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Henry Gardella, the fine, manly boy who sits near Antonio, has, I am glad to say, far better influences thrown about him. When he came into the school, some five years ago, he didn't know his letters. And he was, moreover, such a wee bit of a boy that to reach the platform his teacher didn't, to be sure, put him into a pint-pot -- like the little man in Mother Goose, -- but she did perch him upon a big wash-basin turned upside down. Now, he measures nearly six feet.

I do wish you could hear him recite a lesson in geography. You see he has come right from his stand at the Crawford House, and his smutty face and hands, his soiled shirt-sleeves, and old faded-out overalls are anything but becoming. Never mind! He knows all about Asia Minor, can name all the rivers in Europe, tell you the latest source of the Nile, rattle off the lakes of British America, bound all the Western territories, and -- well! tell you just about everything in geography that you don't quite exactly remember yourself.

And just think, my little WIDE AWAKE scholars, how very few advantages these poor boys can have. Two hours of study each day through the school year, -- that is all, -- and very few can have even this after they are fifteen. For the licenses, making this time in school one of the most important conditions, are usually granted to boys between the ages often and fifteen. After this, the newsboys, the bootblacks, and the little street peddlers, generally learn a trade or take up some kind of work that hinders any more school attendance.

Such a ragged, dirty, little crowd as they are, this score or more of bootblacks, that daily gather in the small school-room on North Margin Street! It seems hardly large enough for newsboys, peddlers and all; but as the school has two sessions, part come from nine to eleven in the morning, and the other half from one to three in the afternoon.

Looking into their brown faces and great black eyes, you don't need to hear the strange outlandish names that show their Italian parentage. But I think it is a little curious that while our newsboys are made up of Germans, Irish and Americans, as well as Italians, these little bootblacks are, every one of them, Italian boys. To be sure, the whole brigade numbers only forty here in Boston, where our newsboys count up to, at least, three hundred; but since boot-blacking is, on the whole, so profitable, I wonder some of our enterprising little German, Irish, or Yankee boys have not taken up the business.

Upon an average, Fred and Paul can each earn four dollars a week; while it is seldom that a newsboy can make -- even when including the extra Sunday sales -- more than three dollars. Still, the boot-black trade isn't quite so steady as the selling of newspapers; for through the winter months the little fellows have but few customers; and if they were not allowed to take up "inside jobs," many of them would find it hard to make a living.

The licenses given to bootblacks by the city government, always assign the places for their stands; and they are not allowed to make any change unless by special permit. But if they are quiet and well-behaved, no objection is made to their stepping into offices, saloons, depots, or hotel entrances in the neighborhood of their stands; and it is in such places that the little bootblacks find a good many extra jobs, even in stormy weather.

Years ago, the boys used to get ten cents a shine, but there has been so much competition since the "high-toned" stands made their appearance that no one will pay, nowadays, more than five cents a shine.

Perhaps you are wondering what the "high-toned stands" may be. Well, it is an odd name to give them, but that is what the little fellows call those big stands with the comfortable arm-chairs and the patent iron foot-rests, where grown-up men do the "shining." Many crippled soldiers make a living in this way; and on Court Street, at Boylston Market, in numerous alley ways, on the Common, indeed, all through the city you will find the "high-toned" establishments of these dangerous rivals in trade.

The little fellows look with wistful eyes upon the grand "out-fit" that must have cost "such heaps of money." But if they can't give a comfortable seat to their customers what of that? -- It isn't a chair and patent foot-rests, but just a pair of clean, highly-polished boots that is wanted.

It might, perhaps, console our little Boston boot-blacks if they knew their London brothers carried, just as they do, a small box slung across their shoulders which contains all their "stock in trade."

The "Ragged School Shoeblack Societies" number a great many recruits in London, and you can always tell them by their dark gray suits piped with red, their bright jackets, and peculiar caps with number and badge attached. Since the "brigade" was formed, nine hundred thousand dollars have been earned by these enterprising little fellows, and I don't doubt but that our Boston bootblacks are doing quite as well in proportion to their numbers.