Connecticut western news., 1910-06-16
POOR SLAVES OF HABIT

ness increasing. In proportion to popu- lation 1t can't hold candle to the an eient world in point of wickedness. True, there is chance for improvement. The world is a long distance from being a paradise. It may never be. Yet, after all it's pretty good place to live in-the best that most of us have ever tried-despite it's uncertainties and trials, and the majority of us are not over anx- ious to get out of it, even if it is not quite perfect.
 The world is all right. The fault is in some of the people the good Lord allows to live in it. There are numerous apolo gies for men walking around with trous CTS on. There is many pile of clothes with hat on, stalking abroad in life, whose sole claim to consideration is purely textural. :E
 Yet while we are progressing in one direction, we are unfortunately sowing tares of retrogression in another d1rec- tion. We have reached an age of pro- fanity that has become we'll nigh ap-
 palling. Profanity is heard on every side and some of 1t the vilest, most atro- oious and foul-mouthed. It equals any thing. of the kind perpetrated by the ancients. In this respect the world has not materially improved.
 Passing along the streets of our cities Anx Ivy and frequently oftener, even from small boys scarcely three years out of swad- ding clothes, the most frightful oaths. The most sacred name in all the ages of the world is blasphemed and vilified in disgusting obscenity by thousands of young men and by men of maturer years; those you would expect to set better example. But worse than all, is the number of mere boys who have become experts in the use of cuss words. You hear their disgusting utter ances in park and thoroughfars, in pub- lie resorts and often in the home itself, until it seems as though nospot was free from this whitening, blighting blast.
 Not only is it prom inent among street boys, but it has penetrated to our scholastic life. Boys. hardly beyond nursery surroundings, may be heard cussing like pirates. We'll dressed young men, passing along the public thoroughfares often startle passersby with disgusting filth and the most shock ing profanity.
 About this there is a responsiveness de- testable to those of pure mind The deplorade thing about it is it's influence upon the life and character of boys ln their formative period. It educates such in an utterly false school of morals. Many never forget the lessons taught, and in future years become teachers and past masters of this deteriorating moral speciality.
 If boy or young man is imbued with the idea that swearing shows manliness, smartness or brightness. or emphasizes claim to superior intelligenoes, never did he make graver mistake. Fools laugh with him, but decent people look upon him with disgusted tolerance, pity ing such misguided youth, and measur- ing his intellect by it's avowed standard.
 Many @ man has reached a condition when he swears unthinkingiy. It has become second nature to him. Gould he but see himself as others see and hear him, he would blush at his own folly. The daily conversation of some men fairy bristles with profanity Why? They themselves cannot answer. Per haps they consider it emphasis of some strong argument. Emphasis it certainly is, but of kind that makes their pre- sentation of subject no stronger; on the contrary it weakens it. In it is no logic. The young man, whose knowledge of forceful phrasing is confined to ''cuss words" is to be pitied for his pronounced ignorance.
 This wide spread growth of profanity is in. every sense demoralizing, yet it seems beyond control. Untutored youth delights in it and seems to consider it manly when it is the opposite. It dwarfs intellect and chains it's victim to a degenerating and disgusting habit un- til he becomes it's abjeot slave, unable to rise above the lash of his coarse task master.
 May that day speedily dawn, when there shall come an awakening, and our boys and our young men and the habit slaves of middle life, shall come to and see their action in the X-ray of reality, in all it's degenerate 
 Yet, with it all, the life of to-day is an improvement over that of the ancient world. Humanity is advancing along many lines and the mistakes of to-day become the triumphs of tomorrow.