The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1882-02-22
For THE RECORD.
UNCLE JOHNS WARNING TO BOYS

For The RECORD
UNCLE JOHNS WARNING TO BOYS.
| want young and old to read this, but
intend it more particularly for the boys; so
beg you, after you have read it, to hand it
over to your little brother, or little cousin, or
little nephew, or any other little boy you
love, and whom you would like to save from
becoming drunkard.
Now, my boy, know you like to hear tales.
as all boys do, SO will just tell you one about
a little friend of mine, whose name was Fred
erick. Ah be was a pretty little boy, and
everybody loved him and his dear mother
loved him, too, for he had no brother nor
sister, and you may be sure his mother must
have loved him very much. remember him
very well, with his jet-black eyes, his dark,
curly hair, which his mother used to delight
in seeing hanging in ripglets around his
shoulders, and his cherry lip, and his dimple
chin. But he had no father, for he died when
Frederick was very young, which was n great
! loss to him.
As Frederick grew up, his poor mother
often had to shed tears, because her little boy
would not heed her counsel and warnings
but chose to be his own h,aster, which is too
much the case with great many boys. When
his mother would request him not to koop
company with some Of his paymates who
were not good boys, he would promise to
obey her, but when no was out of her sight
he would either forget the advice of his MOTHER
or not regard his promise. Poor boy he did
not think that he was learning yilhabits and
bad practices which would one day bring him
to misery and wretchedncss. Nor did he
think, as his mother had often told him, that
evil habits and bad practices always begin by
little and little and SO it turned out to be
with Frederick. He first began to disobey
his kind mother, and then he learned to smoke
cigars and chow tobacco, foolshly supposing,
like great many more boys, that it is manly
to smoke and chew tobacco. He did not
think that he was entering on the first step
to still worse habits. But as it always does
so it proved to be with him, Tor before he was
sixteen years of age he was enticed by his
older wicked companions to visit with them a
place where they played cards and drank
brandy and he soon became rs bad as the
rest of his thoughtless companions. Oh, that
boys would think before they consent to be
enticed away by wicked companions! And
now let Uncle John advise you, my young
reader, always to remember what the Bible
says, "When sinners entice thee, consent
thou not If poor Frederick had kept this
advice of the Bible in his mind, it is probable
he would never have consented to keep COM
pany with wicked boys.
Frederick's poor mother became very much
distressed to see her only boy give himself up
to drinking and smoking, and other wicked
ness. And, oh how she would cry over him,
and plead with him to forsake his evil ways
aud prepare himself to become useful and
respectable man. But instead CT softening
his heart, it seemed only to make him harder
and harder, aud he very soon became drunk
ard and vagabond. He had not yet, how
ever, become altogether insensibo to feeling,
for nothing gave him so much trouble as his
poor mothers distress and being unwilling
to witness her tears and her agony on his &C
count, one night he left his home, and wan
now about eighteen years of age, and had
never been away from his mother before.
After he had travelled all night, no found him
self in strange place, where nobody knew
him and everybody was strange to him. Az
ter wandering up and down great many
streets, he sat down upon the steps of a tav-
ern, and fell fast asleep. He had not been
long there before the man who kept the house
saw him, and tried to awake him ; but poor
Frederick was so much fatigued with travel
ing all night, he could not be aroused. The
tavern keeper was cruel, unfeeing man,
and called Frederick drunken rascal and all
kinds of bad names, and then got stick and
beat him with it till the pain reused him up.
Frederick now began to think of his mother,
and he cried, and begged the man to have
/ pity on him, as he was a stranger, and had
no where to go. The tavern-keeper then took
him into his house, and kept him to do all
kinds of drudgery work. But Frederick
could not keep from getting drunk, till at
last he became so bad as hardly to be ever
sober, and tho tavern-keeper was compelled
to send him from his house.
He now wandered about from place to
place, without money and without friends, a
poor, miserable wretch, whom nobody would
even look at. One day he saw crowd OF
people, and a man was standing on pile of
boards, speaking to them. Frederick went
up to the place, and just as he approached he
heard the speaker say, Young man, would