this number, how can we turn their faces towards a better life,
a happier condition, a delightful ending? How make them honorable
citizens, good men, loved by all who know them, an honor to themselves,
to their parents, their friends, the State and city in which they live?
The problem solved itself in personal experiences, convincing us
that we must try to catch the candidates for prison before they have
been debased and to keep them decent. “It is the Christian, decent,
brotherly way for one thing, and it is the cheapest way in dollars and
cents for another.”
It is a rule, rather than an exception, that people have always
considered a newsboy bad, and he is therefore treated accordingly.
Everybody knows or can soon learn to know, that the street is the great
school of crime. Betting and gambling are typical of the combination of
work and play of man and boy that street work produces.
One of the greatest evils of the street was that of begging; of boys
working on the sympathies of the public by taking advantage of men and
women on street-cars or in public places.
Some boys made a business of begging, the majority not from their own
choice, but by compulsion of their parents.
One boy in particular was doing more to injure the success of the
association’s work on the street than hundreds of others who were bad
in other lines.
The father of this boy would wait until the theatres were out, at
night, and instruct the boy to “work the car,” by begging, and if that
failed by forcing papers upon young men who were compelled to purchase
what they did not want.
It took some time, almost a year, to stop this kind of business, and
then the president had to call upon the efficient Humane officer to
stop it. As every case of begging was traced to the fault of parents
the Humane Society had to deal directly with them.
The Boyville association gradually stamped this evil entirely out.
[Illustration: TWO NEW MEMBERS.]
To stop begging, stealing, swearing and gambling, four leading street
evils among the newsboys and in guiding the footsteps of these little
wanderers, for this they are when seen upon the streets of our great
cities, that Boyville came into existence, and it is to co-operate,
when it is possible or desirable, with the parents and the home in
reclaiming boys who have gone astray or are likely to follow paths that
lead to ruin.
There is no greater, stronger sign of love to young or old than when a
friend gives a warning in the right spirit.
The children of Israel had no better friend than Moses, and when they
obeyed his warning they never went astray. We may be wrong in our
liberal methods of giving to charity; we may be wrong in dropping
pennies into the hats of the street beggars—the blind—the lame—the
crippled who stand or sit on our public streets pleading in a tone of
experience; and we may be satisfying an ever-warning conscience; but
there is one thing certain, we can never make a mistake by warning a
newsboy from doing anything wrong—from stealing, lying, swearing, or
gambling, and it is always wise and safe to give a boy the right start
in life.
In every city, with a population of one hundred thousand or more,
thirty per cent. of the newsboys, the sellers, have no homes or their
homes are worse than none at all. If men and women would stop to
think, to investigate, listen to the stories as told by these street
boys; of the wants, miseries and degradation in the sad conditions that
surround many of them; these dirty, ragged boys would receive a more
Christian-like attention and care. If your nature to mingle with the
meek and lowly is forced, if your mission for doing good in this world
is cast in other fields, where better results may be reached, you can
take a personal interest in seeing that those who are familiar with
work among street boys, and who delight in trying to aid them, are
given proper encouragement and assistance so that their work may be
carried on successfully.