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Show r34CS4i-icr:cCiric:r:r:c:c:c:r:::Tic-?c:c:i.r-" ' ' - S : l "'i'jti 1 f ""1 i """r',"'1 . 1 dared, "hut I a"m perfectly certain' that working la and around a CnanclaJ CJ-' trict turns most boys into little crooks, i i Xat fact is abundantly prored by our! experience. Of course, our boys are ex- -posed to unusual temptation, for they ' run messaree mainly for brokers, and i it Is aroasln how recklessly those men will trust them with large sums of i money and negotiable paper. "There axe some of the lads whom yo feel you can trust, whom you nerer hare caught do Jag anything -a rong; but ' you never caa telL Not long ago a boy , who had been with us for years without ! a black mark against him was giren . . - some coupons to take to the bank. They -were payable to bearer, and were worth 1200 or 1200. He collected the money and hag nerer been seen since. - - -At rartous oCce boy employment agencies the same story was repeated -that the city lad who seeks for em- ployment aa an offlee boy or a aessen-i ger ha beoomo altogether too sophistl.; cateV . . . . -, .. "Vhyr wa the queatloQ put to three , man whce : boaineas it is to handle ' large masses of beys. . " : ' v "Wme ore," said the first. - "The dope sheets of - the erening . newrpapera,- said the seoond, TPure cusednesa,.was the brief rer-. diet of the third. . ' . Whaler ex the cause assigned by these experts, erery business maa knows to his sorrow that ho has a problem comparable com-parable with the aerr ant gtrl problem' of bis wife end that is the eacevhoy probl etty Kansas City Star. ' .'It-Is far easier to 'supply' a businet s man with a good chief clerk or manager man-ager than It Is to tt htm even a f&trly decent odce boy." The speaker Is the head of a hig; oSco employment agency. TaSt about the servant problem I I tell you it' Is . nothing when compared with the problem of placing; office boys In )obi which the will hold dowu for trin a few weeks. ",' ' . . :. " " '1 hare no doubt thai the rising generation gen-eration of this country is an right when taken In the mass, but. the specimens yon get hold of 'when yoo are rc-iJng an employment agency In a big city are aavaXly very much on the bum, 'as the tors .wpuldf -jrj-rr-jre r ',. "The other day X aertlaed for boys n behittt U?hl$J?- e-wTa4va-OancW for seven lot - ;w ' fcce, It is-evOpiendld bou-e o ( toe it is oneof. the good old-fashioned plaoes which pay generous wages, and like to p remote their ' employees)- all the way from oflce . boy to department head. TWeU. over (03 hoys answered the advertisement, ad-vertisement, for the wages offered .were above the average.--How many of that number do you Jlhlak .were, really suitable suit-able for the placet Just five, in my opinion. X picked out ten and sent them around to the oOce. but only the five I had been well Impressed with were taken. ta-ken. .-.... N . "Next day the manager called1 on me and said: - t - 'What sort of boys were those you sent me? Do you- know that one of them chewed tobacco and another smoked a cigarette when asking for the Job? Aren't there any good boys left? 7 Tee. there are plenty of thm." I replied, "but they don't have to come around employment agencies looking for jobs. A decent lad gets a place in the. omce of some man who knows him aa soon as he leaves school. ' "Then the office boys you know are not likely to become multl-imllionalres in the old traditional way?" the employment em-ployment agent was asked. , . . , " ' -.,..', 'No. but if s fanny how often the em-ptoyers em-ptoyers try to Impress on them that every office boy carries the baton of a business field marshal In his kaapsaok. If I've heard, it. once, I've heard it a hundred times:- - - - : ' ".Tir hoy, the boss says when he hires him, 1 was once a lad rn an otnee myself. I worked ray way up by honesty hon-esty and diligence, and now I am head of that same business X started in and am- worth more than million dollars. What X am you may become.' "Is the boy Impressed? . KoVon your life! Duly the other day there were a couple of youngsters In my office listening, listen-ing, to a sermon. of this kind from the maa who had hired them. I overheard one whisper to the other: 'Say. pipe de old guy! Won't be be the limit T Trom all that the employers ten me, the good office boy is a rare bird nowadays. nowa-days. I put a lad In a Job the other day; and within the week the bead of the firm caught him teaching the other office boys to shoot craps. At least, that's what the boss said, but X dont suppose they, needed much teaching. When the boas ' started In to reprove him the cheekykld Invited him to Join the game. That's the sortof thing you are up against all the time in my business. busi-ness. . "Of course, there are exceptions. Borne lads I have placed have worked hard, learned stenography and typewriting type-writing in their spare time, and speedily speed-ily risen to good positions. But the good office boy so far M ray experience goes, is as rare as the piotts choir boy." Another employment agent who was asked tor his opinion described an office boy of his acquaintance and protested that be was typical of bis class. e e - "The young reprobate called at my office about three months ago. and I got him a good Job." he said. "He is only 11 He held the Job for a couple of weeks, and then got fired because the manager .caught him holding up a small office boy for a dime. He actually had a big revolver In his pocket, and Inquiry In-quiry showed that he had acquired quite a reputation among the other boys as a desperado. He made them shell out nickels and dimes regularly, and he was saving up the money, so he said, with the Idee of going out West and becoming a 'bad man.' "I was rather Interested in the story when I heard it. so I cross-questioned the boy when he came back to my office to get another Job. It appeared that he had been brought up very piously by his mother, a widow. She had tried to make him a regular "mamma's boy never let him play with other youngsters young-sters or read anything but Sunday-school Sunday-school books. At last, with much fear and trembling, she let him loose from her apron strings to get a Job. a "He soon became a holy terror. He had been working for a couple of months when he first sought me out. and he confessed that he ran away from home after he got his third week's wages, and had been living erer since at newsboys' lodging-houses. He told me quite proudly that he had 'swiped things' whenerer. he got a chance, played the races, shot craps, carried a gun, and was a sport generally. Tou may think this was an extreme case, but from my experience I am not at all sure of that" . The superintendent of a bankers and brokers' messenger company, which operates only in New Tork's Wall street district, has control over some hundreds hun-dreds of boys. Some of them are regularly regu-larly employed on a weekly salary: others are given odd Jobs when there are "things doing" on the street. Naturally, Na-turally, the superintendent has a wide experience In the hiring of lads of the office class. "I don't believe work In a modern business office in a large city Is good for a boy's morals, anyway." he de- |