The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1925-12-01

With hundred Thousand Boys and
Girls Who Roam Its Streets and
Imperil It's Peace.
An army of orphans of war and FAM
inc, dirty, homeless, starving and
depraved, is roaming the streets of
Moscow, Russia. A hundred thousand
boys and girls, most of them less than
10 years old and thousands of them
less than II years old, comprise, this
troop of crime and privation which
has become the most serious social
and economic problem in the city.
And still, no solution of the problem
has been found.
Enter City in Droves.
The authorities have made feeble at
tempt to wipe out the army by arrest
ing its ragged little members, but this
plan failed. Recruits for the ranks of
the hopeless poured into Moscow in
droves, faster than the authorities
could take care of them.
To house the children, feed, clothe
and teach them properly would ex-
haust the resources of the city gov
eminent and would prove drain on
the nations wealth, it is declared. Be-
side there is no room for them in the
city's institutions for the destitute. So
some other means of disposing of
them must be found
Law Means Nothing.
Most of the children in the orphan
army know of no such thing as law.
The ragged little hoboes steal, fight,
beg, and even murder. They attack
policemen as quickly as civilians, over
coming all opposition by the very
force of their numbers.
By day the children roam the streets
of the city, begging food or stealing
it whichever is easiest. Most Of them
are confirmed liquor or drug addicts,
and little fellows scarcely able to
walk may be seen putting away at
cigarettes or chewing tobacco. All
these narcotics they steal, for the law
against the sale or drugs, liquor and
tobacco to minors is strictly enforced.
Spend Nights in Dark Places.
The army of the homeless children
vanishes into the blackness, as night
In cellars, in doorways, in
barns and chicken coops. in wagons
and automobiles and sometimes even
in the cutters the boys and girls lie
down for troubled sleep. Some of
them, though, go forth in the night to
do their robbing or killing.
The children who comprise this
army of horror are homeless and pa
rentless because of the periods of fa-
mine, war and revolution in Russia.
Thousands of them go into Moscow
from the countryside and the smaller
cities and towns. Once in Moscow
they soon become lost among the
ranks of their companions.
Other Russian cities have their
numbers of child hoboes. but in Mos
COW the army is the largest and the
problem is the most serious.
A few of these child criminals have
been taken prisoners and punished for
their crimes. The punishment usually,
however, is confinement in a school
where they are weaned away from the
crime and suffering which may have
been their lot for days, weeks, months
or even years.
Others of the child hoboes have
been adopted by wealthy families or
sent to other institutions. Usually
they are able within few months to
develop into ordinary, fun-loving boys
and girls 1t is their misfortune which
makes them what they are.
Dark Picture Always.
But always the dark picture of its
army of homeless children is before
the city of Moscow. just one illustra-
ton shows the desperate ends to which
the child hoboes go to obtain food or
money to buy food.
A dozen boys and girls, ragged and
almost blue from exposure and lack
OF food, recently burst in the doors of
a grocery store in the very heart of
Moscow. With shrill curses and
threats the children put to rout the
customers in the store and with clubs
felled its proprietor.
Bags appeared as if from nowhere,
and food was jammed into them.
At this point a policeman, noticing
the excitement, entered the store.
Three or four OF the boys in the gang
beat him into Inconsistencies. Then
the children fed before other officers
discovered what was happening.