The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-07-01


feet attempt to climb the hot sides of
Cotopaxi?
Now, all opera houses, thcaters,
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 healthful result or by its baneful
reaction. There are people who seem
made up of hard faces. They are a
combination OF multiplication tables
and statistics. If you show them an
exquisite picture they will begin to
discuss the pigments involved in the
coloring; if you show them a beautiful
rose. they VIII submit 1T to botanical
analysis. which is only the post-mOrtem
examination of a flower. They never
do anything more than feebly smile.
There are no great tides of feeling
surging up from the depth of their
soul in billow after billow of everber-
ating laughter. They seem as if ma
ture had built them by contract and
made bungling job out of it, But,
blessed be to God, there are people in
the world who have bright faces and
whose life is a song, an anthem, a
paean of victory. Even their troubles
are like the vines that crawl up the
side of a great tower on the top of
which the sunlight sits and the soft
airs of the summer hold perpetual
carnival They are the people you
like to come to your house; they are
the people | like to have come to my
house. Now it is these exhilarant
and sympathetic and warm hearted
people that are most tempted to
pernicious amusements. In proportion
as n ship is swift it wants a strong
helmsman; in proportion as a horse is
gay it wants a strong driver; and these
people of cxu5erant nature will do
well to look at the reaction of all their
amusements. If an amusement sends
You home at night nervous 50 you can
not sleep and you rise in the morning,
not because you are slept out,
bat because your duty drags
you from your Slumbers, you
have been where you ought not
to have been. There are amuse-
ments that send man next day to
his work blOodshOt, yawning, stupid,
and they are wrong
kinds of amusements. There
are entertainments that give
a man disgust with the drudgery of
life, with tools because they are not
swords, with working aprons because
they are not robes, with cattle be-
cause they are not Infatuated bulls OF
the arena. If any amusement sends
you home longing for life of romance
and thrilling adventure, love that
takes poison and shoots itself, moon
light adventures and hairbreadth eS-
capeS, you may depend upon it that
you are the sacrificed victim of I'M
pleasure. Our recreatiOns
are intended to build US up, and if they
pull us down as to our moral or as to
Our physical strength, You may come
to the conclusion that they are OBJ
noxious.
Still further: Those amusements are
wrong which lead into expenditure be-
vOnd your means. Money spent in
recreation 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 investment worth more |
than the transaction which yielded |
you a hundred or thousand dollars. |
But how many properties have been |
riddle0 by costly amusements? The |
able has been robbed to pay the club. |
The champagne has cheated the !
children's wardrobe. The carousing |
party has burned up the boys primer. |
The table-clOth of the corner sa-
Don is in debt To the wife's faded |
lress. Excursions that in a day make |
/ tour around whole months wages; |
aides whose lifetime bushes it is to |
go shopping" have their counterpart
n uneducated children, bankruptcies
hat shock the money market and ap- |
pail the church, and that send drunk
,nness staggering across the richly
igured carpet of the mansion and
laShing into the mirror, and drowning
nut the carol OF music with the whoop-
ng of bloated sons come home to break
heir old mothers heart. When men
20 into amusements that they can
lot afford, they first borrow what
hey can not earn. and then they
teal what they can not borrow.
'irst they go into embarrassment
nd then into theft, and when a man
cts as far rs that he does not stop
hort of the penitentiary. There is !
OF prison in the land where there
re not victims of unsanctifcd amuse-
lents. How often | have had parents
ONE to me and ask Inc to GO and beg
heir boy off from the consequence of
rimes that he had committed against
is emploYer-the taking of funds out
the employers till or the disarrange-
lcnt of the accounts! Why, he had
llary enough to pay all lawful ex-
but not enough salary to
leet his sinful amuSementS. And
gain and again L have gone and i'm
lored for the young man-sometimes,
las, the petition unavailing.
How brightly the path of unre- !
.rained amusement opens! The young
IAN says: Now l am off Tor a good
me. Never mind economy; I'll get
lOney somehow. What fine road
hat a beautiful day for ride! Crack
lie whip, and over the turnpiIzel
Jme, boys, fill high your glasses!
rink! Long life, health, plenty of q,
Ges, just like thiS!" Hard orkiug
en- hear the clatter OF the hoofs and !
ok up and saw: why, L wonder
here those fellows get their money !
ON. We have to toll and drudge :
hey do nothing" To these gay men :
fe is thrill and al excite.
ent. They stare at other peo-
e and in turn are stared at. {
he watch chain jingles. The cup :
ans. The cheeks flush, the eyes :
Il. I
w. They swagger. They jostle