the coins were too light for
me--perhaps I could do better with solid English pennies--but what I
lost in pitching I gained in tossing, so I was not ruined, neither did
the Bowery lads sustain any loss.

But I found the procedure exactly the same as in England, and I felt the
fascination of it; and some day when I can afford it, I will have a lot
of metal counters made, and I will organise lads into a club; I will
give them "caps," and they shall play where the police won't interfere.

I will give them trophies to contend for, and Bethnal Green shall
contend with Holloway; a halfpenny "gate" would bring its thousands, and
private gain would give place to club and district "esprit de corps,"
for the lads want the game, not the money; the excitement, not the
halfpence. There is nothing intrinsically wrong about "pitch and toss,"
only the fact that ragamuffins play it.

There is a great deal of nonsense talked about the game by superior
people who pose as authorities upon the delinquencies of ragamuffin
youth, and who declaim upon the demoralisation attending this popular
game of poor lads.

I heard at a meeting of a rich Christian Church, held in a noble hall
in the heart of London's City, one gentleman declare that a smart
ragamuffin youth of his acquaintance possessed a penny with a "head" on
each side for the purpose of enabling him to cheat at this game.

He did not know what he was talking about, for such pennies would be
as useless for this game as the stones in the streets, for "heads and
tails" are the essence of the game. The boys of the underworld must
play, and ought to play; if those above them do not approve of their
games, well, it is "up to them," as the Americans have it, to find
them better games than pitch and toss, and better playing grounds than
unclean streets.

Of public parks we have enough; they are very well for sedate and
elderly people. They are useful to foster-mothers, slave girls hugging
babies about, and a boon for nurses with perambulators. But what of
Tom, Dick and Harry, who have just commenced work; what of them? "Boy
Scouting," even with royal patronage, is not for them, for they have
no money to buy uniforms, nor time to scour Epping Forest and Hampstead
Heath for a non-existent enemy.

Church Lads' Brigade with bishops for patrons, did I hear some one
say? Well, blowing a bugle, no matter how discordantly, is certainly
an attraction for a boy; and wearing a military cap set j