NEW YORK ARABS.

Evening Star, Issue 3128, 27 February 1873, Page 3

NEW YORK ARABS.

Charles Loring Brace, writing on the dangerous classes of New York, says : The street boys, as is well known, are exceedingly sharp and keen, and being accustomed to theatrical performances, are easily touched by real oratory, and by dramatic instruction ; but they are also restb ss, soon tired of long exhortations, and somewhat given to chaff. The early days of those “ B .ys’ Meetings” were stormy. Sometimes the salutary exercises from the street were showers of stones; sometimes a general scrimmage occurred over the benches ; again, the visitors or missionaries were pelted by some opposition gang, or bitter enemies of the lads who attended the meeting. The exercises, too, must be conducted with much tact, or they broke up with a laugh or a row, 3he platform of the Boys’ Meeting seemed to become a kind of chemical test to the gaseous element in the brethren’s brains. One pungent criticism we lemember—on a pious and somewhat sentimental Sunday school brother, who, in one of ourjmeetings, ha I been putting f-rth vague and declamatory religious exhortation—in the words “Gas! gas!” whispered with infinite contempt from one hard-faced young disciple to another. Unhappy, too, was the experience of any more darin" missionary who ventured to question these 3 youthful inquirers. Thus, “In this parable, my dear boys, of the Pharisee and the publican, what is meant by the ‘ publican ?”’ “ Alderman, sir, wot keeps a po‘house !” “ Dimocrat, sir !” “ Black Republican, sir !” Or, “My boys, what is the great end of man ? When is he happiest ? How would you feel happiest?” “When we’d plenty of bard cash, sir !’’ Or, “My dear boys, when your father and your mother forsake you, who will take you up ?” “The purliee, sir (very seriously), the purlice !” They some! hues took their own quiet revenge among themselves, in imitating the Sunday school addiesses delivered to them.