as a London crowd
always does, the mere presence of a multitude. There was a little
rough horse-play and the exchange of favourite witticisms, and there
was some preaching and a great singing of irreverent parodies; there
was little drunkenness and little bad behaviour except for half a
dozen troops or companies of girls. They were quite young, none of
them apparently over fifteen or sixteen. They were running about
together, not courting the company of the boys, but contented with
their own society, and loudly talking and shouting as they ran among
the swings and merry-go-rounds and other attractions of the fair. I
may safely aver that language more vile and depraved, revealing
knowledge and thoughts more vile and depraved, I have never heard from
any grown men or women in the worst part of the town. At mere
profanity, of course, these girls would be easily defeated by men, but
not in absolute vileness. The quiet working men among whom they ran
looked on in amazement and disgust; they had never heard anything in
all their lives to equal the abomination of these girls' language.
Now, they were girls who had all, I suppose, passed the third or
fourth standard. At thirteen they had gone into the workshop and the
street. Of all the various contrivances to influence the young not one
had as yet caught hold of them; the kerbstone and the pavements of the
street were their schools; as for their conversation, it had in this
short time developed to a vileness so amazing. What refining
influence, what trace of good manners, what desire for better things,
what self-restraint, respect, or government, was left in the minds of
these girls as a part of their education? As one of the bystanders,
himself of the working class, said to me, 'God help their husbands!'
Yes, poverty has many stings; but there can be none sharper than the
necessity of marrying one of these poor neglected creatures.

We do not, therefore, only leave the children without education; we
also leave them, at the most important age, I suppose, of any
namely--the age of early adolescence--without guidance or supervision.
How should we like our own girls left free to run about the streets at
thirteen years of age? Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen--how
can we ever forget this time?--there falls upon boy and girl alike a
strange and subtle change. It is a time when the brain is full of
strange new imaginings, when the thoughts go vaguely forth to unknown
sple