The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1882-09-09
Our 0lio.
Boys and "Boys."


1t is Charles Dudley Warner, we believe,
who urges that boys should be caught
young put in barrel and fed through the
bung-hole until they have arrived at years
of discretion. And yet after many and
forcible reasons for regarding boys as bles-
sings in disguise, and SO well disguised as
to be mistaken for something quite the
contrary, most everybody will agree with
the eulogy he pronounces upon the boy.
CATER all, - he says, 'there is something L
like about boy"
Boys are the terror of cats, their moth
ers and their elder sisters, but the cats would
lead but dull career without them while
a 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 broth
ers Sloth and ease and mistaken belief
that this world is not world of annoyances
and discomforts would enervate their char
acters. Boys make them feel that we are
moi put here simply to enjoy ourselves, but
to develop our characters. So with teach
ers. What monotonous existence would
be theirs were it not for boys. A teacher
of girls alone would mistake earth for par
adise, and so not having any use for
Heaven and not believing in any such place
as a refuge from earthly miseries would
never strive to get there. But a teacher
of bows, every week looks forward to a
better and brighter world, makes good use
of Sunday 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 snow
ball down his back the rag peddler who
never found the wheel of his cart suddenly
coming off; the street car conductor who
did not have to drive the boys from the
rear platform the passer-by who did not
get baseball in his abdomen 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 tranquil inter
walls 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 improve
ment; and 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
passed their eighteenth year.
But there are ''boys'' and boys, "boys"
with quotation mark and boys without.
1t is the "boys'' with these marks that do
not deserve much charity, and do get but
precious little liking and admiration. 1t is
the "boys" with these marks that frequent
drinking saloons, stand on the street cor
ners, become rowdies at an early age, are
riotous, foul-mouthed, violent and even
bloodthirsty before they are twenty-one
This is the kind of ''boys" that are not en-
titled to the name They become street
roughs, if not burglars and highway rob
bers or are dissipated, vicious, lewd and
going to perdition in droves. 1t is gangs
Of this sort in large cities and on the from
tiers, who are known as "boys," but who
belle the name. A mean but true speci-
men of them are the Malley 'boys" young
men we'll advanced in manhood, but cover
ing up their debauchery, dissoluteness,
riotous living, and even graver offenses, by
pretending to the giddiness and thought
fulness 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.
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 ser
vice by pretending in jocose and light
some way that it is the "boys' who are
really responsible for the evil deeds of eau
cuses and conventions, of wire-pulling and
political deviltry generally. They imagine
it softens the offense if they assume that ii
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 learning and practicing their contempt
BILE political frauds and maneuyers. No:
in justice to the real boys, whose youth ex-
cuses much because it is Stheir nature to,
the "boys' of the street-eorners, the from
tier, and the political managers ought tc
have the name taken from them.-Detroi'
Free Press