We have taken the pains at different times to see some of the pieces represented in these places, and have never witnessed anything improper or immoral. On the contrary, the popular plays were always of a heroic and moral cast. "Uncle Tom," when it was played in the Bowery, undoubtedly had a good moral and political effect, in the years before the war, on these ragamuffins.
The salvation of New York, as regards this army of young vagabonds, is, without doubt, its climate. There can be no permanent class of lazzaroni under our winters. The cold compels work. The snow drives "the street-rats," as the police call them, from their holes. Then the homeless boys seek employment and a shelter. And when they are once brought under the series of moral and physical instrumentalities contrived for their benefit, they cease soon to be vagrants, and join the great class of workers and honest producers.
A CORRECTIVE.
One of the best practical methods of correcting vagrancy among city boys would be the adoption, by every large town, of an "ordinance" similar to that passed by the Common Council of Boston.
By this Act, every child who pursues any kind of street-trade for an occupation—such as news-vending, peddling, blackening of boots, and the like—is obliged to procure a license, which must be renewed every three months. If he is found at any time without this license, he is liable to summary arrest as a vagrant. To procure the license, each child must show a certificate that he has been, or is, attending some school, whether public, or industrial, or parish, during three hours each day.
The great advantage of a law of this nature, is, that it can be executed. Any ordinary legislation against youthful vagrants—such as arresting any child found in the streets during school-hours, or without occupation—is sure to become ineffectual through the humanity and good-nature of officials and judges. Moreover, every young rover of the streets can easily trump up some occupation, which he professes to follow.
Thus, now, as is well known, most of the begging children in New York are apparently engaged in selling "black-headed pins," or some other cheap trifle.
They can almost always pretend some occupation—if it be only sweeping sidewalks—which enables them to elude the law. Nor can we reasonably expect a judge to sentence a child for vagrancy, when it claims to be supporting a destitute parent by earnings in a street-trade, though the occupation may be a semi-vagrant one, and may lead inevitably to idleness and crime. Nor does the action of a truant-officer prevent the necessity of such a law, because this official only acts on the truant class of children, not on those who attend no school whatever. By an ordinance like this of Boston, every child can be forced to at least three hours' schooling each day; and, as any school is permitted, no sectarian or bigoted feeling is aroused by this injunction.
The police would be more ready to arrest, and the Judges to sentence, the violators of so simple and rational a law. The wanderers of the street would then be brought under legal supervision, which would not be too harsh or severe. Education may not, in all cases, prevent crime; yet we well know that, on a broad scale, it has a wonderful effect in checking it.
The steady labor, punctuality, and order of a good school, the high tone in many of our Free Schools, the self-respect cultivated, the emulation aroused, the love of industry thus planted, are just the influences to break up a vagabond, roving, and dependent habit of mind and life. The School, with the Lodging-house, is the best preventive institution for vagrancy.