BY REV. JOHN T. WILDS, D.D.
Being a boy in a crowded city and being a boy in a village are two different things, though boys the world over are always boys. The balance of fun and sport is, after all, in favor of the city lad, the offspring of the tenement-house.
WAR.
After spending my boyhood in a delightful mountain village, and after being much of a boy, although a man, for years in the crowded tenement section of the East Side of New York, I am inclined to believe that pity is greatly misplaced when a youthful reader of the Round Table spreads himself in summer days under a great tree, feels sorry for the poor East-sider of New York, and says, "It's too bad he can't be here with me." Right now, my delightful friend under the tree, shouts of merriment ring in my ears from boys who last night slept in a close room, or possibly on the fire-escape, whose breakfast was most meagre because their parents are poor and honest. They are as happy as the day is long. They are happier longer than the day, because they never go to bed until ten o'clock, and they only go then because the hall light is turned out at that hour, and they don't like to climb up to the top story, or go through a long alleyway in the dark any more than you enjoy going through a graveyard in the night-time.
Necessity keeps the East-sider active. If he lolls on the street the police stir him; if he hangs about a store the keeper chases him away; but they tolerate him when he is playing. Necessity also make him inventive. They make their games and have them in season. They would as soon think of wearing an ulster in summer-time as play top in July. I don't know but that they have a code quite as reasonable as the high-classed youth who patterns after the dude.
Our happy lad of the tenement, until he is fourteen when he leaves school and goes to work, is compelled to play in crowded streets where hundreds of children swarm like bees, and necessarily within a narrow space. But he has broad ideas, and insists upon doing, accommodating the space in some way, whatever others do. The asphalt pavements are of the greatest blessing—far better than roof-gardens, and since we cannot have many parks, they are of greater importance to all concerned than the little squares that dot our city. At evening-time, when the street-organs have not gathered all the girls of the block for a dance and during the day on the sunny side of the street one may find a most energetic crowd of boys, eager, and intensely excited over a game. The streets and pavements are all marked over with strange diagrams, each one of which tells of a conflict. "Tip Cat" is always popular, but played, as a rule, in the morning; so also is "Kicking the Stick or Can." When the sun is hot they get on the shady side and play "Long Branch" and "War." Later on they have the "Hopping Game" and "Spread the Woman." Then when night comes—and it is not night, for the streets are as light as day because of the electric-light or gas—they dart about as detectives and robbers playing "Relievio."
BASEBALL.
It will be observed that they play what men do. You may often hear an imitation of the fire-gong, and see boys rush out before an imaginary wagon and engine, and go through the motion of having a fire. Children are rescued, the dead are laid out, medals are awarded for bravery. When the Ludlow Street Jail robbers escaped, the boys devised a jail, and the three noted robbers were impersonated, and escaped. The jailer was in dismay. Detectives and police went forth, climbing on tops of houses, over fences, eagerly searching for the men. And they were successful, be it said to the honor of the boys.