With many of these boys, this is
a family matter. Here are five brothers, the youngest very young
indeed,--and the father not very old. One of the brothers,
bright-looking as boy can be, is a young Jack Sheppard, and has already
broken jail five times. Many are trained by old burglars to be put
through windows where men cannot go, and open doors. In a row of
second-class pickpockets, nearly all boys, there is observable on
almost every face some expression of concern, and one instinctively
thanks Heaven that the boys appear to be frightened. Yet, after all,
perhaps it is hardly worth while. The reform of boy thieves was first
agitated a long while since, and we have yet to hear of some
encouraging result. The earliest direct attempt we know of, with all
the old argument, _pro_ and _con_, is thus given in Sadi's "Gulistan."
Among a gang of thieves, who had been very hardly taken, "there
happened to be a lad whose rising bloom of youth was just matured. One
of the viziers kissed the foot of the king's throne, assumed a look of
intercession, and said,--
"'This lad has not yet even reaped the pleasures of youth; my
expectation, from your Majesty's inherent generosity, is, that, by
granting his life, you would confer an obligation on your servant.
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