The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-03-01

sheriff's party slid up and captured
the whole outfit When they were
taken back to the pen and the kid
laid down his arms at the request of
the marshal. he said: Major, /
weaken. You've got the bulge on me.
After all, there's no place like home.
We've taken up arms agin our fellow
men and got left. The pen is mightier
than the sword. "
A VERY BAD CONNECTICUT BOY.
Many years ago there lived in New
Haven a very bad boy. He was born
145 years ago. and as he is now dead,
feel at liberty to write his biography
Sometimes it is perfectly tiresome
waiting for man TO die so that you
will feel safe in saying what you think
of him, but if he happens TO be a large,
robust man, it certainly pays to do So
This boy was known far and vide
as the meanest. most notorious, hope
leSsly bad boy in Connecticut. NO
other boys made any claims whatever
when he was around, and for years he
carried the belt. He knew all the little
fine tricks of meanness and cruelty at
the age of Il years that it generally
takes a lifetime to acquire. When
others studied hard all day to devise
new kinds of wickedness and lay on
their stomachs nights by the light of a
pine knot and patiently worked out
the more difficult problems of mean
ness and lawlessness, this lad seemed
TO breathe it all in the very air.
His wonderful genius as a successful
bad boy was remarked by those who
did not know him at all. He was a
prodigy of wickedness, a miracle of
meanneSs.
He loved to get little boys into his
hands and then duck them or other
wise scare them out of their senses.
He succeeded in gripping several little
Schoolmates and blew out the teachers
eye one day with a cannon fire crack
er. He loved to see his little friends
fall into his traps, and very few of
his intimate friends succeeded in dying
a natural death.
I could go on, page after page, tell
ing of the funny FRANKS Of this bad
boy if ! chose, and it would make you
laugh until the tears rolled down your
cheeks to read how he filed the asy-
lum, the hospital and the cemetery
with his friends.
Whenever any of the neighbors' dogs
saw this humorous boy they would
conceal their tails as far as possible
and go to Canada till the bad boy had
grown up or died.
He was great lover of fun, and one
evening with a skull covered with
PHOSPHORUS and worked by machinery.
he so scared three little girls that
they had fits all the rest Of their lives.
He knew of more ways to produce
laugh and frighten a child into spasms
than any boy Of his age in Connecticut,
and you must remember that this hap
pened over one hundred years ago,
when boys didn't have the advantages
they have now.
d A II
Everybody said that this boy would
could not escape, they thought. No
boy could be SO lawless and disagree
able and still amount to anything.
There were thousands of straight-laced
puritanical croakers who said that the
boy would sink to nothing whatever or
land in the penitentiary.
He said, however, that he was lust
sowing his wild oats. and that wnen
he got, his crop in he proposed to re
form and make his mark.
Year after year he lived on, just as
full of the "OId Scratch" as ever Now
and then he would burn a barn just
to see the cattle scatter and watch the
farmer hustle out in his shirt with a
pail Of water
But observe how the prophecies of
his neighbors failed.
1t ought to encourage every bad boy
in the United States today whose rel
atives and friends speak harshly of
him This lad at last grew to be
man and was known all over the civ
ilized world. His name is familiar to
everyone. and in the history of our
great land you will find a long account
Of him Still. he had the reputation
of pulling frogs to pieces while they
We're alive, of leaving mud turtles on
the track for the passenger train. so
that he could hear them pop, and of
putting the kittens on the kitchen
stove to see them dance.
Bad boy, do not be discouraged
Hope ON, for there may be a future
for you. You have just as good a
chance to be known all over the world
as the boy Of whom I have told you.
He was poor, too. He had to SOW his
wild oats first. as you say, but he
steadily worked his way on until at
the time of his death he was known
wherever the English tongue was
spoken as Benedict Arnold. and every
one wanted to see him very much in
deed Even the sheriff, who wouldn't
recognize him at all when a boy,
walked for miles and miles to converse
with him. When he got there Mr..
Arnold was not at home. He bad
thought of something in England that
he wanted to go and get.
BILL NYE.