Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-09-18
THE RIGHTS OF THE BOY IN THE CITY.

The Health Officer Of San Francisco
urges the local authorities to set aside GER
tain parts of the public parks for the use
of children for play grounds, for the con-
duct of their open air games and for their
general recreatiYe use. He adds that if
this is done there will be fewer hoodlums
and less crime among the young. And he
is right. The disposition of municipal au-
thorities appears 10 be repressive of the
natural innocent impulses of the American
boy. lie must not toss a ball in the streets
or fly kite upon the highway, or romp
on the walks, or drive his bicycle on the
side ways, or engage in any boyish sports
in public grounds and drives. He must not
indulge his fondness for pyrotechnics, and
is forbidden to make loud noises, even on
days Of public jubilation, and lads must
not assemble in groups upon the streets,
nor BY the spontaneity of youthful spirits
disturb the slumbers or peace of cranky
old age. In short, the boy in the city is
by municipal regulation driven to secret
amusements, to devices to cheat the law
and outwit the police officer. He is
cribbed and confined within walls and
rules, and all the vitality and glow and
bounding vigor of youth is frowned upon
by " ordinance" In short, municipal
regulation treats the American boy as IN
outlaw and nuisance. Soured and I'M
sympathetic maturity backs these regula-
tive measures and does its best to drive
the boy into hoodlumism. As DR.. Meares
well says:
respectfully suggest that a portion OF every
park in the city, or of as many of them rs mny
be necessary, be appropriated for recreation
grounds for these children. Destroy as many Of
the trees and as much of the shrubbery as may
be necessary for this purpose: remove tine I'M
necessary and bomely fences which row sur
round The parks in the central portions Of the |
city. In this way your parks viii not only afford
innocent and healthfIl amusement TO the youth |
nf the city, but viii be source of pleasure to |
every class OF Our people. ask you, therefore, |
to give this subject your serious consideration. |
believing that IL viii meet with the appreciation
of every wel-thinking citizen. l know of no |
measure undertaking that would tend so |
much to promote the physical and moral de |
vcloprenJ of these boys and girls, upon whose |
education. moral, physical and intellectual, |
depends so much the future Of San Francisco.
We would have fewer hoodlums." and many |
children would be saved from the disgrace and |
ruin of a commitment to our so-ealled reformG-
tory institutions where more are educated by |
bad association to be confirmed criminals than |
are ever reformed. All educators of experience |
and practical sense know how easy ii is TO pre-
vent the commission of the first criminal act |
with the difficulty of reformation |
atfpr such act has been committed.
While our schools are educating the mind, let |
Us pay more attention to the physical and moral
SIMPLY manufacturing instruments which must |
sooner or later destroy the foundations upon
which society depends for its protection.
All which is good preaching. Any man
Of experience, not hide-bound by suarling
prejudice, and not forgetful of the time
when he was boy, knows that in this day
the city lad has every inducement to be-
zone hoodlum, and that society helps
him on to that consummatiou. Natural
impulse sends him into the open air. The
confines of the city home, with its planked
back yard or well-kept little garden that
must not be harmed, or no yard and no
garden, and with its fats, and tenements,
md rented rooms, imprison the growing
1oy He flies to the street for amusement,
md to crafty natural inclinatious. The
law denies him legitimate exercise there,
,eyond mere walking. As matter of
,ourse he goes where he can have some
reedom. He frequents the cheap picnics
VI doubtful clubs has haunts in vacant
OTIS dusty and debris-ladened he has
headquarters under sidewalks and in de-
serted houses he finds companions among
he gutter habitues, and learns to drink,
smoke and gamble; he seeks back alleys
md the quarters where the police are least
een he floats like the leaf on the current
Town the rapids of bad companionship into
he whirlpool of petty crime, and finally
ands in the station-house, whence he is
graduated into reformatory institutions
hat fit him for professional criminal ca
'eer This Is the story in brief of thou
ands of poor boys who might be saved to
oeiety and good citizenship if municipal
would but recognize the eco
homie policy of providing places where the
10Y can legitimately be a boy in the true
,ense of the word