Norwich bulletin., 1911-03-13
Few. c. II. Rieketts Prsaohes on Young People and IdIsnsss Items.

The following is a condensed report of the sermon preached by Rev. Chars. H. Ricketts, at the Greeneville Con- gregational church Sunday morning on Young People and likeness, taking for his text. Matt. z0:5, Why stand we here all the day idle"
 likeness is not crime in that it is violation of statute law. In a larger sense it violates the law of our being because it injures the capacity to do. It is a vice because 1t is a fault for which we are directly responsible. It appeals more powerfully to the young because they arc more susceptible to demoralizing tendencies, and are more easily swerved from the right. The revelation of our streets is sometimes painful. Of an evening one fs impressed with the number of young people on our streets and squares, and particularly at the entrance of doubt as to their motive, the influ- ence is not uplifting. Things talked about by men ought not to be heard by the young.
 likeness is responsible for much rudeness on the street. Nowhere is the real gentleman more quickly dis tinguished from the rowdy than fin the manner in which he behaves on the street. No real gentleman loiters in dark alleys making uncompliment- ary and sometimes impudent remarks about passersby. I partly caught the loyly ut1red remark by one of these fellows one night on Franklin square, evidently intended for a young girl who was passing by, which brought the flush of anger to her cheek. She was evidently respectable girl: and she had rights; rights that decent fellow would recognize; rights that the community is morally bound to do r,or cealed the coward who would not have dared to treat a man in that fashion. Ought there not to be enough public sentiment to encourage the police to stop this business?
 This is the fruitage to street loaf ing. It tends to coarseness, bad man viciousness. Next to drink there is nothing that so injures a young mans chances for betterinG his condition than to be known as 8 coarse, ill., hammered, boorish sort of fellow. No worthy girl will look at him, and his chances for future happy home (which every man in his heart yearns for), are very slim. Now, if these things injure a young man they are fatal to a young girl. A young girl sounds her own death knell when she betrays these unfortunate tendencies. You may call this injustice and un-
 
 with you, but remember that wo- man has always been discriminated against ever since the world began. We must therefore take facts, even though unfair. just as they are and remember that when a young woman lets her reputation get tarnished she virtually commits suicide.
 There must be some fascination in idlGness, otherwise 1t would not be followed as it sometimes is to one's personal discomfort. Let me give two Hlustrations of this: Last Tuesday nie1k I saw three fellows lowering about at the corner of Bath and Franklin streets. They had good faces, were fairly we'll dressed, and though the night was piercingly cold they had no overcoats on, and they were shiyeriug in the cold. They were doing all possible to invite pneumonia I What were they running such risks for? A few days before this I saw three girls, apparently intelligent and respectable, standing in the slush al Franklin square. Their shoes were thin, they had on no rubbers and they were joking about their soaked feet One of those girls had an ugly cough and I thought I could see the skele- ton hand of consumption playing witt that poor girls lungs. Had they nc mothers or friends to protect them from this form of suicide? Perhaps this is why the cruel white scourge' |siS making such havoc, especially witt