68 



hero of a storj, but who also figures more or less in all of them. 

 That is the imp of mischief, — the sort of boy who is an intoler- 

 able nuisance to the neighborhood. The stories are told from 

 the stand-point of the boy, so that he seems to be a fine fellow, 

 and all the world, which is against him, is unjust and overbear- 

 ing. His father, the immediate representative of society, exe- 

 cutes its j udgments with the rod, which again is an insult to 

 the high-spirited youth, and produces on his side, either open 

 war, or a dignified retreat to some distant region. 



These stories are not markedly profane, and they are not 

 obscene. They are indescribably vulgar. They represent boys 

 as engaging all the time in the rowdy type of drinking. The 

 heroes are either swaggering, vulgar swells, of the rowdy style, 

 or they are in the vagabond mass below the rowdy swelL They 

 are continually associating with criminals, gamblers, and low 

 people who live by their wits. The theater of the stories is 

 always disreputable. The proceedings and methods of persons 

 of the criminal and disreputable classes, who appear in the sto- 

 ries, are all described in detail. The boy reader obtains a theo- 

 retical and literary acquaintance with methods of fraud and 

 crime. Sometimes drunkenness is represented in its disgrace 

 and misery, but generally drinking is represented as jolly and 

 entertaining, and there is no suggestion that boys who act as 

 the boys in these stories do ever have to pay any penalty for it 

 in after life. The persons who are held up to admiration are the 

 heroes and heroines of bar-rooms, concert saloons, variety thea- 

 ters, and negro minstrel troupes. From the specimens which 

 we have examined we may generalize the following in regard 

 to the views of life which these stories inculcate, and the code 

 of morals and manners which they teach : 



The first thing which a boy ought to acquire is physical 

 strength for fighting purposes. The feats of strength performed 

 by these youngsters in combat with men and animals are ridic- 

 ulous in the extreme. In regard to details the supposed code 

 of English brutality prevails, especially in the stories which 

 have English local color, but it is always mixed with the code 

 of the revolver, and, in many of the stories, the latter is taught 

 in its fullness. These youngsters generally carry revolvers and 



