Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-12-01
WATCH THE BOYS.
Parents Cannot Bs Too Careful In
 Bringing Them Up.


 There was quite an object lesson for parents on Harrison avenue yesterday morning when Officer Maurice Noonan drove into Exchange place with the two Scan1on boys, Patrick and Dennis, 1 en route for the reform school at Mer- 1 iden. The youngsters were handcuffed and appeared in good spirits, the older ! one humming tune and the younger very attentive listener. They looked like bright boys and everybody who saw them expressed much regret that such sights should be of such frequent occurrence. One man stamped his foot on the sidewalk and remarked that he didn't know what to say about It. Why he said, after few moments 1 reflection, .the town is full of young sters whom it seems nobody owns. | can't understand why people don't real ize the wrong they are doing by allow 1 ing their children to remain out nights l in all kinds of company. A man will deprive himself of the necessaries or life to feed and clothe his children, and yet he hasn't sufficient interest in them to see that they are in the house at seasonabIe hour. am convinced 1 that We have great need of curfew law in Waterbury. Why wouldn't tt be good thing to pass city ordin- l ance compelling children to get off the l street when that 9 o'clock gong blows? What do you suppose they are doing l after that time? I feel for parents l who raise children up to an age when l they arc able to give them helping hand and find them a greater burden then than when they were in the era dle, but some of them are not entitled to much sympathy Iknow it is hard to control some boys and that many good parents are handicapped in their efforts to keep them under proper re-. straint, but what do you think about fathers and moth CTS who give them all the rope they want and never think of go- l ing out to acquaint themselves with what their boys and girls are doing ! when they are away from the house? I tell you what it is, the man who ne-I glects to keep his children in the house l after dark will rue it and when the children of such parents grow up they I will have no respect for their parents, because no matter how wayward a l youth may be, time comes when he looks back and takes note of the way he was brought up, and if he sees that no effort was made to keep him on the l right path he knows who was at fault.
 It Is only the other day when fellow
 called at my back door and asked for
 8 cup of coffee and little bread. The l children were at the table at the time
 and one of them wanted to know some
 thing about his early life. The man
 was somewhat unco11nunicative, bur before he left he said that if he had
 been kept within proper bounds when he was q boy he felt sure that he I would never have to ask bread at any
 body's door. You see, he was the off, spring of parents who took the ground
 that he wanted lots of exercise and they gave him more of 1t than was good for him. Whatever badness they saw in him, they fancied he wUld grow out of 1t, but in this they were deceived. Such treatment usually has the opposite effect, When boy shows a disposition to be wayWard he needs constant watching and 1t is mighty
 poor way to do this by leaving him to the tender mercies of the nighthawks. When I was boy, father always \ found something for me to do and if I remained out after dark knew what | to expect. But we are living in dif- ferent age now. Why, parents are more afraid of their children now than we l used to be of our fathers and mothers.
 They are little tyrants before they
 know how to wash their faces and 1t would be about all your life Is worth to say anything to their parents, tao many
 of them never see what they are doing until 1t is too late,'
 ! He said he had travelled a good deal l in his time and that he never visited a town where so. many small children
 were permitted to roam at will nights I as in Waterbury.