Of  the  danger  which  must  be  faced  by  the  child  wholly  or-
phaned and  left  alone  and  in  poverty  in  a  great  city,  little  need  be
said,  but  a  few  cases  should  perhaps  be  cited.  There  is  thirteen-
year-old  colored  James,  for  example,  fatherless  and  motherless,
who  was  used  by  an  older  man  in  a  bold  attempt  at  burglary,  was
arrested,  put  on  probation,  but  disappeared  wholly  from  the  knowl-
edge of  the  court  and  cannot  be  traced;  and  twelve-year-old
Robert,  who,  after  the  death  of  his  parents,  is  charged  with  cutting
another  boy  and  committed  to  the  John  Worthy  School  for  eight
months,  then  put  on  probation,  paroled  to  the  manager  of  the  acro-
batic troupe  of  a  great  circus  organization,  six  months  later  again
brought  into  court  charged  with  loitering  about  street  corners  in
bad  company,  committed  to  an  institution  for  dependent  boys,  and
after  his  release  wholly  lost  track  of.  Fourteen-year-old  orphan
Charles  was  first  placed  on  a  county  poor  farm,  then  became  the
ward  of  a  children's  aid  society,  was  placed  successively  in  four
different  homes,  and  was  finally  brought  to  court  as  incorrigible
and  was  committed  to  the  John  Worthy  School.
'•  It  is  evident  that  the  young  girl  who  is  orphaned  or  aban-
doned in  the  city  may  easily  become  delinquent.  It  may  be  in-
teresting, however,  to  note  the  following  fairly  typical  cases,  taken
from  the  long  list  of  girls  with  no  real  homes  who  come  into  court
year  after  year.  Such  cases  show  what  a  device  for  gathering  in
fragments  of  humanity  the  court  may  prove  when  once  adequately
equipped  with  agents  to  discover  those  in  need  of  protection,  and

93


THE  DELINQUENT  CHILD  AND  THE  HOME

with  the  means  of  training  and  safeguarding  those  who  have  been
found.
