The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1882-07-20
BELLEVUE La, THURSDAY JULY 20 1882
Boys and " Boys"

.sa, Boys and Boys"
It is Charles Dudley Warner, we be-
lieve, who urges that boys should be
| caught young, put in a barrel and fed
through the bung-hole until they have
arrived at years Of discretion. And vet
after many and forcible reasons for re-
garding boys as blessings in disguise,
and SO well disguised as to be mistaken
| for something quite the contrary, most
everybody viii agree with the eulogy he
pronounces upon the boy ssAfter all, -
he says, s.there is something I like about
| boy"
Boys are the terror of cats, their moth
ers and their elder sisters, but the cats
would lead but a dull career without
them; while mother would scarcely
know what life really is if she was freed
from the constant anxiety she feels
about her boys. What unruffied but
Improbable hours of lazy ENJOYMENT
would fall to the lot of elder sisters, were
it not for their younger brothers. Sloth
and ease and a mistaken belief that this
world is not world of annoyances and
discomfofts would enervate their char
acters. Boys make them feel that we
are not put here simply to enjoy our
selves, but to develop our characters.
So with teachers What monotonous
existence would be theirs were it not for
boys! A teacher of girls alone would
mistake earth for paradise, and SO not
having any use for Heaven and not be-
lieving in any such place as refuge
from earthly miseries would never strive
70 PY,t -
every week looks forward to better and
brighter world, makes good use of Sun
day in fitting himself for it, and in
hoping that he will get there sometime,
to make up for his trials here. !
The ash man who should not get
SNOWFALL down his back J; the rag peddler
who. never found the wheel of his cart
suddenly coming off the street car con-
ductor who did not have to drive the
boys from the rear platform; the passer-
by who did not get baseball in his alb
domen or bean in his ear the nurse
girl and her baby who were not scared
out of their wits by the sudden rush of
a velocipede upon their heels, would not
enjoy their tanquil intervals of existence
nor fully know the value of peace and
quietness. So that after all boys are Of
very great use-especially as discipline
and means of moral improvement !:
apd they are not to be despised, but rather
to be cherished and loved, as they are
very apt to be as soon as they have pas.
sed their eighteenth year. H4I
But there are s'boys'' and boys, s.boys''
with quotation mark and boys without.
1t is the s'boys" with these marks that
do not deserve much charity, and do get
but precious little liking and admiration.
1t is the s.boys'' with these marks that
frequent drinking saloons, stand on the
street corners, become rowdies at an
early age, are riotous, foul-mouthed,
violent and even bloodthirsty before
they are twenty-one. This is the kind of
"boysn that are not entitled to the name.
They become street roughs, if not burg
lars and highway robbers or are dissi-
pated, vicious, lewd and going to perdi-
tion in droves. 1t is gangs Of this sort
in large cities and on the frontiers, who
are known as 'boys,'' but who belle the
of them are the Malley /" bows y
young men well advanced in man
hood, but covering up their debauchery,
dissoluteness, riotous living, and even
graver offenses, by pretending to the
giddiness and thoughtfulness of boyhood.
They have no claim to any such excuse
or any such exemption. They are men
mature in wickedness and crime, and
cannot hide their sins under cover of
boyish folly. IN
The same may be said of the james
boys'' who long since arrived at mature
life, and instead of being pushed into
crime by the frolicsome impulsiveness
suggested by the word "boy," long
since resorted to robbery and murder as
the business of life, not as the sport Of
irrepressible and hot-headed youth.
The politicians, too, love to hide their
tricks and their games with the public
service by pretending in a jocose and
ightsome way that it is the :. boys'' who
are really responsible for the evil deeds
of caucuses and conventions. of wire-
pulling and political aeviltry generally.
They imagine it softens the offense If
they assume that it is the " boys'' who
must be looked after and looked to for
the wrong doing in politics, whereas the
majority of these "boys'' are gray with
the many years they have given to learn
ing and practicing their contemplate po-
itical frands and maneuvers. No; in ius-
tice to the real boys, whose youth excuses
much because it is sstheir nature to- the
"boys'' of the street-corners, the from
tier, and the political managers ought to
have the name taken from them.-De-
trot Free Press. 4
Breaches Of Etiquette at Court.
There ia a story poinr round in civic