e set down as an axiom, that
"Benevolence cannot compete with Selfishness in business." Philanthropy
will never cut down the expenses of production, as will individual
self-interest.

Moreover, these artificial workshops excite the jealousy of the trades,
while they are not so necessary in this country as in Europe, because
the demand is so great here for children's labor.

We soon discovered that if we could train the children of the streets to
habits of industry and self-control and neatness, and give them the
rudiments of moral and mental education, we need not trouble ourselves
about anything more. A child in any degree educated and disciplined can
easily make an honest living in this country. The only occasional
exception is with young girls depending on the needle for support,
inasmuch as the competition here is so severe. But for these we often
were enabled to provide instruction in skilled labor, which supported
them easily; and, if taught cleanliness and habits of order and
punctuality, they had no difficulty in securing places as upper
servants, or they soon married into a better class.

[Illustration: LODGING-HOUSES FOR HOMELESS BOYS--AS THEY ARE. (The
Newsboys' House.) NO. 2.]

CHAPTER IX.

HOMELESS BOYS.

THE NEWSBOYS' LODGING-HOUSE.

The spectacle which earliest and most painfully arrested my attention in
this work, were the _houseless_ boys in various portions of the city.

There seemed to be a very considerable class of lads in New York who
bore to the busy, wealthy world about them something of the same
relation which Indians bear to the civilized Western settlers. They had
no settled home, and lived on the outskirts of society, their hand
against every man's pocket, and every man looking on them as natural
enemies; their wits sharpened like those of a savage, and their
principles often no better. Christianity reared its temples over them,
and Civilization was carrying on its great work, while they--a happy
race of little heathens and barbarians--plundered, or frolicked, or led
their roving life, far beneath. Sometimes they seemed to me, like what
the police call them, "street-rats," who gnawed at the foundations of
society, and scampered away when light was brought near them. Their life
was, of course, a painfully hard one. To sleep in boxes, or under
stairways, or in hay-barges on the coldest winter-nights, f