wife that her husband is worthless and she
suspects that she might turn all this beautiful devotion into
complaining drudgery. To be sure, she could give up visiting the family
altogether, but she has become much interested in the progress of the
crippled child who eagerly anticipates her visits, and she also suspects
that she will never know many finer women than the mother. She is
unwilling, therefore, to give up the friendship, and goes on bearing her
perplexities as best she may.

The first impulse of our charity visitor is to be somewhat severe with
her shiftless family for spending money on pleasures and indulging their
children out of all proportion to their means. The poor family which
receives beans and coal from the county, and pays for a bicycle on the
instalment plan, is not unknown to any of us. But as the growth of
juvenile crime becomes gradually understood, and as the danger of giving
no legitimate and organized pleasure to the child becomes clearer, we
remember that primitive man had games long before he cared for a house
or regular meals.

There are certain boys in many city neighborhoods who form themselves
into little gangs with a leader who is somewhat more intrepid than the
rest. Their favorite performance is to break into an untenanted house,
to knock off the faucets, and cut the lead pipe, which they sell to the
nearest junk dealer. With the money thus procured they buy beer and
drink it in little free-booter's groups sitting in the alley. From
beginning to end they have the excitement of knowing that they may be
seen and caught by the "coppers," and are at times quite breathless with
suspense. It is not the least unlike, in motive and execution, the
practice of country boys who go forth in squads to set traps for rabbits
or to round up a coon.

It is characterized by a pure spirit for adventure, and the vicious
training really begins when they are arrested, or when an older boy
undertakes to guide them into further excitements. From the very
beginning the most enticing and exciting experiences which they have
seen have been connected with crime. The policeman embodies all the
majesty of successful law and established government in his brass
buttons and dazzlingly equipped patrol wagon.

The boy who has been arrested comes back more or less a hero with a tale
to tell of the interior recesses of the mysterious police station. The
earliest public excitement the child remembers is divided betwee