gh-going street-boys--active, bold,
impudent, smart fellows--a great deal more wicked and much less
miserable than this poor fellow. Those three were sent to Ohio together,
and this last boy, after a thorough washing and cleansing, was to be
dispatched to Illinois. A later note adds: 'The lad was taken by an old
gentleman of property, who, being childless, has since adopted the boy
as his own, and will make him heir to a property.'"

Several other lads were helped to an honest livelihood. A Visitor was
then appointed, who lived and worked in the quarter. But our moral
treatment for this nest of crime had only commenced.

We appealed to the public for aid to establish the reforming agencies
which alone can cure these evils, and whose foundation depends mainly on
the liberality, in money, of our citizens. We warned them that these
children, if not instructed, would inevitably grow up as ruffians. We
said often that they would not be like the stupid foreign criminal
class, but that their crimes, when they came to maturity, would show the
recklessness, daring, and intensity of the American character. In our
very first report (for 1854) we said:--

"It should be remembered that there are no dangers to the value of
property, or to the permanency of our institutions, so great as those
from the existence of such a class of vagabond, ignorant, ungoverned
children. This 'dangerous class' has not begun to show itself, as it
will in eight or ten years, when these boys and girls are matured. Those
who were too negligent, or too selfish to notice them as children, will
be fully aware of them as men. They will vote--they will have the same
rights as we ourselves, though they have grown up ignorant of moral
principle, as any savage or Indian. They will poison society. They will
perhaps be embittered at the wealth and the luxuries they never share.
Then let society beware, when the outcast, vicious, reckless multitude
of New York boys, swarming now in every foul alley and low street, come
to know their power and _use it!_

Again, in 1857, we said:--

"Why should the 'street-rat,' as the police call him--the boy whose home
in sweet childhood was a box or a deserted cellar; whose food was crumbs
begged or bread stolen; whose influences of education were kicks and
cuffs, curses, neglect, destitution and cold; who never had a friend,
who never heard of duty either to society or God--why should he feel
himself under any of the restraint