The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-04-07
The Wrong Kind Of Bow.


notice how some boys make an effort to
get along in the world. When a young
man starts out in life he commences by
looking for position in which he may
earn his daily bread and find clothes to
cover his nakedness. If he is one of
these reckless, vagabond sort of boys
whose thoughts don run rod into the
future, or hardly keep pace with the
things going on around him, or has
grown up about as does a lonely and $50
lated weed in the garden that obtains its
strenth from a rich spot in the ground
and draws nourishment from the better
fed plants and vegetables that from their
value receive care and attention, it is safe
to say that he is one who never thinks
OF what the next day, month or year
may bring forth. and though nearing
the age of manhood he is about rs capa-
BILE of filing the position of a man as a
muley calf. Still. he makes pretense
at caring for himself and claims to be
doing all in his power. to get along in the
world
Such boy starts out to obtain stu
..tion He is reckless about his personal
appearance His hair is uncombed, face
and hands unwashed, and the general
appearance of tramp is his exterior
recommendation. If he applies for a
position, the man who happens to need
a Young man sizes him up and con-
cludes that he had rather employ a Dig
Ger Indian, If he has got to reform and
make clean the person whom he hires.
And again, he viii wander around for
days and weeks, hanging around places
where they haven more use for boy
than dog has for two tails. lie spends
one day loafing about the depot, ex-
pecting some one will come around and
offer him fine situation at four dollars
per day and board He viii stand
around and talk with the baggage man
at the depot, or help the lunch counter
clerk carry in coal for his dinner. and in
the afternoon he loafs around some
more and scrapes the acquaintance OF
the brakeman in the yard and helps him
couple ears and unload freight, while
the brakeman fills him full of tally about
how easy it is to get soft thing work
inc for railroadvcompany The next
dav he spends at the police court listen
inc to the cases tried, loafs an hour or
two at the post-office, awhile IN a billiard
hall and winds up with visit to a sa-
loon. All the time he is fairly aching to
have some one give him position and
he curses the country where a young
man can find nothing to do.
Men don't hire boys from under the
caves of a saloon, and when they are
looking for young man to do a job OF
work they do not go through the crowd
loafing around the depot with search
warrant, and pick out the dirtiest young
tramp among the number. No one ever
heard of u man who wanted to hire a
young, bright, active, stirring boy, with
fire in his eye, energy and vigor in his
constitution, looking over the loafers at
the police station for such boy. AT
such places all the boys you would find
would only have energy enough to mas
ticate chew of tobacco, or hold down a
dry goods box on street corner all day,
and swear through the evening about
the cursed country where there was
nothing for boy to do.
When farmer comes into town
looking for boy to help at the spring
work, at fifteen dollars per month and
board, he don't look through the corrf
doris of the postoffice and pick out the
sloaehiest hooking loafer in the crowd,
or hunt up q billiard hall, and hire the
boy who can 'spocket' the most balls at