Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1869-09-23

of the streets. No one who has observed
him with any degree of attention can
doubt that warfare against society ia
what he lives for, or that If he had only
the power, any member of society, say a
policeman, would fare just as badly in
his hands as stray Salt Lake emigrant
in those of the war party Of Arrapahoes.
The policeman, to be sure, is an extreme
case; for, besides the natural hatred due
to him as en- adult and member of So
, cety, he is odious to the street-boy from
the nature of his duties. He is hated
not only as man, but as a policeman,
for it is always his unfortunate fuuc-
tion to stand between the boy
and his dearest pleasure. Whenever
there is fire, or fight, or an upset, or
runover, or any other opportunity for
the contemplation of suffering or loss to
the sons of men, just as the boy is at the
very hight of his enjoyment the police
man is sure to appear, drive him back,
and interpose form aggrsvatingly bulky
and opaque between him and the sight
which was affording him unmixed graft
fication. This conduct is especially irri.
tating at fire, for it may be observed
that boys always take peculiar interest
in a FIRE. They have somehow got into
way of regarding it as something spe-
cislly got up for their entertainment, and,
indeed, of all ordinary disasters there is
none so we'll calculated to afford them
thorough satisfaction. There is, at the
very least, the destruction OF property to
be witnessed, which is always delightful.
If it should luckily hsppen to be in q
dwellinghouse there is sdditionalpleasure
derived from the terror and confusion
of the inmates, and the chance of the
sublime treat of seeing them carried out
more or less scorched, and wrapped up
in blankets, not to speak of the possibil-
ity of some one being entirely roasted.
From this paradise of delights at the
policeman's bidding the boy has to
''stand back" and sometimes so far that
he can only hear the distant sob of the
laboring engine; and at the supreme
moment, when the roof falls in, he is left
to his own Imagination to estimate the
amoHnt of damage done and the proba-
bilities of life lost. Consequently there
are few spectacles so soothing to the boy
mind as that of policeman in diff
Guilty, and for this reason boys may
be always observed to muster strong
in the neighhorhood of police sta
tions for the sake of seeing the force
involved in taking charge of troublesome
cases of intoxicstion. An elderly lady
on her way to the station, while suffering
under that form of inebrieiy which makes
the patient lie down and kick every
dozen yards, and between halts bite and |
scratch the officer, is sight particularly
refreshing to the boy, presenting, as it
does, two beings with whom he is at |
feud under humiliating and uncomforta-
BILE circumstances. For if the boy hates
the policeman he hates lovely woman
too; and it must be confessed that in this
case also he has some reason for the an
tipatby, because unquestionably lovely
woman hates him. The sffsction of
mother and son apsrt--whieh is purely
a matter of instinct, merely animal at
woman ever yet was fond
Of boys. There is natural antagonism
between them. Women are conservative
utopary. Women are lovers of order;
disorder in all its forms is what boys love.
All the feelings that are strongest in
reverence, pity, tenderness,
with the suffering, are in boys
conspicuous by their absence" Natu-
ally, therefore, there is no love lost on
,ither side. Lovely woman in distress
,xctes in the boys mind emotions the
1ery opposite of those with which the
ate Mr.. 7. p. Cooke used to boast him
elf inspired; and she on her part is at
10 pains to conceal The fact that she con-
iders him an imp, an aggravsting toad,
md young monkey. She loses no op-
of impressing upon him that
Ie is an inferior being, and possibly the
natural misanthropy of boys is occs-
ionslly intensified by the depressing
heories as to their own physical consti-
alton in. billed yhils still under femala
ominatiou.