Hooligan

“ Just as a professional boxer of any size can lay out any mere hulking hooligan, so this bird carried about him the stamp of the professional fighter that could lay out anything there in that scene that he chose—almost.
The guillemot flew as never in all her life had she flown before, and every known artifice of dodging she had heard of she tried, and—it all failed. ”

“ The promptitude and despatch with which the Kid had attended to the gentleman with the black-jack had not been without its effect on the followers of the stricken one. Physical courage is not an outstanding quality of the New York hooligan. His personal preference is for retreat when it is a question of unpleasantness with a stranger. And, in any case, even when warring among themselves, the gangs exhibit a lively distaste for the hard knocks of hand-to-hand fighting. Their chosen method of battling is to lie down on the ground and shoot. ”

“ The crowd at the buffet surged back and I saw a bucktoothed hooligan bent double, both hands gripping his ankle. Thick moans came from his lips.
And standing close to him was my Joy. But a new Joy. A different Joy than I had ever seen. A glorious Joy, with her head thrown back, her teeth showing, and the light of battle in her eyes. She was holding a plate of jello in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other and was shouting in outraged dignity.
"Watch who you're shoving, you jug-headed gorilla! And keep your mitts out of the herring! Eat like a man or go back to the zoo!" ”

“ When Billy Windsor had mentioned the gangs, he had formed a mental picture of low-browed hooligans, keeping carefully to their own quarter of the town. This picture had been correct, as far as it went, but it had not gone far enough. The bulk of the gangs of New York are of the hooligan class, and are rarely met with outside their natural boundaries. But each gang has its more prosperous members; gentlemen, who, like the man of the Astor roof-garden, support life by more delicate and genteel methods than the rest. ”

“ The hooligan who bonnets a policeman is apparently the victim of a sudden impulse. In reality, however, the bonneting is due to weeks of daily encounters with the constable, at each of which meetings the dislike for his helmet and the idea of smashing it in grow a little larger, till finally they blossom into the deed itself. ”

“ They were some half-dozen in number, all of them roughs of the hooligan type, and they were evidently in boisterous spirits, for, as they passed the entrance to the Royal Free Hospital, they halted and battered furiously at the gate. Shortly after this exploit they crossed the road on to our side, whereupon Thorndyke caught my arm and slackened his pace.
"Let them draw ahead," said he. "It is a wise precaution to give all hooligan gangs a very wide berth at this time of night. ”

“ We continued to walk on at reduced speed until we reached Heathcote Street, into which we turned and so entered Mecklenburgh Square, where we mended our pace once more.
"The hooligan," pursued Thorndyke, as we walked briskly across the silent square, "covers a multitude of sins, ranging from highway robbery with violence and paid assassination (technically known as 'bashing') down to the criminal folly of the philanthropic magistrate, who seems to think that his function in the economy of nature is to secure the survival of the unfittest. There goes a cyclist along Guildford Street. ”

“ The anti-Jewish outbreak, which actually took place later on, was carefully fostered, and the hooligan element amongst the Arabs openly encouraged to acts of violence [251] by certain individuals who, for their own ends, hoped to shatter the age-long aspirations of the Jewish people. ”

“ Married police living in houses or rooms in the town of their station afforded an easy and safe target for the venom of these hooligan shop-boys and farmers’ sons. At first the police 282used to go home unarmed, and used to be shot down in the back while passing along an ill-lighted street or lane, or the assassins would knock at the door of the policeman’s home, and if he came to the door would fire at him and then run away. ”

“ Quarles asked. "Once get a fixed idea in the mind, and it is exceedingly difficult to give opposing theories their due weight. The hooligan club got into your mind. There were many reasons why it should, especially with Mr. Hayes as the connecting link; you could not believe him guilty so you fell back upon the club. One other point, a very important one. The chalice was only used on great festivals and certain Saints' days. There are several reasons why the robbery would be difficult on a great festival. ”

