Lewiston teller. [volume] (Lewiston, North Idaho) 1878-1900, 1880-12-10
Suspicion.

| AiIc mas us StflIes ana battles. Many
of these are bitter and severe; some
are with real enemies and some are
with only imaginary enemies, and of.
tentimes those with the latter are more
bitter than those with real enemies.
The human mind is susceptible of
strong impressions and emotions from
very slight causes With some these
susceptibilities are much more quick,
strong and lasting than with others,
and however honest their purpose may
be to think and act rightly, yet these
susceptibilities are so ivid and strong
that reason loses its sway, and they
furnish ground for thought and action
such as lead to serious evils, both to
themselves and others. There is q
class OF persons who quickly read the
character of such persons and WHOSE
own moral sentiment is so olunted by
bad indulgencies that they love to prey
upon the credulity of these sensitive
and susceptible persons, and fill their
'ninds with every variety of foul sus-
picions, and then chuckle over the pain
and misery they thus produce. If the
great mass Of persons were early
trained to reason from indisputable
facts rather than from hints and in
situations, the sphere of those in
community who delight to engender
evil suspicious would be very much
circumscribed, and a deaf ear would
be turned to the foul tales they relate
and the false innuendoes they insin-
uate. But such is not The universal
early training of the majority of per-
sons raised, and hence the field of the
gossipers Of evil is large in many com
munities, and the real sossiper is a
welcome visitor in many families as
the vendor of news from which choice
selections are made to retail to others.
1t matters not whose character and
standing in the community is assailed
The higher they are elevated in moral
worth above the great mass the more
delight is felt in being able to find
something which can be so perverted
as to detract from that high standing
and bring them down to, and even be-
low, the reputed base in society. It's
often clsimed that gossiping is con-
fined to the females of society; but
whoever has closely observed tho diff
ferent phases of society must have
discovered that many men are equally
addicted to imparting suspicious of
evil against neighbors. They, in most
stances, arc more guarded in their !
pressions, rs they are moro liable to
the penalty of the laws for defaming.
But from their standpoint as men their
insinuations are moro likely TO gain
credsace than the garrulous ebullitions
of a gossiping woman. Charity would
say that if one Of these disturbers of
the peace Of families, friends and
neighbors could be brought iuto the
immediate presence of and in full view
of all the heart burnings and pain
they produce among the innocent vic.
Tins of their malice even by one of
their false insinuations the scene
would fully cure the habit. But char
ity goes too far. The confirmed Cos
siper is so completely covered with
moral obloquy and SO impresnated
With base turpitude that the stings Of
conscience cannot ponetrate them SO as
to quicken them to sense Of the mis-
chief and misery they have wrought.
The only remaining hope for a remedy
of these evils is in certifying the mind
of the young and the old as far as
practicable against the reception of
their evil insinuations. When men
and women fail to listen to these re-
citals and insinuations of evil then the
base occupation of these pests in So
cie'y will cease, and not before. Lew
lston has its gossipers, who seem to