The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-01-30
An Inheritance from Barbarism-Turn
ing Loose a Street Arab.

ing Loose Street Arab.
lJoe Howard in Philadelphia Press.l
There is without a doubt in the blood
Of most children-as an inheritance,
perhaps, from some remote barbarian
ANCESTOR passion for rowing. There
are few of us who can not recall the de-
GciOuS pleasure of wandering at free
will in childhood far from schools,
houses and the tasks laid upon us and
leading in the fields or woods semi
savage existence. In fact, to some of
a greater pleasure of the senses
blood" and lead a wild life in the
woods. The boys among the poor
feel this passion almost irresistibly.
Nothing will keep them in school or at
home. Having, perhaps, kind parents
and not peculiarly disagreeable home,
they will yet rove off night and day,
enjoying the idle, lazzarOni life on the
docks, living in the summer almost in
the water, and curling down at night,
as the animals do, in any corner they
can find, hungry and ragged, but light
hearted and enjoying immensely their
Yagabond life. Probably as a sensation,
not one that the street lad will ever have
in after-life will equal the delicious feel
with which he lies on his back in the
spring sunlight, on pile of dock lum-
Der, and watches the moving life of the
river and muncheS his crust of bread.
1t frequently happens that no restraint
or punishment can check this Indian
like PROF ensity.
recall one fine little fellow who was
honest, and truthful, and kind hearted,
but who, when the rowing passion in the
blood came up, left everything and spent
his days and nights on the wharves and
rambling about the streets. His mother,
a widow, knew only too we'll what this
habit was bringing him to, for unfortu-
nately the life of a young barbarian in
New York has little poetry in it. The
youthful vagrant soon becomes idle and
unfit to work; he is hungry and can not
win his food from the waters and the
woods, like his savage prototype;
therefore he must steal. He learns
to lie and swear; to pick peck
cts, rifle Street-stands, and break
open shop windows or doors; so
that this barbarian habit is the univer-
sal stepping stone to children's crime.
In this case the worthy woman locked
the boy up in her room and sent down
word to the society that her son would
like place in the country if the en-
ployer would come up and take him.
An excellent gentleman was dispatched
to her from the interior who desired
''model boy" but when he arrived, he
found, to his dismay, the lad kicking
through the panels of the door and de-
claring he would die sooner than 60
The boy then disappeared for few
days, when his mother discovered him,
ragged and half starved, about the
docks, and brought him home and
whipped him severely.
The next morning he was off again
and was gone week, until the police
brought him back in wretched condi-
ton. The mother now tried the Chris
tian Brothers," who had a fence ten
feet high about their premises, and kept
the lad, it was said, part of the time
chained. But the fence was mer sport
to the little vagrant, and he was soon
off. Then the Juvenile Asylum" was
applied to and the lad was admitted;
but here he spent but short probation,
and was soon beyond their reach. The
mother, now in desperation, resolved to
send him to the far west, under the
charge of the "Chrildren's Aid society,""
ESsWing his habits, she led him down
by the collar to the. Office, sat by him
there, and accompanied him to the rail
road depot with the party of children.
He was placed on a farm in northern
Michigan, where, fortunately there was
considerable game in the neighborhood.
To the surprise of everyone he did not
at once run away, being perhaps at
tracted by the shooting he could indulge
in when not at work.
At length chance was offered him
of being trapper, and he began his
rovings in earnest. From the northern
peninsula of Michigan % he Rocky
mountains he wandered over the woods
and wilds for years, making a very good
living by his sales of skins, and saving
considerable money. All accounts
showed him to be a very honest, decent,
industrious lad-a city vagrant about to
be a thief, transformed into a country
vagrant making an honest living. The
books give hundreds of similar stories,
where free country life and the amuse-
ments and sports of the farmers when
work is slack, have gratiiied beautifully
the vagrant appetite. The mere riding
a horse, or owning a calf or lamb or
trapping an animal in winter, seems to
have an astonishing eiIect in cooling the
fire in the city rover and making him
contented / don't know how 1t may be
IN Philadelphia, but if you want work
come to New York and try to tame our
street Indians. They are as gamey as
they make 'em.