Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1885-05-04

the hot sides of cotopsxi?
.Amusements on Trial
Now, all opera houses, theatres, bowling
alleys, skating Kinks, and all styles OF
amusement, good and bad, l put on trial to-
day and Judge Of them BY certain cardinal
principles. First, you may judge Of any
| amusement by its healthtul result or by its
baleful reaction. There are people who
seem made up Of hard facts. They are a
combination of multiplication tables and
statistics. If you show them an exquisite
picture they will begin to discuss the pig
ments involved in the coloring. If you
show them beautiful rose they will sub
NIT it to botanical analysis, which is only
the post-mortem examination of flower.
They have no rebound in their nature. They
never do anything more than smile. There
are no great tides of feeling surging up
from the depths of their soul in billow after
billow of reverberaing laughter. They
seem as if nature had built them by con-
tract and made bungling job of it, but
| blessed be God there are people in the world
who have bright faces and whose life is a
song, an anthem, pean of victory. Their
troubles are ike the vines that crawl up
the side OF great tower, on the top Of which
| the sunlight sits and the soft airs OF summer
hold perpetual carnival. They are the peo-
pie you Ike to have come TO your house;
they are people like to have come to my
house. If you but touch the hem Of their
garments, you are healed. Now, it is these
exhilarant and sympathetic and warm-heart-
ed people that are most tempted to
Pernicious Amusements.
In proportion as ship is swift it wants a
strong helmsman; in proportion as a horse
is gay, it wants stout driver; and these
| people of exuberant nature will do well to
look at the reaction Of all their amuse
ments. If an amusement sends you home
at night nervous so you cannot sleep and
you rise in the morning, not because you
are slept out, but because your duty
drsgs you from your slumbers,
you have been wheIe you ought not to have
been. There are amnsements that send
man next day to bis work eyes bloodshot,
yawning, stupid, nsuseated, and they are
wrong kinds of amusement There are enter
tainments tEat give a man disgust with the
drudgery Of hfe, with tools because they are
they are not robes, with cattle because they
are not irturiatcd bulls Of the arena. II
any amusement sends you home longing
for life of romance and thrilling adyen.
| lures, love that takes poison and shoots
itself moonlight adventures and hair
breadth escapes. you may depend upon it
that you are the sacrificed victim of un-
sanctifed pleasure. Our recreations are
intended to build us up; and if they pull
Us down as to our moral or as TO our physl-
cal strength, you may come 10 the conclu'
sion that they are obnoxious
Costly Amusements.
Still further: Those amusements are
wrong which lead you into expenditure be-
yond your means. Money spent in recrea'
tion is not thrown away. 1t is all folly for
US to come from place Of amusement,
feeling that we have wasted our money and
time. You may by it have made an invest
ment worth more than the transaction that
Welded You hundred OF thousand dol
| lars But how many properties have been
| riddled by costly amusements? The table
has been robbed to pay the club The cham
pagne has cheated the children wardrobe
The carousing party has burned up the
| bows primer. The table cloth Of the corner
| saloon is in debt 20 tie wife's faded dress.
Excursions that in day make tour
around whole months wages; ladies
| lifetime business il is 10 "go shopping
have their counterpar1s in unrducatei chill
drcu, bankruptcies tha; shock the money
market and appall the church and that
send drunkenness staggering across the
richly fgared carpet Of 1he mansion and
dashing int the mirror and drowning out
the carol Of music with the whooping OF
bloated sens come homa 10 break
their old mother hearts. When men go
into amusements hat they cannot ati0rd,
ttey first borrow what tley cannot earn
aud then they steal what they cannot bor-
row. First they 90 into embarrassment
and then into lying and then into theft, and
when a man goes as far as that he does not
stop short of the penitentiary. There is not
a prison in the land where there are not
Victims
Of unsanctifed amusements. How often l
have had parents come to me and ask me
to 90 over to New York and beg their boy
off from crimes that he committed against
MS employer-the taking OF funds out OF
be employers till or the dissrrangement OF
the accounts. Why, he had salary enough
10 pay all lawful expenditures but NOT
enough salary to meet his sinful afHase'
nents. Aad again and again have gone
ard implored for the 5oung man, sometimes,
alas the petition unavaiiing. Merchants
Of New York, is there disarrangement m
your accounts? Is there \ leakage in your
money drawer? Did not the cash
account come out right last nightY ! Will
tell you. There is Young mau in your
store wandering off into bad amusaments.
The salary YOU give him may meet lav!Gi
expenditures bat not the sinful indulgertes
in which he mas entered and ne takes %
theft that whish you do not give him in laF'
ful salary.
How brightly the path Of unrestrained
snusen ent opens! The young man says:
Now | am of for gcei time. Never
mind economy. I'll get money somehow.
What a fine road What beautiful dsJ
| for a ride! Crack the whip and over he
turnpike! Come, bows, fill high your glasses.
Drink! Long life, health, plenty oi rides
| inst like this" Hard wsrkingmen hear tie
clatter Of the hoofs and look up and say,
"Why, i wonder where, those fellows, get
their money from. We have to toll and
drudge. They do nothing To these gay
men life is thrill and an excitement.
They stare ~ other paople and in tara are
stared at. The watch chain iiugles The
cheeks fusS. The eyes fash. The Midnight
hears theis gEfFsw. They svagger. They
iost!e dissent ma off the sidewalk.
They take the name of God in
vain. TaeY parody the hymn they learned
at their mothers kaee, and to all pictures
of coming diss,E they cry out: "Who
| cares" snd to the counsel Of some Christian
friend Who are your Passing along
the street some night yen hear shrek in a
grog.ssop, the Eattle Of tLs watchnsn's club,
the ruSh of the police. What is the matter
now Oh, this reckless Young man has
| haar k;fIai in q uro1.sh fiphS carry him