The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1870-01-29
Habitual Bearing Of Deadly
Weapons.
IT IS TINE TO BE CIVILIZED.


Public opinion, we trust, is pre-
pared to sustain the sentiment
uttered by a State Senator on
Monday, in connection with
bill to prevent the carrying of
concealed weapons, that it is high
time that effectual measures
should be taken for the suppress
sion OF this evil.
To bear arms in defense of life
and limb, OF home and property,
is one OF the inherent and
necessary rights of man. Con
stitutiOns may formulate, but
neither confer, nor abrogate, nor
suspend it. But the exercise of
this right, according to require
ments of special and varying cir
comstances, differs as widely as
the poles from the practice Of ha-
bitually bearing concealed deadly
weapons in the ordinary meetings
and conversations and dealings of
men.
This practice is above all re-
Voting when it invades precincts
dedicated to festive concourse, to
social recreation, to the amenities
and graces of intellectual and cul-
tivated society.
The ancient Egyptians, when
taking the pleasures of life to-
gether placed a skeleton in view
that they might be reminded of
death. There is no need Of this
solemn presence now. Ihe osse-
Gus symbol OF mortality may well
be spared from scenes of social
congregation where all may pre-
sume that each brings, couching
under his garments, a deadly
weapon ready for instant use. You
go to such places-for where else
may you go without exhibiting an
obnoxious eccentricity9 Perhaps,
nevertheless you have a repug-
nance which you cannot overcome
to making a walking arsenal of
yourself when you are molested or
menaced by no enemy. Doubt
less you join in the conventional
cant about cultivating the enjoy
ments of refined. elegant and edi,
flying society where you must re-
fresh yourself, and take your ease
il you can, with the consciousness
that to count the surrounding
company is to make an inyetory OF
death, all meant for yOW in q pos
sible contingency. The air is in
stinct with grim, cruel irony
which requires you todO so. You
do not KNOW but that the hand
which at meeting presses yours
may grasp, before parting, the hill
of knife thrust under the fftt
rib of yourself or your neighbor
You do not know but that, in con
sequence of some latent grudge
or OF some misconStrued word OF
act, your life may the mex
moment hang upon the muzzle O
: a revolver secreted about the per
son of the man with whom vol
happen to be conversing. Warn
hearts, perchance, are throbbins
around YOU. But WHY do the,
throb consciously against as man,
concealed revolvers unless ever,
one carreis within it a lurkin!
devil of contingent murder? Yol
I are not left wholly to a theoretica
I, solution of this question. Da,
I after day has an answer freightet
with bloody instruction. And We
u conventionally demands that vol
: ! should not speak otherwise thai
) dulcifuously Ofthis state of thing
so replete with abhorent implies
: tions. The Greeks set an exam
pie in this kind Of propitiater
speaking when they called tn
furies the amiable ladies.
This is no fantastic conceptio
Of the way in which social felicity
or social infelicity rather, is o
J. ganized where the practice {
! l bearing concealed deadly weapon
commonly prevails. 1t is simDl