Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1878-11-15
Training for Murder.

Our exchanges come with the intelli.
gence of boys seriously and often fatally
| Injured by their companions, and Justly
| charge these murderOus attacks as the
natural outcropo of reading the pernicious,
| highly sensational and bloody literature
of the Buffalo Bill" school. To this
should be added the carelessness, if not
/ criminality, of parents In permitting
| their children the unchecked use of
| firearms; with placing (or permitting
/ IN their hands the means OF death.
1 Even with the most cautious and ex-
| perienced accidents from firearms are
| constantly happening, and many man Is
/ hurried to an untimely grave by his own
| hand or that of friend. Against this
there would appear to be no prevention /;
/ but there is against the indiscriminate
carrying of pistols by boys, and it should
be strongly put in force.
The country is flooded with the most
exciting, false, tillibustering trash, max
| ING heroes of cut-throats and demi-gods
/ of assassins. Almost before out of lead
| ing-strings, youth seizes upon some
/ wildly fascinating history of myth of
| a frontier outlaw and the mind Is effect
ually poisoned. The 'Road Agent" the
'Gay Gambolier," the "Skull Gatherer," t"
or some infamous character of that ike,
| is pictured with pencil and pen) in the
| most glowing colors, his deeds praised
| and proves glorifed. He is represented
| as a dozen Claude DuvaPs" and lick
| Turpin's" and exit Carson's," consoli-
lated into one, and Indians especially,
fall in not to be numbered quantities
before his "good right arm; - even his
boasted morality is Of the most question
| able kind, and his virtues those the
angels would be loath to claim.
The natural result of this is plain.
Ideas of outlaWism become familiar,
are inculcated and fostered, to the
| uproOting of all that is wise and lawful
and good. The fertile imagination Of
the boy is fired; he longs for deadly
eapons, a BLACK Bess" Of a steed for
the fiashily trimmed buckskin suit, and
| the revolver and bowie knife; longs fcr
the forcibly depicted freedom of the
prairie and woodland wilderness; longs
to gather gold without labor and win the
sweet smiles of some beautiful girl, or
have some Diamond Eyes" or Failing
! Leaf" or other resplendent red-skinned
| queen, (quean?) cook his venison, and
make for him embroidered moccasins.
! With his unframed brain warped from
the right, he is ready to resent even the
most trivial real or fancied injury with a
pistol shot, in emulation of some wild
Bill'' or "Arizona joe" and to break into
some store or dwelling at night, and in
the end stain his hands and soul with
blood.
There can be no better training for
murder than the reading of those highly
spiced weeklies and dime novels. Crime
| is rendered so attractive that it can
scarcely fail to Danish the holy tech
ings impressed by the mothers knee;
killing is held up as the most innocent
of pastimes; robbery is gilded with
more than FURNISHED gold, and prison
mas no terrors, for escape is pictured so
| easv that iron bars and stone walls are
no more than cobwebs.
When the foul seed sown broadcast
| from hundreds of presses has blOssomed
| and ripened into the natural fruit Of
| death, It is too late to talk of cure, and
/ the often false verdict of the coroner s
iurv simply "WhiteWashes" the deed.
| The cure lies only in the prevention.
] Under the existing state of publication,
| this can be accomplished solely by the
utter banishment from our houses read
| ing of this infamous character; though
we fail to clearly see why the law can
not be made far reaching enough to for
| bid it from the mails as other scanda-
| Ious and immoral publications. Ger
tainly it requires no great stretch to IN
clude it in that category, and we doubt
| if any more injury is done to the young
minds by the mass of what Is excluded
than by half a dozen papers that might
be named.
/ as the line of demarkation has not as
yet been severely enough drawn, the
next, and indeed the only safeguard, Is
/ to take the matter into our own hands
exclude from our hearth-stones, and
take extreme precautionary measures to
] keep beyond the reach of our children
any of the viruIent stuff that is debasing
| and fatal to their moral and religious
natures, and schools them for crime
This we can and should do. The want
Of demand will stop the supply. SucE
papers are published solely for the money
| they bring in, and that cut off they vii
die of their own accOunt-and the soonel
the better.
As the matter now stands our homes
! are filled with temptations to murder
and it is not strange the young should
| be dazzled by the glowing pictures o.
success, and thatwe should be frequently
thrilled and saddened by an account OF
bloodshed. Deprive youth OF this IN
famous and unnatural reading; keeI
from their hands anythingto abnormally
infane passion; keep from them the
pistol and the gun; see to it that then
evenings are passed under the parental
eye, and we shall soon have heard the
last of ineipient outlawism and infant1lE
| murder.