“ Virtuous women belonging to the highest stations in life and possessing qualities of rare courage, purity, and self-denial were attacked in the most cowardly fashion by bands of strong-bodied hooligans, “felled to the ground, struck in the face, frog-marched, and tossed hither and thither in a shameless manner.” ”

“ But they would not retreat farther back—not many of them—and on days of battle I saw groups of French miners and dirty-bloused girls excited by the passage of our troops and by the walking wounded who came stumbling back, and by stretcher cases unloaded from ambulances to the floors of their dirty cottages. High velocities fell in some of the streets, shrapnel-shells whined overhead and burst like thunderclaps. Young hooligans of France slouched around with their hands in their pockets, talking to our men in a queer lingua franca, grimacing at those noises if they did not come too near. ”

“ Right wheel!" The three great hooligans trembled all over, clicked their heels and stepped off the mark as punctiliously as though on the Tempelhofer Feld at the Spring Parade.
In two minutes the Babe, snarling like a Zoo tiger at dinner-time, had manoeuvred them across a hundred yards of bog and filed them, goose-stepping, into a Nissen Hut full of sleeping Atkinses. The Atkinses rolled, gaping, off their beds at the Babe's first shout, and the game was up.
Ten minutes later the Bosch gentlemen were en route for the main guard under strong, if déshabillé, escort. ”

“ All we have to do is to look out for about a dozen hooligans with a natural dignity in their bearing, the result of intimacy with the main boss. Carefully eluding these aristocrats, we shall win through. ”

“ We are too apt to throw the blame on other persons. For instance, if there is a riot in a City, we say that the hooligans were provoked to commit the riot. Let us not forget that these so-called hooligans are our countrymen. ”

“ I asked.
"My club boys," said Hatton. "They belong to the most dingy quarter of the whole of London—South Lambeth. They are not hooligans. They are not so interesting as that. They represent the class of youth that is a stratum or two above hooliganism. Frightful weeds. They lack the robust animalism of the class below them, and they lack the intelligence of the class above them. The fellows at my club are mostly hard-working mechanics and under-paid office boys. They have nothing approaching a sense of humour or the instinct of sport." ”

“ These hooligans paraded the town in small groups, sometimes uniting, blocking the traffic, demanding money from well-dressed people, killing students, and making themselves generally objectionable. When the police were appealed to they shrugged their shoulders and said: “Liberty.” The hooligans demanded the release of the man who had killed Bauman. “They have set free so many of their men,” they said, referring to the revolutionaries, “we want our man set free.” Practically the town was in a state of anarchy; anybody could kill any one else with impunity. ”

“ The poetess, obviously wishing she had left such dangerous weapons as facts to themselves, gave a hoarse giggle, and said, “I declare, I’m quite frightened....”
“It is frightening,” agreed the suffragette. “Not the bruises, but the stone-wallness of men. I’m always frightened by opposition that I can’t see through at all. I am frightened of Delta Street hooligans. ”

“ The real deterrent is the action of the parents and employers who know the lads. They neither want to get into trouble at home nor to lose their jobs. Those who are sent to prison have often little to do with the [Pg 138] matter, and their exemplary punishment has less. Real hooliganism—the existence of young professional thieves who are in the habit of committing brutal assaults and inflicting injuries recklessly on their victims—is rare in Glasgow.
The young person is more likely to fall into error than his elders because of his inexperience. ”

“ Prince Travann was telling him about the hooligans' attack on the marching students, and that worried him even more. Nonworking hooligans acted as voting-bloc bosses ordered; voting-bloc bosses acted on orders from the political manipulators of Cartels and pressure-groups, and action downward through the nonworkers was usually accompanied by action upward through influences to which ministers were sensitive. ”

“ The crime of "bashing"—that is the professional name for it—is far commoner than the peaceful citizens of London imagine. To commit a brutal assault for hire is a means of livelihood practised by certain gangs of ruffians who have their regular haunts and houses of call, where they "attend" to get the "office" of any job that may be going.
A large number of the crimes attributed to hooligans are deliberate plots of this kind. Money is not always the consideration. Sometimes it is good comradeship. ”

