The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1910-04-28
TRUTH-TELLING.

truth. Truth is nothing more than honesty.
The habit of telling the truth begets &C
curacy of statement, and the habit among
people of hearing and expecting the
truth produces the truth. Honest men who
have no intent to deceive are called truth
full, but if they are lax and careless and
have been habituated to loose statements,
and themselves place no great value upon
truth for its own sake, they are pretty sure
to be inaccurate, and therefore untrust-
worthy. For this reason, perhaps, Sir
Walter Scott declared that the right edu
cation for young man was to learn to fish
and to tell the truth.
Travellers who have been intimately
acquainted with the peoples of Oriental
nations speak with disgust of the duplicity,
the universal lying. the writhing indirec-
ton, the monumental and ingenious men,
dacity of all classes. The Oriental lying
is said to differ from the species in this
country, in that English-speaking men
often lie when there is some apparent adj
vantage near or remote to be got by de-
ceiving, but the Orientals lie constantly and
seemingly from an artistic or perverse mo-
tive when there is nothing to be gained by
deceiving nor to be feared from speaking
the truth
In barbarous or despotic countries the
persistent and ineradicable duplicity and
falseness are to be explained by the fact
that there is ever present a fear of injus-
tice, or cruelty, of rule governed wholly
by caprice and extortion. Fear of oppres-
sion and injustice makes of the inhabitants
shrinking towards. Traces of the influ-
ences of personal government, or of the
power Of corrupt courts in which rewards
and preferment and fortune for many men
rest largely upon whim, are to be found in
the coldly cynical essays of Lord Bacon,
who, with all his natural prediction for
noble truth, yet writes of discrimination and
stimulation as if they were arrows which
the statesman or negotiator might find con-
venient to carry in his CULVER as part of
his natural regular equipment.
In the light of freedom and in modern
times there is no Indictment to falsehood
from the form of government or from con-
ditions over which the individuals do not
have control. People may lie now as ever
for gain, favor or place, or for any advan-
tage, but the indictments of the civilized
community of to-day are in the direction
of truth telling. The liar is held in greater
disrepute to-day, perhaps, than in former
times because he is more dangerous to the
world. An immense amount of the i'm
portant business of the world is done to-
day by word of mouth and on honor, and
breach of faith would mean chaos. The
truthful man is held in high esteem because
every violation of truth is ga stab at the
health of human society,"
Truth is the courage to be honest, and in
general the attitude of man toward facts
will depend upon the training he has had
and the company he has kept. Doctor
Johnson, who was so careful to tell the
truth and to state it accurately that all the
eminent men of his time who were his in
timates-of his "school'-were noted for
their veracity and attention to the truth,
gave this counsel:
''Accustom your children to strict at
tention to truth, even in the most minute
particulars. If a thing happened at one
window and they, when relating it, say
that it happened at another, do not let it
pass, but instantly check them; you do not
know where daviatiOnS from trllth will end -
Any one who has examined the subject
of legal evidence or the discussions on the
subject in physiological and philosophical
works will know how difficult it is to secure
Ineligible testimony of plain case from
number of witnesses. Ten men who oc-
cupy the same side of the street have wit
messed murder in daylight, and in court
the variations in the testimony of eight of
the men were so extraordinary that if the
two men of strong sense who saw the es-
sentia facts had not been present to tell a
plain story the disposition of the judge and
jury would have been to disbelieve the
whole occurrence as mere fabrication.
All truth is important, but all facts are
not of equal Importance. A person of
feeble powers will, in reciting an occur
renee, dull the ear of patience with the
recital of the most trivial and unimportant
details which do not affect the action or the
conclusion, and will come down to the heart
of the story limpingly. Some people pay
so much attention to triyialties in a con.