The Yazoo sentinel. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 1878-1916, 1891-04-02

I That gave tueuiNtlVea entirely % the uuDhCi
tion Of vile literature have been stopped Z
have gone into business less obnoxious
What has thrown on. what hos kept on n
4 rail trains q this country for some tim
back nearly all the leprous periodicals.
Those Of us who have been on the rail train
/ have noticed q great change IN the last q
months and the last year or two Why hav
nearly all Chose vile periodicals been kept Of
the RAN trains for some time back Who Fl
fected III These societies for the purihcatio
OF railroad literature gave waning 70 III
publishers and warning 70 railroad compan
les. and warning 70 conductorz and warn
ing to newsboyn to keep the internal stui
of the traina
Many OF the cities have successfully pro
hibited the most Of that literature even from
going on the news stands Terror has seize,
upon the publishers and the dealers in impurl
literature, from the fact that over a thou
sand arrests have been made. and the aggre
gate time for which the convicted have beer
sentenced 70 the prison is over one hundred
and ninety years, and from the fact thai
about two millions Of their circulars hav,
been destroyed, and the business is not a
profitable as II used TO be.
How have 30 many OF the news stands ol
our great cities been purihedf How has Sc
much Of this iniquity been balkedf BY
moral suasion; Oh, no. You might as vel
60 into the Jungle OF the East Indies and pat
a cobra on the neck, and with profound ar
gument try to persuade 1t that It is morally
wrong to bite and TO sting and TO poison
anything. The only answer to your argu-
ment would be an uplifted head and q hiss
and sharp, reeking tooth struck into your
arteries. The only argument for cobra Is
aishotgun, and the only argument for these
dealers in impure literature Is the clutch of
the police and the bean soup in a peniten-
tiary. The law The law! Invoke to con-
summate the work 80 grandly begun
Another way In which we are to drive
back this plague Of Egyptian frogs is by
filling the minds Of our young people with
q healtnful literature. ] do not mean to say
that all the books and newspapers in our
families ought to be religious books and
newspapers, or that every song ought to be
sung to the tune of ''Old Hundred" have
no sympathy with the attempt 10 make the
young old. / would rather Join in a crusade
to keep the young young. Boyhood aud girl
hood must not be abbreviated. But there
are good books, good histories, good biogra-
phies, good works Of fiction, good books of
all styles with which we are to fill the minds
Of the young, SO that there win be no more
room for the useless and the vicious than
there is room for chair in a bushel measure
which is already filed with Michigan
wheat.
Why are City per cent. of the criminals in
the jails and penitentiaries Of the United
States to-day under twenty-one years of
ageg Many Of them under seventeen, under.
sixteen, under fifteen, under fourteen, under
thirteen. Walk along one of the corridors
Of the Tombs prison in New York and look
for yourselves. Bad books, bad newspapers
bewitched them as soon as they got out Of
the cradle. Beware of all those stories
Of oil
books which make the road that ends in
perdition seem to end in Paradise. Do not
glorify the dirk and the pistol. Do not call
the desperate brave or the libertine gallant.
Teach our young people that If they 60 down
into the swamps and marshes to watch the
dance ON the decay and
rottenness they viii catch the malaria and
death.
''Oh," says some one, II am business
man, and l have no t.4Ae to examine what
my children read. have no time toinspect
The books that come into my household" If
your children were threatened with typhoid
ever, would you have time to go for the doc
or? Would you have time to watch the
progress of the disease? Would you have
lime for the funeral? In the presence of my
3cd warn you of the fact that your chill
lren are threatened with moral and spirit
lal typhoid, and that unless the thing be
topped it win be TO them funeral of body,
uneral of mind funeral of soul. Three
unerals in one day.
My word Is to this vast multitude Of young
'eople. DO not touch, do not borrow, do |
lot buy a corrupt book or a corrupt picture.
\ book viii decide mans destiny for good |
r for evil. The book you read yesterday |
nay have decided you for time and for eter- |
ity, or it may be a book that may come |
nto your possessions tomorrow
A good book-who can exaggerate its |
over? Benjamin Franklin said that his I
eading of Cotton Mather's Essays to Do /
Foodn ia childhood gave him holy aspira-
ions for all the rest of his life. George Law
eclared that biography he read in child
God gave him all his subsequent prosperi-
es A clergyman, many years ago, passing !
} the far west, stopped at hotel. He saw
woman copying something from Dodd-
dge's Rise and Progress" 1t seemed that
ie had borrowed the book and there were
,me things she wanted especially to re-
iember.
The clergyman had in his sachel copy of
Rise and Progress" and so he
ade her a present of it. Thirty years
lssed on. The Clergyman came that way,
nd he asked where the woman was whom
, had seen so long ago ''She lives yonder
that beautiful house" He went there and
id to her, do you remember me" She
id, mo, DO notn He said. do You re-
ember a man gave you Doddridge's Rise
Id Progress thirty years sgos' ''0h, yes:
That book saved my soul.
aned the book to all my neighbors and
ey read it and they were converted to God,
ID we had revival of religion which swept |
rough the whole community. We built
urch and called pastor. You see that !
ire yondeT, don't yous That church ,
as built as the result of that book you gave ,
e thirty years ago." Oh, the power of {
'od book But, alas for the influence of /
d book.
John Angel Games, than whom England ,
iver had holier minister stood in his pull (;
at Birmingham and said; Twenty-Five
airs ago a lad loaned to me an infamous I
ok. BE would loan it only fifteen min {
es, and then had to give it back, but that Z
ok has haunted me like a specter ever I
fore God, prayed that he would obliterate /
pm my soul the memory of it but 1 shall d
rry the damage OF it until the day of my v
ath." The assassin of Sir William Rus {
] declared that ne got the inspiration for 1
crime by reading what was then new O
d popular novel, Jack sheppard a
)mer's ''Iliadn made Alexander the war u
r. Alexander said SO. The story of c
exander made Julius Cesar and Charles (
II. both men Of blood. Have you in yout a
cket, or in your trunk or in your desk ar h
siness a bad book, a bad picture, a bad
implicit In Gods name warn you to de-
oy it.
Another way in which we shall fight back
s corrupf literature and kill the frogs of