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Show WHAT uECOIIES OF THE UOYS '. The streets are full of them a howling, howl-ing, yelling, dirty, disagreeable crew, ringing at door-bells and running away again, shrieking into open windows, rattling blinds, startling horses, smoking smok-ing cigar ends, delivered over to all manner of unseemliness and indecorum, inde-corum, To hear brief snatches of their conversation in passing (says the Boston Transcript), one would consider con-sider that at tho tender age of seven or thereabouts they were all lit for tho blackest crimes and ripe for the gallows. gal-lows. The police reports mentions a boy arrested hero and there, and the institutions for young offenders arc never, we believe, suspended for want of patronage, but their returns do not account for a hundredth part of the horde of boys that are suddenly summoned sum-moned to the scene by any excitement. i More boys turned up one day recently, at a moment's notice, to give chase to an unfortunate pig who Ibund himself by some accident in the street, than could have been accommodated in all tho State institutions. On this occasion, occa-sion, we aro happy to aay, the boys were routed, for the pig turned upon them with a severe aspect, as they lied. It was a very big pig. Assuming, therefore, that a small proportion of the boys that infest tho streets aro suppressed by tho beneficent benefi-cent action of a wise government, the question is what becomes of tho rest? How do they pass the interval before emerging, as they must for these must be the samo individuals, at an advanced ago into the full-grown men who pass decorously along the streets, fulfil every duty of society, and at proper periods conscientiously cast their votes ibr the wrong candidate? Does it come upon them suddenly to stop howling and whistling and butting but-ting up against people? Does a gamin, in a single night, cast off" his gaminity, and rise the next morning ready and able to touch his hat to a lady, to step aside for her to pass, to ignore runaway runa-way pigs, and give over tearing down posters, and to assume the general good manners which characterize, as a whole, the grown-up population of our streets? "Boys will be boys?" It is evident, however, that at some 'period they may cease to be boys, and at some further advanced period they begin to be men. Eew have actually seen tho tadpole citing off" its attributes and putting on ihosc of the frog. As we never have wiLncs.-:cd a cataclyyism by which the whole race of boys has perished by its own depravity, and as on the other hand there always seem to bo plenty of men, intelligent, well informed, decorous, de-corous, and dignified, to carry on the machinery of society, we must infer in-fer that some process of purification aud enlightenment goes on m darkness and secrecy. -Joining but this conviction, con-viction, in face of the lack of manners of the typical street-boy, can give us any hope for the race. |