PROS AND CONS

We leave the theater in the evening. Twenty kids between eight and twelve years old rush in: - Taxi, sir?...

We let ourselves be carried away to Montmartre. At dawn we emerge from some Russo-Silver-Latin-Greek club... Pale children, with feverish eyes and sunken cheeks, come running: - Taxi, sir?...

Disheveled little girls, for their part, offer meager, faded bouquets - faded like their little faces, already.

We're going to the races. We arrive at Longchamp. And, once again, a bunch of scruffy kids compete for the honor - and the profit - of opening the car door...

What are all these kids doing? Where do they come from? Where are their parents?... We don't know. These kids wander around town, randomly...

A municipal councilor, Mr. Léopold Bellan, is moved to see all these poor kids hanging around, day and night, in the stream. He asks the administration to take severe and rapid measures against the vagrancy of children... The advisor is right. The repressive measures he calls for are necessary... Yes!... Only, it is not enough to take measures to make a coat... We also need fabric... Do we have any fabric?...

Are we sure that the stray kids have a home and a place to stay? Are we sure that their parents have anything other than a cramped place to live in, where there is no room for either the spouses or the children?

Are we sure that the parents of these kids have the leisure to watch over them?... Taken from the workshop, from the factory, and nestled two or three leagues from the place where they work, they pass maybe three hours a day in uncomfortable and slow trams... Do they have time to take care of their children's education?

And are we sure that these kids have parents?... It is the father who vigorously runs the house... The father is often missing in the nasty attic where a poor woman remains alone, the man having fled. .. And the woman, who only has provisional recourse against the deserting father, has no action over the child either. She has to work. She must earn her bread, the hard bread of the alone and abandoned woman. Can she usefully watch over the kid?...

There is, it’s very true, alas! far too many little beggars on our streets, far too many little vagabonds... But it's all our fault. It is the fault of the men who have not yet known how to organize the city and who have not been able to make practical and vigorous laws. It's the men's fault, not the little vagabonds. It is the fault of the administrations which suffocate under piles of paperwork all the projects which should immediately become realities. It's the fault of the administrations who let the housing crisis fester instead of building big houses. It's the fault of a few owners who don't want children in their homes. It is the fault of some of our laws which, drawn up and voted for by men, leave women defenseless and powerless...

Maurice PRAX