The Red Cloud chief., 1891-03-20

for some time back? Who effected il?
Those societies for the publication Of
railroad literature gave warning TO the
publishers and warning TO railroad COM
panies and warning TO conductors and
warning 10 newsboys 10 keep the in
fernal stuff OF the trains.
Many Of the cities have successfully
prohibited the most of that literature
even from going on the news stands
Terror has seized upon the publishers
and the dealers in impure literature.
from the fact that over a thousand ar
rests have been made, and the aggre-
gate time for which the convicted ave
been sentenced 10 the prison is over 100
years, and from the fac that about p
600. 900 OF their circulars have been de-
stroyed, and the business is no as prof
liable as IL used TO be.
How have % many of the news stands
of our great cities been purified? How
has % much of this iniquity been
balked? By moral suasion? o, no.
You might as well GO into a jungle Of
the East Indies and pat a cobra on the
neck, and with profound argument try
10 persuade il that il is morally wrong
TO bite and to sting and TO poison any
thing. The only argument for a cobra
is a shotgun, and the only argument for
these dealers in impure literature is the
clutch Of the police and bean soup in
the ~penitentiary.
Another way in which we are 10 drive
back this plague Of Egyptian frogs is
by filing the minds of our young peo-
pie with a healthful literature. / do
not NEAR 10 say that all tee books and
newspapers ought 10 be religious books
n newspapers, or that every song
ought to be sung 10 the tune Of 'Old
Hundred" ! have no symnathy with
the attempt To make the young old /
would rather join in a crusade TO keep
the young young. Boyhood and girl
hood must not he abbreviated But
there are good books, good histories.
good biographies, good works of fiction,
good books Of all styles with which we
are TO fill the minds of the young. sc
that there will be no more roo for the
useless and the vicious than there Is
room for chaf in a bushel meaure
which is already filed with Michigan
wheat.
Why are so per cent. Of the criminals
in the jails and p~enitentiaries of the
United States to-day under 81 years Of
age? Many Of them under II. under
10, under Is, under Il, under -? Walk
along one of the corridors of the Tombs
prison in New York and look for your
selves. Bad books, bad newspapers
bewitched them as soon as they got out
Of the cradle. Beware of all those
stories which end wrong. Beware of
| all those 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 il they go down
into the swamps and marshes TO watch
| the iack-o-lantcrns dance on the decay
and ~rottenness they will catch the ma
laria and death
NV word is to this vast multitude OF
young people: Do not touch, do not
borrow. do not buy a corrupt book or n
corrupt picture. A book will decide a
mans destiny for good or for evil. The
book you read yesterday may have de-
cided you for time and for eternity, or
il may be a book that may come into
your possession tomorrow.
a good book-who can exaggerate its
power? Benjamin Franklin said that
his reading of Cotton Mathcr's Essays
To Do Good" in childhood gave him
holy inspirations for all the rest of his
1 no. I,r1 .v- ta.lara1 that IN hinn-
raphy he read in childhood gave him
all his subsequent properties A
clergyman many years ago, passing TO
the far west, stopped at a hotel He
saw a woman copying something from
Doddridgc's Rise and Progress" II
seemed hat she had borrowed the
book, and there were some things she
wanted especially To remember. The
clergyman had in his satchcl n copy Of
Doddridge's Rise and Progress" and
So he made her "A present of it. Thirty
years passed on The clergyman came
that way and he asked where the
woman was whom he had seen long
ago. They said: "She lives yonder in
that beautiful house" lie went there
and said { q her: DO you remember
me?' She said: NO. l do not" He
said: "Do YOU remember a man gave
YOU Doddridge's Rise and Progress
thirty years ago." 20, yes; remcm-
Der. That book saved my soul. j
loaned the book To allmy neighbors and
they read it and they were converted
To God. and we had "a revival If religion
which swept through the whole COM
munity. We built n church and called n
pastor. You see hat spirc yonder, don't
YOU? That church was built as the re-
suit of that book you gave me thirty
years ago" @, the power of n good
book But. alas. for the influence Of a
bad book.
Y The assassin of Sir William Russell
declared that he got the inspiration for
his crime from reading Jack Shep-
pard" lIomer's Had made Alex
ander the warrior. Alexander said SO.
The story of Alexander made Julius
Cesar and Charles MI. both men of
blood
Another way in which we shall fight
back this corrupt literature and kill the
frogs is by rolling over them the
N"Nah pruning fht>Ss "hiSh hai
give plenty of healthful reading 10 all
adults Abstain from all those books
which, while they have some good
things about them, have also an admix-
ture Of evil. You have read books that
had two elements in them-the good
and the bad Which stuck 10 you9 The
bad The heart of most people Is like
a sieve. which lets the small particles of
gold fall through, but keeps the great
cinderS Once ina while there is q mind
like loadstone, which, plunged amid
steel and brass filings, gathers up the
steel and rcpels the brass But il is
generally just the opposite II you at
tempt TO plunge through q fence OF
burrs 10 get blackberry. you will
get more burrs than blackberrieS You
canuot afford 10 read 4 bad book. how
ever good you are.
But" you say. how can I End ou.
whether a book is good or bad withou;
reading it?" There is always some
thing suspicious about q bad book. !