“ The ranks of the men had, however, been swelled to a formidable figure by unsought additions from the hundreds of hooligans that, in every city, are attracted to seats of industrial war, and these provided an element which the leaders were unable to control. ”

“ The last three days have been days of curious disorder and anarchy. I will try and note briefly what has been taking place.
The day after Bauman’s funeral (November 3rd) was the anniversary of the Emperor’s accession, and all the “hooligans” of the city, who are now called the “Black Gang,” used the opportunity to make counter demonstrations under the ægis of the National flag. The students did nothing, they were in no way aggressive; but the hooligans when they came across a student beat him and in many cases killed him. The police did nothing ”

“ As a result of over two years’ temperance, violent crime has practically disappeared from whole countrysides, and when occasionally some brutality has occurred, the police have managed to bring to book not only the direct offender, but also the person who was secretly brewing the liquor. The spirit of peace has come into the industrial or mining village on the Sunday and Saint’s Day, where formerly there were often scenes of outrageous public hooliganism on the part of whole populations. Money has increased in the pockets of the poor. There is a higher standard of living ”

“ For them and for all of us, it is past time to end the violence.
At younger and younger ages, boys and girls are turning to gangs. For a child without an involved family, a gang offers a feeling of belonging. For a young person without options for tomorrow, a gang offers a sense of purpose. For all those born in a home cordoned off against danger, with bars on the windows and chains on the doors, life on the streets seems all too often a taste of freedom they have never known. ”

“ Their inordinate vanity is well called the slum counterpart of self-esteem, and Riis calls the gang a club run wild. They have their own ideality and a gaudy pinchbeck honor. A young tough, when arrested, wrenched away the policeman's club, dashed into the street, rescued a baby from a runaway, and came back and gave himself up. They batten on the yellowest literature. Those of foreign descent, who come to speak our language better than their parents, early learn to despise them. Gangs emulate each other in hardihood, and this is one cause of epidemics in crime. ”

“ The dangerous hours, when the gang is made, are from seven to nine, between supper and bedtime. This is the gap the club fills out. The boys take to the street because the home has nothing to keep them there. To lock them up in the house would only make them hate it more. The club follows the line of least resistance. It has only to keep also on the line of common sense. It must be a real club, not a reformatory. Its proper function is to head off the jail. The gang must not run it. ”

“ Another is stolen, and the gang is ready for business again.
The fiction of a social "club," which most of the gangs keep up, helps them to a pretext for blackmailing the politicians and the storekeepers in their bailiwick at the annual seasons of their picnic, or ball. The "thieves' ball" is as well known and recognized an institution on the East Side as the Charity Ball in a different social stratum, although it does not go by that name, in print at least. Indeed, the last thing a New York tough will admit is that he is a thief. ”

“ It is your concern whether he belongs to a Boy Scout gang or a Dirty Dozen gang. The good gang should be encouraged; it is good because it is supervised; and the bad gang should be converted into a good one by adult direction. The recognition of the psychologic necessity for gangdom has changed the former prohibition against gang association to the encouragement of the boy to join a clean crowd engaged in clean activities. This innate tendency to gangdom furnishes the cue for his reclamation. Supervised gangs are the tongs by which many boys have been pulled from the fires of delinquency. ”

“ The very gang training he has had when he banded with his pals to fight and cheat the law, that gang spirit with all its blind devotion is at the nod of his officer. He’ll go to hell for you even when he knows there is not much or any chance of coming back, and if all of his kind, whether out of Whitechapel, the purlieus of Canadian cities or the slums of Australia who have done that12 very thing of going into hell and not come back, might be called on parade it would be a big procession. ”

“ It is the old story; only the worst and most vicious form of the gang spirit has a chance of finding expression in these streets. And so gang warfare has become not the exception but the rule, and the violence and ferocity with which the small boys pursue their feuds excites the alarm of the entire neighborhood. ”