New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-12-31
lRssOy FOR NEW.yEhwS Day.

IL was w aSnlDBtOn ulSpatcn, anu IL tOlu
very briefly how Christmas was observed at
the National Capital. mere passing note;
statement of simple fact; hardly worth
more than a flying mention. 1t only said :,
"The police report the arrest of an unusually
Charge number of intoxicated persons, mostly
"young men," That WAS all. A larger num-
Der than usual deliberately extinguishcd their
sense of responsibility to society and to them
selves and having so dcthrOned their reason,
went Keeling through the streets, i'll which
condition they were arrested by the police,
and safely held until kind Nature had restored
the faculties they had thrown away, and
they had ceased to be dangerous to So
cety or themselves. And they were "mostly
"yQung men," Not much of an item that.
To great many readers who skinned over it,
it suggested nothing. 1t had no special sig
nificance to them. There was nothing in it
touching the financial question; no intimation
of the policy of the Administration toward
Louisiana nothing to throw any light upon
the Pacific Mail business; nothing but q bald
statement of quito unimportant fact, to wit,
that great many people were intoxicated,
and that most of them were young men. Per-
haps some old fellow who knew Washington
smiled q grim, hard smile and said "Thc
"bOys must have been having a good time
"Christmas.n And perhaps some other scdate
person who was never young, or, if lie was, it
was so long ago he has forgotten it, read the
two or three lines and said it was Outrageous"
for young men to act so. But the mass of
mankind slipped by it, as they button up their
coats and hasten on when they meet in the
street any one who staggers.
Not everybody, though. In great many
homes and to a great MAJ hearts it meant
q great deal more than the classification Of q
holidays police report 1t came to them like
news Of shipwrcck to one with friends at sea.
There was reading between the lines that
made fathers anxious and mOthors distressed.
"Mostly young men," And here was the boy
Just rpening into manhood upon whom his
parents looked with pride, and for whose
future they were so deeply anxious could the
father help the involuntary reaching out to
catch him from falling, as he read in these
three words the story of so many young
men down and disgraCedf Could the mother
fail to reflect that her boy was very much
like other boys, and that other boys - the
young men in the Washington station house
had mothers, perhaps just as tcnderly solicit
GUS for their sons welfare as she for hers
MOSTLY young mcn!" All, how many
mother when she read it, caspcd closer to
her bosom the curly head and dimplcd cheeks
of her own darling, as if she would keep him
back from manhood and from all the storm
and stress which carry down so many. And
then the mothers, whose darlings with their
curls and dimplcs, and all the sweet and
winning ways of childhood have moved on
out Of the radiance of the morning into the
heat and dust of the noontide, whose boys
look level now into mothcr's-and perhaps into
some ones not mother's-eyes--hOw these
sweet, thoughtful women must have shuddercd
at the bare dreadful possibility that some
time their boys might go Keeling to the station
house.
MOSTLY young men !" 1t is a suggestive,
painfully suggestive statement. 1t . the COM
ing of a now crop, and crop of reckless.
dissOlute men. Young men to-day; and per-
hsps with enough Of conscience loft to suffer