The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1897-01-28
Written for The Prison Mirror.
OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF
FRIENDSHIP.

Some men have an unhappy faculty
for making enemies, just as others have
the happy faculty of making friends
wherever they go. We have all known
men whom we could never take lik-
ing to although we could give no def
mite reason for disliking them; men
who make bad impression among all
with whom they come in contact. We
speak now out of those whom we in
stinctively dislike, but rather of those
whose general appearance and first ac-
quaintance impress us favorably. We
meet man who is a good entertainer.
seemingly gentleman in every respect,
and whose converse and manners are
all that we can wish for. He is to all
appearance what we would like in a
companions; but for some reason his
conversation and company begin to
pail on us, not in the sense that he is
insipid, on the contrary he is too inter-
esting at times, leans considerably to
egotism, and causes lis to feel by some
unaccOuntable means, that he is un-
trustworthy and treacherous. We are
very often ashamed of this for the
reason that we can not explain it. But
it is within us, if we can not reason it
out we still are governed by it, and we
can no longer look upon our acquaint-
ance as friend. The question now is,
what causes this feeling? Sometimes
an action of such man will support
the course we have taken; and just as
often we can see no wrong action in
the life of such man although we may
know him for years. In either case our
estimate of him will always remain the
same; we may treat him in formal,
friendly manner, but we can never be
confidential with him; we will never
seek such a one when we need sOlacing
words; we can never depend on him to
aid us in any difficulty.
1t would seem, therefore, that we all
have the occult power of discerning be-
tween the good and the bad in our fel-
lowmen, provided we have sufficient
time to mature our thoughts. In this
respect it may be mentioned that the
| business of the confidence man would
not be very remunerative were it not
that his schemes are always so planned
as to demand instant action on the
part of his intended victim. For ex-
ample: the granger who is approached
on train by ''college chum of his
sons" and asked to accommodate Mr..
Chum by advancing some ready cash
on draft or bond, would not do so if
he had a reasonable length of time to
consider the matter-be unsophisti.
Gated greenness and gullibility to the
contrary. The necessity of immediate
action in such cases is the key to the
confidence mans success.
Those men whose countenances so
vividly depicts their character as to
give us a repulsive feeling towards
them on first sight, are comparatively
harmless; that is, we are on our guard
against them, hence will leave no op-
portunity whereby they may openly
deceive us. 1t is the insinuating, oily
tongued class we must battle against;
those whom we have mentioned as
making good impression upon first
acquaintance are the ones we must
contend with. Very often our gener-
Osity and good nature will cause us to
blame ourselves for feeling a repug-
nance towards this class. We will
usually find that the innate power
| which decides us in such cases is gen