The Globe. SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1875.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 277, 1 May 1875, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1875.

There is a terrible significance to be attached to the meaning of the old maxim—" Train a child up in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it"—when taken in connection with the conduct of the youths—many of them mere boys—who almost nightly lurk about the outskirts of the city, and whose moving spirit has extended even to the youths of the Country Townships. These precocious lads meet in bands in some spot not usually frequented by the police, and there aping the manners of " fast young men," they smoke and swagger, indulging in language, not only " unfit for ears polite," but marked with profanity and obscenity. Woe be to the pasßer by who ventures to remonstrate with them upon their improper conduct,|and if it be a female, ten chances to one that in addition to having to endure a shower of ribald abuse, she will be assaulted without regard, for decency. If unchecked, these boys will go on from bad to worse; instead of beeignmg useful members, they will becomepests of society ; and no marvel, for the streets are their training school, their associates and instructors arejads more vicious than themselves, and the end will be that at last they will by crime so outrage society that they will be removed as outcasts from its pale. We say that this will be the end, for, be it remembered, " That the vicious boy is but the father of the dangerous man.'''' Prevention is, however, better than cure, and it will be to the interest of society rather to prevent these unfortunates from joining the criminal class than to punish them after they have done so. The remedy for the evil complained of should be —in the opinion of many—sharp punishment for these youths' doings in the streets. Probably in some cases a judicious application of the rod might have a beneficial effect; but in the name of humanity we must protest against any form of punishment which would have the effect of bringing youths as yet untainted with crime into contact with hardened criminals. Punishment following quickly on the commission of acts of larrikinism may check for a time its growth, but we shall have to go deeper and trace out the origin of the disease ere we can apply a remedy. The youths found in our streets who are known as larrikins, differ from the larrikins of the old county. There the City Arabs are distinguished by the marks of squalid misery; want, and the direst poverty and neglect have left almost an indelible impression upon their countenances and attenuated frames, and no one possessing a feeling heart can look upon them without experiencing the deepest pity. Here the larrikins are fat and well clothed, and so far as creature comforts are concerned are evidently well provided for. Yet they are nevertheless objects of the deepest pity as victims of cruel, heartless neglect. How is it that these boys are allowed to wander the streets night after night until a late hour? It is because those who ought to restrain the unfortunate boys -neglect their duty, and allow them to indulge io a course which must inevitably end in the ruin of the lads. Home is not made attractive for them ; the father probably is rarely found in the home circle except at meals, and the mother, it may be, has not sufficient moral power to restrain her sons from a vicious course. This is the true source of larrikinism as it exists with us. It originates in the cruel neglect of parents ; and it is to supply such want of parental care that the State should step in and remove those thus neglected to where they would be cared for, educated, and trained to habits of industry rather than left to the terrible training of the streets. Nor should the fathers of the boys be relieved from contributing handsomely for the paternal care which the State exercises over the children whom their natural protectors neglect. We say that the fathers of such boys should be made to pay handsomely, because we have no sympathy with the man who nightly neglects his home, whether it be for the society to be found either in a public-house or a Good Templar The man who does this fails in his duty to his children, society, and God.