AMERICAN HOODLUMS.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume III, Issue 262, 25 July 1881, Page 3

AMERICAN HOODLUMS.

Thu New England -Journal of Education gives the following inviting picture of a class among Americans: —“ The badness of the bad boy in America—not necessarily the American bad boy—is acknowledged on all hands. He does not cease to lie bad when he ceases to be a boy. From the street corner rowdy he graduates as the saloon slugger, the ward politicau, and the sand-lot hoodlum. He is the same in all the large cities of the United States ; he is the same in the smaller cities and villages, or a little worse. "Whether his local name is ‘hoodlum/ ‘larrikin/ ‘bloodtup/ ‘ plugugly/ ‘dead rabbit/ ‘bummer,’ ‘rough/ ‘loafer/ or ‘bowery boy/ be is sni genesis, and has no counterpart in any other part of the world. He respects neither God nor man, neither the bald bead of the prophet, nor the eye glass of the philosoplie \ Elisha's shc-bears would have no terrors for him. His theoretical knowledge cf hunting derived from the study of dime novels and his practical skill with weapons give him such confidence in himself that if warned of the punishment visited upon the tormentors of Elisha he would coolly reply, ‘ Trot out your old slie-bears !’ In Europe youth is docile and respectful ; in Asia and Africa childhood or youth is in keeping with its surroundings ; but the bad boy of America is an anachronism; he is savagery growing up in the midst of civilisation, impiety mocking at religion, lawlessness pulling at the gown and wig o’the law, and license masquerading in the costume of liberty. His mother is ‘ the old woman,’ his father is ‘ dad/ his language is slang and profanity, his amusement is violence, his religion and education a blank, and, worst of all, lie is peculiar to the United States of North America.