Sharp County record., 1879-10-09
A HEATHEN REVIVAL.
The Interesting but Unsuccessful Experl-
ment of some Connecticut Boys.
From the New York Times.I

The small-boy who has been well and
piously brought up hates the heather;
though policy compels him to conceal
his feelings. He envies the heather
small-boy, and at the same time looks
upon him as a selfish and remOrseless
absorber of Christian pennies. This is
natural and inevitable. The small-boy
is told that his heather cotemporary
Goes constantly barefOOted, wears very
little clothing, is never washed, never
goes to school, and is never taught any
thing that is good and useful. More
over, the heather Small-boy lives IN
country where tigers and other delight
full wild beasts abound, and where the
exciting spectacle of widow burning
to death in company with her husbands
corpse an attraction which no circus
in this country has had the enterprise to
offer-is frequently exhibited free. VI
course, the small-boy of Christian lands
envies the blessed lot of his heather
brother, and would give worlds had he
too been born a heathen. Now, when
this envious small-bOy is compelled to
give 50 per cent. of his pennies to the
heather, he feels that it is both un-
reasonable and unjust, and his anger
burns against the heathen small-boy
who, although rolling in all kinds OF
heather luxury, meanly absorbS the
scant wealth of small-boyS who have had
the misfortune to be born in Christian
countries. He can not avoid noticing
that the grOwn-up folks who think he
should give one-half of his pennies to
the heather do not give their own prop
ertv in that way, and he never drops a
copper into the collectors box without
feeling that he is the victim of more
blackmailing.
Now and then there arises a Small-bOy
with a gigantic intellect, and degree
of courage which marks him as a born
leader of his race. 1t is the exceptional
small-boy of this variety who heads eN-
peditionS against the Indians and or
ganizes gangs of juvenile highwaymen.
That these enterprises do not meet with
success is due to forces beyond his con-
troll, but they display the greatness of
his intellect and the boldness Of his
character. Of this type of small-boy
is Master Jaggars of North Meriden,
Conn.,, who lately devised an ingenious
and entirely novel scheme for arTesting
the flow of American copper coins to-
ward the heather pockets of Juvenile
India.
Some two months since Master Jag
gars, who had painfully accumulated the
sum of twenty-five cents, with view to
an expected circus, was compelled to
consecrate fifteen cents to the hated
small-boys of India. 1t was this last of
a long series of pecuniary outrages that
determined him to take a bold stand
against missionary assessments, and he,
therefore, summoned mass-meeting
of small-boys on Saturday afternoon at
Deacon Pratt's barn, ostensibly with a
view to rats, but really in order to pro-
pose plan of defense against heather
encroachments.
Master Jaggars made a moving speech,
in which he glowingly described the lux
ury in which the heather small-boy wal
lows. He amt washed, and he can
wear Just as little cloze as hesermineter.
There amt no school for him, nor no
Sunday, you bet. He can 90 swimmin'
every day, and can just lay off on the
bank and see the crockOdiles scoop in
washerwomen and such. Then his back
yard is chuck full of tigers and hippo
potomusses, and no end of snakes, and
he can steal his dads gun and shoot 'em
out of the back window This is the
chap that rakes in all our money, and |
say it's MORN we ought to stand. Now,
l move that we all turn heather our
selves. The folks can't make us wash
and 90 to school if we're heather, and
all the other boys will have to put up
their money for us" 1t is needless to
say that this speech was received with
tumultuous applause. Howls of execra-
ton went up as the luxuries of the hated
heather were described, and the propo-
sal to adopt heathenism as profession
was unanimously supported. A slight
temporary opposition was manifested by
Master Sabin, who maintained that in
order to become heather they must first
have their eyes put out-a theory which
was based upon misinterpretation of
the hymn which speaks of "the heatheh
in his blindness" The objectOr, how
ever, was soon convinced of his error,
and expressed thereupon his hearty de-
| sire to become a heather.
The details of the scheme were all az
ranged by Master Jaggars. A discarded
plaster bust was decided to be bad
enough to serve as an idol, and the am
ateur heather placed it on an empty
barrel in the barn, and bowed down to
it with much gravity. They discarded
all their clothing except towel twisted
around their waist, and blackened their
entire bodies with burnt cork. There
could be no doubt that they were very
successful heathens in appearance, and,