Year: 1877

YOUNG RIoTERs.-Tne Reading EAGLE
has a sensible article inquiring into the
cause which influenced the boys of that
city, to unite with the mob in the destruc
tion of life and property during the recent
riots. 1t says:


All reports of the late mob in this city
show that very large proportion of those
who comprised 1t were boys from ten to
twenty yt ars of age On Monday afternoon,
previous to the indiscrlminate firing of the
volunteer militia on our citizens, the writer
made a tour of the crowd at 7th and Penn
streets and out 7th TO near Walnut, and
from what ne saw, the rising generation -
constituted by far the very worst element
in the crowd, saying and doing what older
persons did not dare say and do. 1t is said
that many were armed with pistols and
knives. They all appeared TO desire TO di s.
tinguish themselves by what they and the
crowd they were in considered acts OF
bravery.


What were these boys in the mob for ?
They had not had their wages cut down for
the good reason that they had never earned
any. They have not been refused employ
ment for they never sought any They Were
boys for the most part, uhO haze neUer knolCn
any restraint. Many of them have been
roaming about the streets since almost the
time they could walk alone They have
learned TO swear and have taken lessons in
vice from the older rowdies who congregate
in low dens and on the street corners, and
from the latter class, of which Reading has
entirely too mnny characters, there is little
of evil that they have not learned. They
have been allowed TO roam the streets by
parents or guardians as late at night as the
chose.


The Eagle goes on to attribute much of the
unrestrained license assumed by the boys
TO the absence of proper restraint by par
ents and the encouragement of the use OF
the rod in the public schools


The remarks of the Eagle are applicable
TO other cities and parents here should
note the fact in time. In all manufactur.
ing towns like Reading and Wilmington
there is large class of boys from fifteen TO
twenty years of age, many of whose par
ents live in the surrounding country
These boys who are in the shops learning
trades in the day time and at their boarding
places at night, are without restraining
guardians and thoughtlessly fall into the
error of adopting the sentiments they heal
dropped about them. And it too often hap
pens 100 that railroad companies and other
industrial works come in for terrible de-.
nunciations in such times as the present
Threats and denunciatons are not unfre-
quently INDUCED in until the habit becomes
morbid and it only requires a favorable
opportunity for all the evil passions to take
form and be let lose in desperate acts OF
vengence for what after all, when properly
and calmly viewed were mere imagined
injuries that never had an existence.


That there is less restraining influence in
the public schools here as in Reading thar
there should be, we have no doubt. But We
suspect NEST of the boys who Joined tn,
mob in Reading were those that were en-.
gagged in the shops and sympathized with
therioters from having heard the road re
peatedly and violently denounced for sew.
eral years.


During the conflict which the Grangers
had with the railroads some years ago about
the overcharge for freight, what would
nave been the result had strike and rio
occurred Does not every one now SEE
that the farmers boys living along the line'
would most likely have Joined with th,
rioters in destroying property?


Parents should be careful when talkint
before young people to guard against any
thing that would influence them to becom,
rioters and the destroyers of property. l
the managers of property do not act wisel,
and well 1t must not be forgotten by tn
boys that the fault after all may not lie il
The real owners-the stockholders or pro
prietors or they should remem Der that af
ter all those who denounce the manager
might possibly be wrong 1t takes severa
learned and careful judges TO pronounc,
who is guilty in much less difficult case.
than these questions of difference betweeI
what is usually termed labor and capital
1t is terrible thing for the boys to violat
the law and to get into prison from suc
foolish acts, and certain to lead to lon
years OF remorse: