The  offenses  charged  against  these  children  from  good  homes
are  chiefly  those  which  suggest  the  unmanageable  boy  that  every
mother  knows.  The  "flipper"  is  much  in  evidence,  and  there  are
many  such  "larking"  offenses  as  breaking  a  Chinaman's  window;
"being  with  some  other  boys  who  broke  street  lamps  and  let  out
oil";  stealing  watermelons  from  a  freight  car;  entering  a  church
and  destroying  the  key  of  the  organ;  selling  transfers;  shooting
craps;  knocking  down  signs  in  front  of  Chinese  laundries;  taking
locks  from  a  basement  door;  "always  fighting,  and  neighbors  wished
it  stopped";  stealing  apples  from  a  freight  car;  building  a  fire  on
the  railroad  tracks;  breaking  a  slot  machine;  taking  waste  from  an
axle  box;  calling  neighbor  a  scab  (gang  of  four  boys);  throwing

161  *


THE    DELINQUENT  CHILD   AND   THE    HOME

snowballs  at  another  lad  (mother  says  "all  boys  get  into  a  fight
sometimes") ;  "fighting  with  other  boys  and  father  could  not  make
him  go  to  school."  There  are  many  cases  of  what  may  be  called
adventurous  stealing,  such  as  stealing  a  bathing  suit;  stealing  a
tent;  stealing  chickens;  stealing  linseed  oil  barrels  with  a  gang
of  boys;  robbing  a  man  and  carrying  a  loaded  revolver;  "carrying
a  wrench  intending  to  hold  up  people";  breaking  into  a  store,
church,  or  house  with  other  boys;  stealing  canned  goods;  breaking
seals  on  railroad  cars  and  stealing  things  of  various  sorts,  brass,
copper,  wire,  a  brass  handle  from  a  passenger  coach,  and  occasion-
ally, but  more  rarely,  grain,  and  even  coal.
