The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1906-11-29
Pool Rooms No Place
for Boys.
Places Where Boys and Young Men
Learn Much that is Degrading
and Vicious Parental Oversight
Rather than Early Closing Ordi-
nances the Corrective Needed in
the Reform Movement.
Richmond Times-Dispatch

1t seems to us that the city council
and the police commission could
reach their object ofkeeping boys out
OF the pGol-rOOms very enuch better
by II stringent ordinance Furnishing
pool-roorn prophet ors for allowing
minors around their places than by
the proposed regulations requiring
pOOl-rOOms to close at midnight.
There is nothing innately vicious in
the games of pool and billiards. If
grown men desire to continue play
ing until one or two o'clock in the
morning, we see no special objection,
although, rs Il general rule, every re-
spectacle man ought to be at home
and asleep at that time of the night.
Boys, however, have no business in
| public pOOl-rOOns at any time, day
or dight. They ought to be at school
or at work or at home, Or playing
outdoors. In the pool-rooms they
see and hear II great many things
and come in contact with Il great
many people and learn habits not
good for them.
1t is astonishing in Richmond, as
in every other city, to see the num-
bers OF well-dressed boys, evidently
the sons of Well-tO-do and intelligent
parents, lounging about billiard and
pOOl-rOOms, saloons and hotel lob
bies at al hours OF the night. We
have wondered often what the par
ents OF such boys can be thinking
about and why parental authority is
not applied. The parent, by Gust ON
and law, has control of the move
ments and conduct OF the son or
daughter until either has reached the
age OF 21. This~authority can be ell
forced by legal proceedings if neces-
siry. 1t would be far better to call
i'll the law to make a boy stay at
home or give Il strict account of how
he spends his evenings, and prove
that he is telling the truth, than to
wait until he violates the law in some
more direct way and is brought into
disgrace. Many times every year re-
spectacle parents come rushing to
the police and the newspaper offices
to have the names OF their boys, over
taken in stealing from somebody or
some other disgraceful connection,
suppressed. We always think on such
occasions that if the work OF shield
ing a boy from disgrace had been be-
gun four or five years before, all the
agony and misery and shame would
have been avoided.
Everybody is entitled to a certain
amount of amusement and relaxa-
ton. Nobody grudges a man the
pleasure of a game of pool or billiards
il he likes either and even when he
carries it to excess and idles away his
time and squanders his money, he is
supposed to be responsible for his own
acts. The boy, however, is not re-
sponsible. The boys parents are re-
sponsible for him. Ii they will use
the proper tirmness they can prevent
a boy from contracting vicious habits
and associations until he is twenty
one years old and when he reaches
that age clear of such things he is toll
erably safe. No boy has any business
on the streets or loafing in public
places at night. 1t is certain that he
cannot learn or do any good and
equally certain that he will be i'll con-
tact with much tnat is bad, and in
danger.
We see no necessity for the early
closing part of the proposed ordi-