The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-06-28
BAD LITTLE BOYS
THEY INFEST THE NElGHBoR-
HOOD OF GRAND AVENUE
Parents Should Know Where Their
Sons Are at Night and With Whom
Bad Boys Are the Terror of the
World

There used to be years ago what was
known as the Rice street gang" a
crowd of rough boys who made the
neighborhood mentioned miserable on
summer nights, and even in winter. 1t
was supposed that they We're unruly
because they were IN a lower strata of
society and had not the advantages
of boys of more well-to-do parents.
But, according to reliable report, there
is a gang in another part of the city
almost as lawless as the one which
used to make the vicinity of Rice
street so unpleasant. We will : call
this the Grand avenue gang" al
though l don't know that they have
ever been so named. These boys con-
gregate in the blocks between Kent
and GrOttO streets, and extending from
Summit avenue over to Osceola. They
range in age from seven and eight up
to thirteen and fourteen, and what they
don't think of to do in the way of mis-
chief was never done by mortal boy.
These boys are the sons of we'll TODD
and even prominent citizens, and their
up-bringing has been supposedly good.
But, alas, they do not give much evil
dence of it. From seven until nine,
ten and even eleven, they make night
hideous from May until November by
shrieking, fighting and generally act
ing like young hoodlums. One night not
so very long ago a women who lives on
Lincoln avenue was frightened into
fainting fit which nearly had serious
consequences by the throwing against
her window of a mud ball. Her hus-
band gave chase and caught one of the
offenders, took him to his father and
told what he had done, or what the
boys he was with had done. Another
trick of these same boys is to gather
where some house or fiat building is
being erected, and do everything con-
ce1vable in the way of destruction. The
white sand which the masonS use
comes in big bags, and these bags the
boys VIII rip open to let the sand out
so that when the men come in the
morning there will be none to work
with. These charming boys did $22
worth of damage to a fiat building in
process of building one night, $12
worth another night, until patience
ceased to be a virtue and the owner
caught one of them and told him if
they went near that place again he
would have them arrested. These are
not street hoodIums, but the sons of
well known families.
The noise they make in the even
ingS is the terror of women with
nerves, and the consequence is that the
neighboOrhoOd is spoiled for peace
loving people by these obstreperous
boys.
Now there is really no excuse for this
sort of thing When boys become so
lawless that they will not mind their
parents and will persist in destroying
should be done that will teach them a
lesson. The proper persons to disci-
pline them are their fathers; mothers,
alas, too often are so buliied and man
aged by their sons that the boys need
Sterner hand. In the first place, par
entS should know where the boys go at
night, what they are doing and with
whom they associate. The idea that
ones son is all right if he is with the
son of friend is not worth much
these days. Some of the boys one
knows are the very worst to be found.
A boy who will, at ten or twelve years
old, go into a partly built house and
destroy everything he can lay his
hands upon, is going to make a man
who will have small respect for law,
and but poor idea of the difference
: between meum and tuum. This sort
of thing is by no means confined to
this city; it extends the country over.
1t is not too much to say that the
small boy is the terror of the world
Something very decided should be done
by parents of the boys who live in the