ALADDIN; OR, THE WONDERFUL LAMP. (_ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF GALLAND._)
In the capital of one of the large and rich provinces of the kingdom of China, the name of which I do not recollect, there lived a tailor, whose name was Mustapha, without any other distinction but that which his profession afforded him, and so poor, that he could hardly, by his daily labour, maintain himself and family, which consisted of a wife and son.
His son, who was called Aladdin, had been brought up after a very careless and idle manner, and by that means had contracted many vicious habits. He was wicked, obstinate, and disobedient to his father and mother, who, when he grew up, could not keep him within doors; but he would go out early in the morning, and stay out all day, playing in the streets and public places with little vagabonds of his own age.
When he was old enough to learn a trade, his father, not being able to put him out to any other, took him into his own shop, and shewed him how to use his needle; but neither good words nor the fear of chastisement were capable of fixing his lively genius. All that his father could do to keep him at home to mind his work was in vain; for no sooner was his back turned, but Aladdin was gone for that day. Mustapha chastised him, but Aladdin was incorrigible; and his father, to his great grief, was forced to abandon him to his libertinism; and was so much troubled at not being able to reclaim him, that it threw him into a fit of sickness, of which he died in a few months.
The mother of Aladdin, finding that her son would not follow his father’s business, shut up the shop, sold off the implements of that trade, and with the money she got for them, and what she could get by spinning cotton, thought to maintain herself and her son.
Aladdin, who was now no longer restrained by the fear of a father, and who cared so little for his mother, that whenever she chid him he would fly in her face, gave himself entirely over to dissipation, and was never out of the streets from his companions. This course he followed till he was fifteen years old, without giving his mind to any thing whatever, or the least reflection on what would become of him. In this situation, as he was one day playing according to custom, in the street, with his vagabond troop, a stranger passing by stood still to observe him.