The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1909-12-30
On Homeless Boys.

neglected boys and girls among us
as well as the sheltered youngsters
who found happiness overlooking
their Christmas stockings on Deem
Der 25th. 1t is but natural, too, -
grieve bit over the conditions
which make it possible thing that
youngsters of six and seven and
twelve should wander the streets
by night and by day and that they
should enter the most questionable
places, unchallenged, forced as it
were, by the stress of circumstances
which enwrapped another boy in
comfort and even luxury, even as it
afforded them nothing but unceasing
temptation to petty crime. To those
who give thought at this season to
other than their fortunate selves or
their fortunate friends, the talk of
Miss Emily Stickney at Trinity
church one Sunday was most ap-
pealing.
The Kurin Hattin Homes and West
minister and Saxtons River are
sheltering those of these boys whom
they can reach, providing for those
whom they can find leisure or funds
to attend to, and educating the half
grown and possibly, falsely-nurtur-
ed brains to the proper standards
| hot hot, +.1
go out into the world in manhood,
as burden bearers instead of burdens.
| like the phrase. Surely, it is vastly
worth while to convert anything
| from burden to a burden bearer AMI
if the thing to be converted is a boy,
an active youth, whose possibilities
for good or evil are untried, society
at large will reap endless benefit and
avoid endless misery because they
are such homes to which a boy may
go and find shelter even though all
the rest of the world turns him out.
Some of us have always considered
homeless boys, if we considered them
at all, as helpless creatures, buffeted
by the storms and having but a weak
hold upon existence but that is a very
feeble grasp upon true conditions
! The unfortunate youngsters (unfor-
innate, usually, in parentage) are As
rule, able to shift for themselves
Most of them have ability some of
them unusual talent which might be
converted, under proper auspices, to
the good and lasting benefit of soci-
, ETY., but how is boy to keep his feet
| from the paths of wickedness if he
has never had pointed out to him, the
way of light and the truth? How is a
youngster to distinguish the nature of
the crime of stealing a loaf of bread
to satisfy a real hunger, if the i'm
pulse to satisfy that hunger is strong
within him and his reasoning powers
are in ignorance of the reason why
he should stifie that hunger since he
! cannot come by the means of satisfy
ing it in an honest way? If his child
ish imagination is fired by Diamond
Dick stories, if he steals jewel which
attracted his eye, if his associates are
evil and the language he hears unfit
for childish ears and his environ
ment questionable, and if there is
naught but the police court to re-
form the boy through punishment
which provokes resentment rather
than repentance, what fool among US
is going to blame the boy because
some good, pure honest, interrupted
soul among the more refined and
more intelligent classes has neglected
to teach that boy the difference be-
tween right and wrong?
Thank God for Judge Lindsey
said Miss Stickney and those of us
who have the veal of the republic al
heart can join her, but the truth is
land most of us would know 1t if we
| listened to the still, small voice. il
more of us applied our charities
worthily and did our manifest duty
by our fellow men more thoroughly
and consistently. there would be few
er hayward boys with whom the Den
yer judge would find it necessary to
deal. Those are cold facts and most
of us who prefer to dole out our own
charities when we please and as we
please, and if we please, resent them.
Duty, indeed, We say, as if we were to
be blamed for the waywardness and
the tendency to crime that these
youngsters display. Ridiculous.
And yet, it is but selfish duty, at
ter all, in a way because the saving
of boy to society eliminates the
danger of that boys becoming :
menace to the morals or the safety Of
society, in future, not to speak of
the worthy things which that boy
may effect in later years or the in
fiuence he may spread among his
mates and his associates. 1t is a
splendid thing to keep a boy from
crime. That alone benefits the gen.
eral public but when one stops and
considers, briefly, that it is not in
the nature of youth to be inactive,
and that boy surrounded by good in
N