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Their approach to life, if anything, appears to be one of hoyden contempt for conventional processes of all kinds, a kind of parasitic indifference to anything save their own comfort, joined with a not unadmirable love for the out-of-doors and for change. So often, as I have said, I have seen them about the great city, asleep in the cool recesses of not-much-frequented doors and passageways, and in lumberyards and odd corners, anywhere where they were not likely to be observed. And my observation of them has led me to conclude that they do not feel and hence do not suffer as do other and more sensitive men. They are not interested in material prosperity as such, and they will not work. If any one has ever seen one with that haunted look which at times characterizes the eye of those who take life and society so desperately and seriously, and that betokens one whom life is able to torture, I have yet to hear of it.

But what an interesting and amazing spectacle they present, and what amusing things are to be related of them! I personally have seen a group of such rowdies, such as characterize some New York street corners even to this day pouring wood-alcohol on one of these fellows whom they chanced to find asleep, and then setting fire to it in order to observe what would be the effect of the discovery by the victim of himself in flames. And subsequently pursuing him down the street with shouts and ribald laughter. On another occasion, in Hudson Street, the quondam home of the Hudson Dusters, I have seen six or eight of such youths pushing another one such about, carrying him here and there by the legs and arms and tossing him into the air above an old discarded mattress, until an irate citizen, not to be overawed himself, and of most respectable and God-fearing mien, chose to interfere and bring about a release. And in another part of this same good city, that part of the waterfront which lies east of South Ferry and south of Fulton Street, I have seen one such most persistently and thoroughly doused by as many as ten playful wags, all in line, yet at different doors, and each discharging a can or a bucket of water upon the fleeing victim, who sought to elude them by running. But, following this individual to see what his mood might be, I could not see that he had taken the matter so very much to heart. Once free of his pursuers, he made his way to a dock, where, seated behind some boxes in the sun, he made shift to dry himself and rest without appearing to fret over what had occurred.