Smyrna times., 1875-01-06
eLLUW e OWS.
A Lesson for New Years Day.

1t was Washington dispatch, and it told
very briefly how Christmas was observed at
the National Capital. A mere passing note
statement of simple fact hardly worth more
than flying mention. 1t only said 1.-The
police report the arrest OF an unusually large
number of intoxicated persons, mostly young
men," That was all. A larger number than
usual deliberately extinguishcd their sense OF
responsibility to society and to themselves,
and having SO dethroned their reason, went
reeling through the streets, in 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 society or them
selves. And they were mostly young men.
Not much of an item that To a great many
readers who skinned over it, it suggested
nothing. Perhaps some old fellow who knew
Washington smiled a grim, hard smile and
said, 1.-The boys must have been having good
time Christmas" And perhaps some other
sedate person who was never young, or, if he
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 q great many hearts it meant a
| great deal more than the classification of a
| holidays police report. 1t came to them like
news OF shipwreck to one with friends at sea.
There was a reading between the lines that
| made fathers anxious and mothers distressed.
| "Mostly young msnr And here was the boy
| lust ripening into manhood upon whom his
parents looked with pride, and for whose
| future they we're 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 meT
down and disgraced? Could the mother tai
TO reflect that her boy was very much like othel
boys, and that other boys-the young men il
the Washington station-house-had mothers
perhaps lust as tondsrly soicitous for thei
sons welfare as she for hers2 "Mostly youuI
menl" Ah, how many mother, whom sh'
| read it, clasped closer to her bosom the curl!
head and dimpled cheeks of her own darling
| az il she would keep him back from manhood
and from all the storm and stress which carr.
down 30 many. And then the mothers, who's
darngs with their curls and dimples, and o.
/ the sweet and winning ways OF childhood
have moved on out OF the radiance of th
morning into the heat and dust OF the noon
tide, whose boys look level new into mother
and perhaps into some ones not mother
I--syes-how these sweet, thoughtful womel
must have shuddered at the bare dreadfu
possibility that some time their boys might q
rsalng to the station.house. "a sJlt4. toa ~
"Mostly young men ~. Itis ssuggsstive.
/ painfully suggestive statement It's the CON
ing Of o new crop, and crop. of reckless
dissolate men, Y YouBg men to-day; and PEI
d haps with enough of conscience left to suffs
rsnAorse, enough Of selt.respeet to suffs
ishame, but every day growing harder as hab