The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1884-07-26
RUNNING OUT NIGHTS.

DO you WduI 10 run OUT U 0IRutSs en- :
Well, my boy, if there is one single
habit more than another calculated to
bring lad to evil ways it is that of
running around village. town or city
o, nights. All the bad in human nature
begins to bubble as soon as the sun goes
down. You wouldn't dream of doing q
mean act to your neighbors by daylight.
but after dark it seems good joke to
lug off gates. upset outhouses, steal
fruit or raise false alarm of fire. It
may seem fun 10 you, but when you
come to sit down and think it over you
can't help but admit that it is small
business. Any action of yours which
puts any one else to trouble and expense
may be questioned to your detriment.
Find murderer, burglar or thief
point out to me the biggest loafer in your
town and / win show you a man who
began his career by running out o.
nights. don't say that George WASH
ington or Thomas jefferson or Abraham
Lincoln didn't throw down lumber piles
or rob fruit trees at ten o. clock at night,
but If SO, they started out just right to
become bad men.
Don't want q boy to have fun?
You bet l do! and, by and by, I'm GO
ing to put you up to a dozen different
things in that line. But this grabbing
your hat after supper and sneaking out
over the back fence is mean piece of
business when you come to figure it
down. Down on the corner you meet
Jim this or Tom that. You go lover
town" and are seen hanging around
this or that place. You may sneak
into saloon to see q game of billiards.
but you hate yourself for it. You may
sit in Smiths grocery and hear q lot OF
old bald-headed liars spin their yarns
and abuse religion, but you go out feel
ing that you could kick any one of them
who dared bow to your mother.
You'd go home and go to bed If it
wasn't for Jim or Tom. He wants .
little .fun" and he drags you into it.
What he calls fun is stringing rope
across the sidewalk. 1t doesn't occur
to him that some person may break a
limb and be put TO several hundred dol
lars expense, or even be killed outright.
He thinks it cute thing to roll off bar
rels of salt, barricade the bridges. set
an oil-shed on fire or stop up the CHM
neys on a widows house. When you
have played such tricks it comes very
easy to play others which the law won t
look at in the funny light.
There is to-day in the Michigan State
Prison boy whose career / watched
for two years. first saw him prowling
around O. nights. He had an honest
face and good heart, but his father
had seemingly never been boy him.
self. He let this lad go and come as he
willed, and within three months the po-
lice had to caution him. Inside of six
months he belonged to a gang of juve-
nile thieves. Within two years he was a
burglar. When he stood up in court to
receive his five years sentence. women
wept to see that one so young had
drifted SO rapidly to the bad
What can you do o. nights if YOU re-
main at home? zezts iiess
Scores of things, my boy. In the first
place, there's the checker board, and in
the next place. your father wants to sit
right down and teach you all he knows
about it. Outside of the interest in q
chance game your wits are made the
sharper by such struggles. A good
checker player will never be q rash
business man. This very training
makes him cautious in his. dealings.
There are dozens of good boy-books to
be had, and your father had better buy
you two or three per week than turn
you over to the town.. There's no end
of mechanical tops and toys and
games.
And suppose you learn how to draw
or paint? Look at a watch and you
will realize that all the wheels and
springs and shafts and Jewels 90 to
make up perfect time-piece. Just so
with man. There are lots of one
wheeled men in this world. They can
sell goods. make boots. run an engine
or keep a butcher shop, but outside of
that one thing they are all at sea- 1t is
the handy man who is helping this
world along-the man who is full OF
wheels and springs. Don't be afraid
because you have planned to study law.
to read up on philosophy and science.
to learn how to handle tools, to analyze
steam, to post yourself on whatever is
worth knowing.
You will discover as you grow up that
the man who knows the least is the
greatest bigot to argue with and the
meanest man with whom to transact
business Not one in twenty of our
high-school pupils knows how . mason
mixes his mortar or painter his col
ors. They never saw . tinsmith at
work or . grainer initiating the various
woods. Now, then. when you lind the
evenings dull ask your father to put on
his hat and help You post yourself. Did
you ever look over the queer ma
chinery in tin-shop which bends
the install in shape for covers and bot
toms and handles7 Ever visit the gas
works, Of 20 through abig Touring mill
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