Smyrna times., 1877-05-23
Making Excuses.

III mas been SAID that person who is
good at making excuses is good for nothing
else. Nature never accepts an excuse, the
law seldom does, and yet in ordinary affairs
OF life excuses play a large and pernicious
part. There are some people who spend
half their time i'll inyenting excuses for
what they do in the other half of the time.
What pity this inventive power could not
be directed into useful channel, and
made to benefit instead of injuring their
fellow men! The habit of making excuses
grows on what it feeds upon. If excuses
were never accepted they would be seldom
offered. We fear there are too many
parents and teachers so willing to accept
excuses that they greatly encourage excuse
making, and indirectly encourage lying
As these pupils grow older and begin to
feel personal responsibility for their
actions, they naturally fall into the habit of
making excuses to their own consciences
and of deceiving themselves. How quickly
an ingenious excuse heals the prick of con-
science.
We do not mean to assert that, frail and
| imperfect mortals as we are, we should re-
quire perfection of our fellows, nor, like
Shylock, demand that the letter of the
bond be fulfilled. Justice must be tenn
pered with mercy, but sometimes we must
be cruel in order to be kind. Natures
laws are inheXible; there is no escape from
the sevcrties of her just penalties. If we
breathe infected air through ignorance, we
| suffer as much as if we had entered it with
full knowledge; ignorance of the law does
not relieve us from its penalties. Our
statute and other laws distinguish between
murder committed without premcditation
and malice from that committed without
iorethought. The insane escape punish
ment for their crimes, however heinous
The man who shoots his sister by accident
is at once acquitted. But does the bullet
discharged by accident, or by a lunatc, or
by any one i'll the heat of passion, prove
less fatal than it would had murder been
intended? The severed artery, the pierced
lung, the congested brain, listen to no cX-
cuses. To him that is murdered it is all
one whether it was prcmeditated or not.
The infraction of any and all of Natures
laws brings certain punishment. The tight
shoe, whether of satin or cowhide, worn by
a city belle or rustic clown, is sure to pro-
duce the well known corn. Undue expo
sure leads to consumption; over study and
excitement produce brain diseases as fre-
quently in the pulpit as in the stock ex-
change. How often are people engaged in
charitable work stricken down by disease
incurred in the fulfllment of a holy mis-
sion Most undeserving of such q fate, we
are inclined to exclaim; but Nature ac-
cepts no excuses. Violate her laws, and
ye die!
But what is the great harm in excuses?
we think our reader begins to inquire.
First, it encourages story telling, untruth,
prevarication and white lies. Second, it
makes people careless. Railway trains are
our best examples Of punctuality if you
reach the depot but fifteen seconds too late,
you are left and must wait, perhaps, for
hours. 1t is of no avail to tell the door
keeper that your delay was unavoidable
that the omnibus broke down, or the street
was blockaded, or the car ran off the track
People know that the rule is as inhexible
as the law Of the Medcs; they do not flat
ter themselves, as does the tardy school
boy, that their excuse is a good one, and
thus loter along at convenient gait One
of the blessings of railway travel is that it
makes people more prompt and more dill
gent. The banks are another class Of
institutions that will not accept excuses;
if your note is not paid by three o'clock, it
goes to protest. 1t matters not that the
money promised you fails to come to hand
in time, the train bringing your draft
was delayed by snow drifts, or tho tele-
graphic remittance was stopped by a
broken wire, or the messenger on his way
to the bank fell into an open coal hole and
is MANNED for life: the bank asks none of
these questions, it listens to none of these
excuses; the law is carried out.
The poorest of all excuses is forgetful-
ness, and the best method of cutivating
the memory is to resolve never to accept
this excuse from yourself or make it to
others. " | forgot" and 81 didn't think"
have caused untold misery. and should be
stricken from the vocabulary of every am
bilious youth. Conductors and switchmen
sometimes forget that a certain train is
due, and the next morning we read in
heavy head lines " Fearful Railroad Acct
dentl Dreadful Loss of Life" The inno
cent (?) conductor is acquitted of the
murder because he renders an acceptable
excuse, and history goes on repeating
itself. In some eastern countries, it is said,
when house burns down, the owner in.
stead of getting paid for it, loses his head.
Fires are not of frequent occurrence there.
The old saw, that where there is a will
there is way, is true more frequently than
is generally supposed. Let man know
that no excuse will avail for the omission
of duty, and nine times out of ten he will
contrive to accomplish what he supposed
In ba