The Newsboys' Court
In an effort to control to some extent the tendency of newsboys to become delinquent and to imbue them with a sense of personal responsibility, an interesting experiment in juvenile suffrage and jurisprudence has been undertaken in Boston.
During the year 1909, about three hundred newsboys were taken before the juvenile court of that city charged with violation of the local license rules. As the docket of this court was crowded, these newsboy cases were necessarily delayed, and as a result of this situation the boys conceived the idea of establishing a newsboys' court which should have jurisdiction in all cases of failure to observe the rules governing their trade. The following year a petition was presented to the Boston School Committee which was favorably acted upon by that body, and accordingly on the regular election day of that year the newsboys cast their ballots to select three juvenile judges of the court. These three boys, together with two adults appointed by the School Committee, compose the court. Election of these boy judges is held annually, and all licensed newsboys who attend the public schools are qualified electors. The court is empowered to investigate and report its findings with recommendations to the School Committee in all cases of infraction of the newsboy rules. Under the Massachusetts law the School Committee is authorized to regulate street trading by children under fourteen years of age, hence the newsboys are subject to purely local supervision. The supervisor of licensed minors, also an appointee of the School Committee, can, in his discretion, take complaints in his department before the newsboys' court instead of the juvenile court. The newsboy judges are paid fifty cents for their attendance at each official session of the court. The charges made before the Trial Board, as the Boston newsboys' court is called, range from selling without a badge or after eight o'clock in the evening or on street cars, to bad conduct, irregular school attendance, gambling or smoking. The disposition of these cases varies from reprimands and warnings to probation or suspension of license for a definite period, or complete revocation of license.[66]