Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-12-08

curate and slum worker. and now pastor
ana SUM worker Of the church in Spital-
fields, where $1,000 people are crowded
Upon district Of seventy acres, and beside
which Whitechapel has been described as a
paradise and Drury Lane as fashionable
resort Here 1t was that Jack the Ripper
piled his bloody trade.
Il know the so-called Hooligan." said
Mr.. Davies to the writer. although we do
not breed him here The lives led by the
wretched children that you see swarming
In our streets result in a different tyne
These children dragged around by their
drunken parents. living on crusts sleeping
In Railways or in the streets, familiar at
five or six years with more yiciousness
than most men attain at thirty deyelop
into the shifty thief, the fly-by-night bur
glar: morose. self-contaned, working in
the dark. They don't brawl. or whoop it
up they don't modest women or GO ahout
in gangs. If they rifle house or kin a
man they do ii without ostentation
The Hooligan, on the other hand. IS not
an idler. as everybody seems to s,lppnse
and he doesn't come from the bitter stun
districts. He is the boy or young fellow
who works in factory, and who lets off
steam after hours His family is poor,
ster. HeXton, Bethnal Green and Clerken-
WELL practically respectable quarters, are
the breeding places of the 'Hooligau.'
A Man at Fifteen.
His being what he is is due To the flaws
in the social condition OF his kith and kin.
the absence of family life, the indifference
of parents. l don't speak as a bigoted par
son, but l can say that, in working for re-
hgious ends among such people. we can get
the parents to take no interest in their chill
dren s welfare. | remember calling on a
woman to speak to her about her son a
boy fourteen years old. who L knew was
working.
How much does your boy earn a week.
l asked her.
She said. I don't know, but he allows
me five shillings IA week
She didn't take enough interest in that
fourteen-year-o boy to ask how much hs
earned. and that is one conditions that is
answerable for the Hooligan type. AS soon
as these boys get out OF the board schools
they go to work, and at fifteen or sixteen
every one OF them Is a man grown in mind
and viciousness: independent. devil-may~
care: each one with his drink his cigarette
and his own special girl.
The Hooligan picks no quarrel with the
policeman, and he commits his Hooligan-
isms when the officer is at the other end
of his beat. There's the remedy for the
evil-increase the police force by putting
in private clothes men AS things are
now, the policeman's uniform makes him
helpless. He's the most prominent thing
in the block. One of them told me the
other day that for the last eight years COM
plant after complaint had been made OF
Hooiganism on a certain corner OF his
beat, and he said, DO you know, sir,
haven't seen 1t once.
He Needs Spanking.
I'm reply to a question as to whether he
did not look for ultimate trouble from Hooli-
ganism. he replied that, unlike many 9TH
ers he did not. pointing out that epidem-
les of this sort of thing had occurred for
years. making special reference to the old
sore in the north. known for years as the
Liverpool Corner. The present outbreak he
set down to the exciting influences of the
war, which he said had aroused In the Hooli-
gans a longing for carousal and what he
called a spirit of attack.
The impression seems to be growing that
physical force is the way to cure Hooli-
ganism. The Express said the day after
the c. I. V. parade: at would have been
better to have a score or a hundred street
rowdies stunned with the butt ends of the
volunteer rifles than to face the long record
of casualties to women and children which
disfigured the glory of Londons welcome
to it's volunteers. 1t would be no harm to
the state If a few Of the Hooligan con-
tingent had their heads broken. Society
can dispense with them. and little 1u-
dcious brutality would have good effect
in teaching the brutes Of the streets to
recognize law and order
A much better suggestion has come from
several sources that public application
of the cato -nine-tails would do more than
anything else to discourage the Hooligan
He is proud Of prison record. but his girl
wouldn't look at him after he had been
birched in the presence of her rivals.
CURTIS BROWN.