The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1880-07-15

Oh. in the battle of life you want a stron'
ger Weapon than a lace fan or a croquet
mallet. The load of life l. 30 heavy that
in order to draw it you want a team
stronger than one made up of a mascu'
line grasshopper and a feminine butter
fly. If there is any man in the commu,
nifty that excites my contempt, a thaI
ought to excite the contempt of every
man and woman, it is the ~soft.handed,
soft.headed fop, who, perfamed until the
air ia actually sick, spends his summer
in taking killing attitudes, aud waving
sentimental adieus and talking intinitesi'
nal nothings, and finding his heaven IN
the set of a lavender kid glove. Boots as
tight as an inquisition. Two hours OF
consummate skill exhibited in the tie OF
a flaming Cravat. His conversation mace
up of"Ahe!" and "0hs!" and he hes"
Ii would take five hundred of them
stewed down to make a teaspoonful OF
calves foot Jelly. There is only one
counterpart to such q man as that, and
that is the frothy young woman at the
watering place; her conversation mace
up of French moonshine; what she has
on her head only equaled by what she
has on her back; useless ever since sne
was born, and to be useless until she Is
dead, and what they will do with her IN
the next world l do not know, except 10
| set her up on the banks Of the River OF
Life for eternity to look sweet! God IN
tends us to admire music, and fair faces
and graceful step; but amid the heartless'
ness and the initiation and the fantastic
il huences of our modern watering
places, beware how you make life long
Covenants.
Another temptation that will hover
over the watering place is that too bane'
full literature. Almost every one starting
off for the summer takes some reading
matter. 1t is a book out of the library,
or off the book stand or bought of the
boy hawking books through the cars. l
really believe there is more pestiierous
trash read among the intelligent classes
in July and August than in all the other
ten months of the year. Men n Wo,
men who at home would not be satisfied
| with a book that was not really sensible
l found sitting on the hotel piazza, or
under the trees reading books the index
of which would make them blush if they
knew that you knew what the book was
"Oh," they say, you must have intellec.
tual recreation" Yes, there is no need
that you +. Ike along into a watering place
"Hamilton's MetaphysiCs' or "Faraday's
Philosophy" There are many easy
books that are good. You might as well
| say: l propose now to give a little rest
to my digestive organs, and instead OF
eating heavy meat ard vegetables. | will
| for a little while take lighter food-a lit
tie stryChnine and a few grains OF rats
bane." Literary poison in August is as
bad as literary poison in December. Mark
that. Do not let the frogs and the lice of
a corrupt printing press jump and crawl
into your Saratoga trunk or White Noun.
tain valise. Would it not be an awful
thing for you to be struck with lightning
some day when you had in your hand
n of the paper covered romances, the
hero a Partisan que, the heroine an I'M
p~rincipled firt-Chapters in the book
that you would not read to your children
for a hundred dollars a liner Throw out
all that stuff from your summer baggage.
Are there not good books that are easy
to read? Books of entertaining travel,
books of co~ngenial history, books of pure
fun, books of poetry, ringing with merry
Canto, books of fine engraving, books
that will rest the mind as we'll as purify
the heart an j elevate the whole life! My
hearers, there will not be an hour be-
tween this and the day of your death
when you can afford to read a book lack
ing in moral principle.
Another temptation lowering all
around our watering places is to intoxi.
eating beverage. am told it is becom.
ing more and more popular for women
to drink. 1t is not very long ago that a
lady Of great responsibility having taken
two glasses of wine away from home, be-.
came violent and her friends, ashamed,
forsook her, and she was carried to a po'
lice station and afterward to her disgrace
ed home. l care not how well a woman
may dress if she has taken enough of
wine to flush her cheek and put a gIassi.
ness on her eye, she is intoxicated. She
may be handed into a 50, 500 carriage and
have diamonds enough to confound the
Tiffanys-she is intoxicated. She may
be a graduate of Packer Institute, and the
daughter of some man in danger of being
nominated for the Presidency-she is
drunk. You may have q larger vocabu-
larry than / have, and you may say in
regard to her that she is 'convivial," or
she is merry" or she is festive" or she
is "exhilarated;" but you can not with
all your garlands of verbiage cover up
the plain fact that it is an old fashioned
case of drunk. Now the watering places
are full of temptations to men and wo.
men to tipple. At the c.ose of the ten.
pin or billiard game they tipple. At the
close of the c~otillon they Triple. Seated
on the piazza cooling themselves off they
tipple. The tinged glasses come around
with bright straws, and they tipple. First
they take eight vines" as they call
them; but eight wines" are heavy
enough to debase the appetite. There is
not a very long road between champagne
al S. a bottle and whisky at five cents a
glass. Satan has three or four grades
down which he takes men to destruction.
One man he takes up and though one
spree pitches him into eternal darkness.
That is a rare case. Very seldom, indeed
can you find man who will be such a
fool as that. Satan will take another
man to a grade, to a descent at an an.
gle about like the Pennsylvania coal
chute, or the Mount Washington rail
track, and shove him off, But trat lie
very rare. When a man goes down to
destruction Satan brings him TO a plane.
1t is almost level. The depression is so
slight that you can hardly see it. The
man does not actually know that he is
on the down grade; and it tips only a
little toward darkness-just a little. And
the first mile it is %claret, second mile tits
sherry, and the third mile it is punch,
and the fourth mile it is ale, and the fifth
mile it is porter, and then it gets sleeper
and sleeper, and sleeper, and the man
gets frightened and says, Oh, let me get
ofp mo" says the conductor, this is
an express train, and it doesn't stop un,