gained a personal hold upon him, and the lad tried with all the powers of his untrained moral nature to “make good and please the judge.”  Monotonous factory work was not to be thought of in connection with him, but his good friend the judge found a place for him as a bell-boy in a men’s club, where it was hoped that the uniform and the variety of experience might enable him to take the first steps toward regular pay and a settled life.  Through another bell-boy, however, he heard of the find of a diamond carelessly left in one of the wash rooms of the club.  The chance to throw out mysterious hints of its whereabouts, to bargain for its restoration, to tell of great diamond deals he had heard of in his travels, inevitably laid him open to suspicion which resulted in his dismissal, although he had had nothing to do with the matter beyond gloating over its adventurous aspects.  In spite of skilful efforts made to detain him, he once more started on his travels, throwing out such diverse hints as that of “a trip into Old Mexico,” or “following up Roosevelt into Africa.”

There is an entire series of difficulties directly traceable to the foolish and adventurous persistence of carrying loaded firearms.  The morning paper of the day in which I am writing records the following: 

“A party of boys, led by Daniel O’Brien, thirteen years old, had gathered in front of the house and O’Brien was throwing stones at Nieczgodzki in revenge for a whipping that he received at his hands about a month ago.  The Polish boy ordered them away and threatened to go into the house and get a revolver if they did not stop.  Pfister, one of the boys in O’Brien’s party, called him a coward, and when he pulled a revolver from his pocket, dared him to put it away and meet him in a fist fight in the street.  Instead of accepting the challenge, Nieczgodzki aimed his revolver at Pfister and fired.  The bullet crashed through the top of his head and entered the brain.  He was rushed to the Alexian Brothers’ Hospital, but died a short time after being received there.  Nieczgodzki was arrested and held without bail.”

This tale could be duplicated almost every morning; what might be merely a boyish scrap is turned into a tragedy because some boy has a revolver.

Many citizens in Chicago have been made heartsick during the past month by the knowledge that a boy of nineteen was lodged in the county jail awaiting the death penalty.  He had shot and killed a policeman during the scrimmage of an arrest, although the offense for which he was being “taken in” was a trifling one.  His parents came to Chicago twenty years ago from a little farm in Ohio, the best type of Americans, whom we boast to be the backbone of our cities.  The mother, who has aged and sickened since the trial, can only say that “Davie was never a bad boy until about five years ago when he began to go with this gang who are always looking out for fun.”