When plastic, immature boyhood is caught in the whirlwind cylinder of the city, what happens to the boy? It was to answer that question and others that an exhaustive study has just been completed by the Civic Federation of Dallas of the newsboy life of that city. What effect does Streetland, the only geography many youngsters know from personal experience, have upon the boy? What are its deltas, its islands and its promontories? What part does the street gang with its psychology of the pack and claw play? What result does the street-trading with its sharp wisdom have upon boy life?

An investigation was undertaken under the direction of Eva Freeman of the Department of Public Welfare by forty-two senior sociology students at the Southern Methodist University. Comer M. Woodward, professor of sociology at the university, J. F. Kimball, superintendent of the Dallas Public Schools, principals, teachers and probation officers actively cooperated. The primary sources of information used were the Street and Newsboys Club, the school, the family, the boy himself, the neighborhood juvenile court and the employer. Supplementary sources, such as the minister, playground leaders, and others were also drawn upon. The survey itself was preceded by a collection of data by the federation dealing with delinquent and under-privileged children whose records were available in the juvenile court, the police department, the county jail, and the newsboys club.

Although there are no ordinances in Dallas restricting newspaper sales to boys, the newsboys club with the assistance of the mayor and the county judge seeks to restrict such sales to boys over ten years of age. It is estimated by W. A. Tischang, superintendent of the newsboys club, however, that there is an average of six boys from six to nine years of age constantly on the streets as newsboys. He has learned that a girl is rarely found selling papers on the streets. The casual newsboy recruited from the submerged migratory group- in and out of Dallas-here a week and gone, camping on the outskirts; children of junkers and horse traders-from families that pick cotton in the summer and fall, drift to Dallas for three months in the winter and are in Arkansas, Oklahoma or South Texas in the spring-was not considered so much as the more permanent group.

Much of the popular conception concerning children in the newspaper business is exploded by the facts brought out. The public has taken the tolerant attitude that the average newsboy is making a valiant effort to support a widowed mother and starving brothers and sisters, that the life of the newsboy is a wholesome one, and that his activity helps to equip him for a future successful business career. "The homeless newsboy of Dallas is a myth," states the report. It was ascertained that in the case of only one newsboy out of 263 were both parents dead, and it was also found that even that boy was living with relatives. However, in nearly one-third of the cases one parent was dead or there was a divorce or a separation. The thread-bare argument that newsboys contribute materially to the budget of their families was effectively dispelled so far as the newsboys of Dallas are concerned. An estimate of the actual earnings of the 249 boys who were engaged in the street sale of papers during a six-month period averages $3.15 a week for each boy. So far as the investigators could discover, only about 37 per cent of the boys contribute in any way to the support of their families.

Unfortunately, the relation between the very high percentage of separation and divorce in the families of these boys and delinquency and school standing of this group is not as clearly indicated as it might have been. For example, "out of inadequate records and with consequent incompleteness, 49 out of 303 investigations revealed delinquency with juvenile court action." If this ratio were to prevail, "it would bring 1,840 Dallas boys before the juvenile court each year (instead of 675 now prevailing). In other words, the newsboys of Dallas contributed two and three-fourths times the percentage to the delinquency as prevails in the boy population as a whole." As regards their school standing, since seven years is the age at which children enter school in Dallas, the results secured were more favorable than would be the case in many cities. With the assistance of the public school officials, statistics were compiled as to the standing of 267 boys. Eighty-five of this number had a total of 161 transfers, "indicating an instability of local residence which is not conducive to habits of good citizenship." In over 50 per cent of the cases, attendance was either irregular or infrequent or some form of truancy was present. Furthermore, 143 of these boys repeated their grades, as disturbing a factor as the irregularity of attendance.

An enlightening section of the report deals with the leisure time and other activities of the group. It is interesting to note their favorite reading: 89 indicated a preference for stories of adventure, 28 for fairy tales, 27 for articles about boy scouts, 18 for history, one for war. The motion picture plays an undue part in the lives of the Dallas newsboys. It was estimated that 222 boys attended 475 times a week. If this same average were maintained by the 132,000 adults and children of Dallas over 10 years of age and the average admission were twenty cents, this one amusement bill would reach the enormous sum of $2,900,000 annually, or an amount reaching well toward the cost of the entire municipal government.

A number of vivid pen-pictures presents a cross-section of the Dallas street boy. There is, for instance, the prepossessing youngster of fourteen who can "lick anybody in school," and the boy who is a natural leader but is confronted with very serious environmental and home conditions. In commenting upon these stories the report states that "the boy-the Dallas boy-newsboy or millionaire's son, is the one great raw material of the whole world. If he is already bad, society does an evil thing to posterity if it contributes to his further delinquency."