Johnnie Moran, twelve years old, ... was arraigned today ... in the Children’s Court.
The boy was taken in charge Saturday night by Detectives Carter and Brown from headquarters, after he had watched his father die of dropsy thirty-six hours previously; after he had seen the body robbed by a playmate; after he himself had taken “de old man’s” watch, and had then gone to play in the street as if nothing out of the usual had occurred.
Johnnie is undersized. His chest is sunken and his shoulders slope; his furtive little gray eyes are deep set under a bulging brow, topped by a shock of hair of no particular color; his small fingers are cigarette-stained, and his clothes look as if their origin had been the ash barrel. Here is the story he told an Evening World reporter, while swinging his thin legs unconcernedly from a bench in the room above the Children’s Court, where the little prisoners were waiting to be called for trial:
“Me old man was sick a week and three days. I didn’t know what wuz the matter wid him, and he didn’t neither. He just laid around and groaned and his legs swelled awful. His name? He wuz named John, too, and he was a night watchman, when he woiked, down to the dock at Thoity-seventh Street. Yes, sir, he drinked some mostly before he went to work in the evenin’. But it didn’t seem to bother him. No, sir, he never treated me bad; hardly ever licked me.
“The old man never had nothing to eat, ’cept what I bringed him the first day he wuz sick. Yes, sir, I went to school every day. I wuz ’fraid the troont-off’cer’d git me. The old man didn’t mind—he just stayed by himself. No, sir, nobody come to see him, and he never told me to git nobody. After school I’d play in the streets with the other fellows and I’d git some buns and milk. I didn’t want much—wuzn’t hungry—and the old man never seemed to want anything.”
Johnnie produced a wad of chewing gum from some recess of his jacket and a second later the atmosphere around him reeked with the odor of mint.
“Thursday night,” he went on, “he wuz took woise. I slept on a bundle of old things in a corner and in the night I heard the old man git up and go in the kitchen and sit down there. He groaned somethin’ awful—like this,” and the boy gave a startling imitation, “and I couldn’t sleep and I told him to shut up. Then, after a while, he stopped groaning and when I got up to go to school I see he wuz nearly all in.
“He told me to tie a rope around him and try and pull him onto the bed and I did it, but it wuzn’t no use. Then I went out and got a roll and a glass o’ milk and when I come back he wuz half way onto the bed, and he didn’t answer when I spoke to him and shook him. I called him four or five times, but he never answered, and so I went on to school. I didn’t want the troont-off’cer to git me.
“Yes, sir, I knowed he wuz dead, but I had to go to school. Then after school was out, I told some of the fellers and two of ’em went up in the room with me, and one of ’em—he wuz a big boy—took five dollars out of the old man’s pocket and I took his watch. The big boy—his name wuz Frank Reede—wouldn’t give me none of the five dollars and he and the other kid run away.
“The next day I got hungry and I told the janitor and he told the cops and they come and got me and took the old man’s watch to keep for me. Yes, sir, I’m sorry the old man’s dead. He wuz good to me. No, sir, me muther is dead. She died when I wuz a year old when we lived in Thoity-thoid Street. I dunno how long we have been living in Thoity-seckin Street. What’ll they do with me, Mister?”
What shall we do with him? That is a question which the institutions, the officials, and the people of New York must answer.
APPENDIX
| Source | Names |
|---|---|
| 1909 Court list | 202 |
| Big Brother Movement | 43 |
| Special club studies | 10 |
| Charity Organization Society | 8 |
| Additional children of interest in families visited | 20 |
| Known through investigators on other topics | 6 |
| Known through other children | 2 |
| School | 1 |
| Church | 1 |
| Settlement | 1 |
| Total | 294 |
| Age | BOYS | |
|---|---|---|
| Number | Per Cent | |
| Less than 8 years | 1 | .3 |
| 8 years and less than 10 years | 3 | 1.0 |
| 10 years and less than 12 years | 24 | 8.2 |
| 12 years and less than 14 years | 71 | 24.3 |
| 14 years and less than 16 years | 102 | 35.0 |
| 16 years and more | 91 | 31.2 |
| Total | 292 | 100.0 |
[a] Information is not available as to the ages of two of the 294 boys.
| Year in District | FAMILIES | |
|---|---|---|
| Number | Per Cent | |
| Less than 5 years | 13 | 7.1 |
| 5 years and less than 10 years | 31 | 16.9 |
| 10 years and less than 15 years | 25 | 13.7 |
| 15 years and less than 20 years | 26 | 14.2 |
| 20 years and more | 88 | 48.1 |
| Total | 183 | 100.0 |
[a] Information is not available as to the length of residence in the district of 58 of the 241 families.
| Country of birth | Fathers | Mothers |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 81 | 92 |
| Ireland | 64 | 72 |
| Germany | 27 | 18 |
| Italy | 17 | 15 |
| Scotland | 7 | 8 |
| England | 6 | 4 |
| Sweden | 4 | 4 |
| France | 4 | 2 |
| Austria | 3 | 2 |
| Russia | 1 | 3 |
| Dalmatia | 2 | 2 |
| Roumania | 2 | 1 |
| Armenia | 1 | 1 |
| Switzerland | 1 | 1 |
| West Indies | 1 | 1 |
| Portugal | .. | 1 |
| Denmark | 1 | .. |
| Total | 222 | 227 |
[a] Information is not available as to the country of birth of 19 fathers and 14 mothers in 241 families.