From the Dictionary of Nautical, University, Gypsy and Other Vulgar Tongues first published in 1859.
Kidden or a Kidken: a low lodging house for boys.
(I couldn’t find much about the lodging houses specifically for boys, but here is an excerpt from and article written Aug. 7, 1865.
Formerly, the low lodging-houses of London were nests of fever and centres of crime, as many are still in New-York. Men and women, boys and girls, lay about on the floors, crowding rooms to the utmost, or they occupied miserable and filthy beds, without regard to health, decency or comfort, breeding disease and stimulating every species of crime. The evil became so flagrant that legislation had to be resorted to, and the act of 1848, with other subsequent acts, before described in these letters, were passed to check this source of mischief and disease.)
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