CHAPTEE IV.

NEW YORK NEWSBOYS—WHO THEY ARE, WHERE THEY COME
FROM, AND HOW THEY LIVE —THE WAIFS AND STRAYS
OF A GREAT CITY.

The Newsboys' Code of Morals — Curious Beds for Cold Winters'Nights —
Shivering Urchins — Sleeping in a Burned-out Safe—Creeping into Door¬
ways— The Street Arab and the Gutter-Snipe — A Curious Mixture of
Morality and Vice — His Religion—"Kind o' Lucky to say a Prayer"
—Newsboys' Lodging-Houses — First Night in a Soft Bed — Favorite
Songs — Trying Times in "Boys' Meetings" — Opening the Savings Bank
— The "Doodes" — Pork and Beans — Popular Nicknames — Teaching
Self-Help—Western Homes for New York's Waifs—"Wanted, a Perfect
Boy"—How a Street Arab Went to Yale College — Newsboy Orators —
A Loud Call for "Paddy"—"Bummers, Snoozers, and Citizens" — Speci¬
mens of Wit and Humor—"Jack de Robber" — The "Kid"—"Ain't
Got no Mammy" — A Life of Hardsliip — Giving tiie Boys a Chance.

HOW shall one condense into one chapter the story of an
army of newsboys in which each individual represents a
case not only of " survival of the fittest," but of an experience
that would fill a volume? They are the growth of but a gen¬
eration or two, since only the modern newspaper and its needs
could require the services of this numberless host. Out of the
thousands of homeless children roaming the streets as lawless
as the wind, only those with some sense of honor could be
chosen, yet what honor could be found in boys born in the
slums and knowing vice as a close companion from babyhood
up?

This question answered itself long ago, as many a social
problem has done. The fact that no papers could be had by
them save as paid for on the spot, and that a certain code of
morals was the first necessity for any work at all, developed
such conscience as lay in embryo, and brought about the tacitly
understood rules that have long governed the small heathen