responsibilities, while he still has all the emotions and dreams of a
boy.

When he is told he must go to work he looks for a job. He does not wait
until he can find the one that fits him. He cannot afford to wait and if
he could, he does not know what job would fit. He takes automatically
the first place he can get, hoping to find a better one, which generally
means an easier one, before very long. It is hard for a boy to stick to
work; too many things are calling him away. Every instinct and emotion
is urging him to play. New feelings and desires are coaxing him from
work. His companions and the boy life in which he has a place urge him
to leave his task. Usually he keeps his job no longer than he can help
and later looks for something else. The chances are great that he will
never find what he wants; that he has not had the preparation or
training for a successful workingman's career, whatever that might be.
He is a doer of odd jobs and of poorly paid work all his life.

He must have some calling and takes the easiest one, which is often a
life of crime. From this start comes the professional criminal
so-called. He may make a business of picking pockets. If this comes to
be his trade it is very hard for him to give it up. There is so strong
an element of chance--he never knows what a pocket will contain--it
gratifies a spirit of adventure. Then it is easy. The wages are much
greater than he could get in any other calling; the hours are short and
it never interferes with his amusements. It is not so dangerous as being
a burglar or a switchman, for he can find an excuse for jostling one in
the street-cars or in a crowd and thus reaching into a pocket.

The burglar is not so apt to be a professional; his is a bolder and more
hazardous trade; if he is caught he is taken from his occupation for a