but nothing more will be done. They will be
discharged to prowl about in the underworld, to commit other criminal
acts and to be returned again and again to prison, to live out hopeless
lives.

And there is another cause, almost as prolific in producing a prison
population. For while the State has been, and still is, ready to thrust
afflicted youth into prison, it has been, and still is, equally ready to
thrust into prison the half-educated, half-fed, and half-employed young
people who break its laws or by-laws. It is true that the State in its
irony allows them the option of a fine; but the law might as well ask
the youths of the underworld to pay ten pounds as ask them to pay ten
shillings; nor can they procure all at once the smaller sum, so to
prison hundreds of lads are sent.

Does it ever occur to our esteemed authorities that this is a most
dangerous procedure! What good can possibly come either to the State or
to the youthful offender?

What are the offences of these boys? Disorder in the streets, loitering
at railway stations, playing a game of chance called "pitch and toss,"
of which I have something to say in another chapter, gambling with a
penny pack of cards, playing tip-cat, kicking a football, made of old
newspapers maybe, playing cricket, throwing stones, using a catapult,
bathing in a canal, and a hundred similar things are all deemed worthy
of imprisonment, if committed by the youngsters of the world below the
line.

Thousands of lads have had their first experience of prison for
trumpery offences that are natural to the boys of the poor. But a first
experience of prison is to them a pleasant surprise. They are astonished
to find that prison is not "half a bad place." They do not object to
going there again, not they! Why? Because the conditions of prison life
are better, as they need to be, than the conditions of their own homes.
The food is better, the lodging is better, the bed is decidedly better,
and as to the work, why, they have none worthy of the name to do. They
lose nothing but their liberty, and they can stand that for a week or
two, what matters!

Well, something does matter, for they lose three other things of
great moment to them if they only knew; but they don't know, and our
authorities evidently consider these three things of no moment. What do
they lose? First, their fear of prison; secondly, their little bit
of character; thirdly, their work, if they have any. What eventuates