The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-07-24
The Story of a
Tenement House Boy
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY,
BY X. L. H.

The city people who see the boys
of the streets-Street Arabs, as they
are called-generaHy think of them as
being all of one class. if they think
of them at all But as a matter of
fact they make a little world which
is as full of classes and differences as
the bigger world around them.
1t is true that we were all ragged
and barefooted, and practically all of
us were more or less dirty. Racing
around in the dirty streets made it al
most impossible for us to keep clean
And, of course, even those of us who
had learned to wash themselves regu-
larry through their school training
could not do very much in the line,
for in the tenement houses in which we
lived there was only one sink for each
story, and from four to eight families
used 1t for all their purposes.
II was in an inky black corner of
the hallway, and person was lucky
enought be able to stay at it long
enough to take hasty "souse." Many
OF the worst fights between the fami-
lies in the tenement houses began and
still begin in quarrels over the right
to use the common sink.
But beyond raggedness and dirt.
there was little common resemblance
between us boys. Some of the gang
had never been to school-they were
professional truants, and from dawn
till dark they had to keep their eyes
open for the approach of a. truant Off
Ger. In a way, these boys lived like
criminals, for they were fugitives from
the law. The truant officers had a
hard time catching them. There were
always a number of recruits to the
truant ranks in the form of boys who
had attended school for a period and
had then run away. These deserters
brought all the news to the rest, and
as they knew the truant officers by
sight, they were invaluable for warn
ing the others in time.
Some of the truants were not par
ticularly bad in any way except that
they wouldn't go to school. They
fought, it is true, but all we street
boys-whether we went to school or not
had to learn that. Fights were so
common that an ordinary fight didn't
interest us. We formed rings around
tive fights only when they were recog-
nized as champions
Apart from fighting. the less vicious
class of truants were wonderfully we'll
behaved, considering the entire lack
of training or discipline AS look
back on it now, / wonder at the gen.
eral honesty and decency among these
poor boys, most of whom had no home
that was worthy of the name. Their
worst crimes were to go in swimming
off the piers in defiance of the police,
and stealing rides on street cars.
There was a worse class of truants,
however. It was composed of boys
who had learned to steal. Most of these
boys had no home at all. They had
either run away or been kicked out by
their parents. They lived in q. strange
manner. Hunted by truant officers and
police, they could not find safe abiding
places on land, and they would not go
to the various newsboys' lodging
houses, for they preferred to spend
their earnings in other ways. So they
became dock rats
The human dock rats lived and still
live exactly like the animals after
which they are named. Under the piers
that jut into the rivers around cities
like New York are mazes of crib work
that hold the timbers of the piers to-
gether. The dock rats live there. They
drag stolen lumber and other material
down at night and make dens for them
serves, some of them fitted up with
much comfort, and others absolutely
as rough and Uttered as the nest of a
water rat would be.
The dock rats call these hiding
places under the piers "parlors," and
when a dock rat says, Il hang out
in de parlor under de Stanton street
pier" he means his retreat among
the cribwork
Occasionally the police raid these
| hiding places, but the boys are as
agile as the rats, and it is difficult to
catch them. Many of the dock rats
whom we knew thought nothing of
dropping into the swift river, night
or day, however the tide might be
running. in order to escape the po-
lice. They could dive and swim like
fishes.
Sometimes there would be fierce