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 ■ ■-.•■-4*4<jfiv*te»' V I 
 
UMttMiMAMtaM 
 
w 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH, 
 FROM THE BUSINESS MAN'S STANDPOINT. 
 
 (OontaiHing Advice to the Tmng m the Krif» efthe Dag 
 from ilann Merchauts of Moaton.) 
 
 .^y 
 
 BY REV. F. E. C;LARK, 
 
 Pastor of the PlUllips Chnroh, Boston. Autho- of "Tlie 
 Children and the Church "; " Our Business Boyd," etc. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 tMm * BHRrARD, PUBLISIUBa. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 CMABLB8 T. DILUNQBAK. 
 
 1885 
 
?*n 
 
 
 CuPTRIGilTBD, 1885, RT ¥, G. GuutK. 
 
 B. THtJRBTON tC Co., 
 
 Printeri and Stereotypes, 
 
 FOBTLAMD, ME. 
 
 
 1 
 
 Ji 
 
I .1 
 i ' 
 
 TO THE TODNO PBOPLB OP PHILUP8 ORDBCH 
 
 AND CONOREOATION, 
 
 WHO HAVE EVKH STAYED UP THEIB PABTOB'g BAUDS. 
 
'fffl^ -: 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 TnK following chapters were delivered as Sunday 
 evening addresses in one of the churches of Boston, 
 to an audience embracing hundreds of young people, 
 among ^hoin was a ^rge proportion of young men. 
 
 They are now presented to a larger audience with 
 the same hope that first led to their preparation, 
 namely, that some of those who are about leaving 
 the home port on life's voyage may be warned by the 
 "Danger Signals" flying in these pages, of storm 
 centers which would otherwise wreck manhood and 
 womanhood. 
 
 The direct form of address, originally used, is con- 
 tinned in these pages, and the personal pronouns have 
 not been blotted, in order that the young people who 
 read these chapters may know, as well as those who 
 were spoken to, that they are individually addressed. 
 
 F. B. C. 
 

 I 
 
CONTKNTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTKODUCTORY. 9 
 
 The Red Flag with a Black Ckntkb. What is 
 THE Use op it. The Object or this Book, The 
 Babrieb between the Cleboyhen and the Young 
 Men, An Attempt to Ovebcoub it. Letteb to 
 the Business Men. Theib Response. " Fob the 
 Sake of the Boys." Thk Pool-Room and the 
 Pbatbo-Room. An Appeal to Sblf-Intebest. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 KING ALCOHOL. 16 
 
 Intempebance a Witheuino Simoon. What the 
 Business Men Say. The Stoby ok a Mobal 
 Wheck. The Revenues of King Alcohol. The 
 Numbeb of his Retainebs. His Absolute Poweb 
 cvEB HIS Subjects. One Stbonoeb than Kino 
 Alcohol. 
 
 CHAPTER III. . 
 
 THE HENCHMEN OF KING ALCOHOL. 38 
 
 King Alcohol, too Wise to Come fob his Victims 
 Himself, Sends his Bettbb Looking Henchmen. 
 PaasoNAL Expbbienoe of SncqEssFUL Business 
 
.-rn'miAitrSihUu.., ._^ 
 
 6 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Mbx. Bad CoMPAxrosrs. Few Boys Eitteb the 
 EiTM Shops fob the First Time Alone. The Bos- 
 ton Boys' Solemn Compact. Weak Will— the 
 Tbaitor. Idleness. Why Some op Boston's Busi- 
 ness Men ABE Rich. Busyness that is not 
 Business. Hope fob All. 
 
 CHAPTEn IV. 
 dikt in ink. 65 
 
 Why Many Business Men Place Bad Litebatube 
 FiBST among the Enemies op Youth. The Tbee 
 WITH THE Rotten Heabt. The Insidiousness of 
 THisEvii„ The Gypsy Boy's Vengeance. Indict- 
 ment of the Bad Book. It Gives a Stbained. 
 Unnatural View of Life. It Glorifies Evil. 
 It Leaves no Room fob th^: Good. The Jelly- 
 Bag Reader. The Corrupt Litkeatobe op 
 Fbance. Tbee-Fboo Minds. What the I aw can 
 Do. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TRASHININK. 78 
 
 Infant Indian Exterminators. Fubtheb Wise 
 Words fbom the Business Men. Juvenile Burg- 
 laries AND Flash Papers. One Hundred Thou- 
 sand People of Boston Keep Company with 
 Trajn Wreckers and Highwaymen. The Cause 
 OF THIS Trash in Ink. Cheap Imitation op Bub- 
 
 DETTE AND MABK TwAIN. A WASTE OF TiMB. A 
 
mm 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 65 
 
 78 
 
 Sum m ABiTHMEnc. The Scbappt Mutd of thb 
 Meke Nbwspapsb Readeb. The Yodno Hioh- 
 
 WATUEN NEAB BOSTON. ThE STORT OF THE JDDOE'S 
 80s. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE LOW THEATER. 108 
 
 The Geitebai. "Theateb Question" not Discussbd. 
 Warninos fbou the Business Men. The Mub- 
 derer's Stahting-Point. The Pebil tc Pubitt 
 OF Chabacter. The Low Theater Always Ca- 
 ters to Lust. Three Theater Bili.s. The Rum 
 
 . Shop Next Door. Jesse jAMha Plats, and their 
 "Strong Situations." The Low Theater At- 
 tempts to Makb Black Appear White, and 
 Confuses Moral Distinctions. Thb Tbub Pio- 
 tube of Vice. 
 
 CHAPTER Vir. 
 
 THE GAMBLING DEN. 126 
 
 The Little Houses of Interlaken. Base-Ball 
 Pool-Rooms. From the Prize Candy Bag to the 
 Roulette Table. The Beans in a Bottle. The 
 Soap Lottery. What the Boston Merchants 
 Have to Say. The Butcher Bird of the Commu- 
 nity. How a Million Dollars a Tear Change 
 Hands. Revelations of an Old Gambler. The 
 Gambler's Prevailing Traits. Cupidity and 
 liAziKESs. Midas' Ears. Good Things always 
 Cost. The Devil's Private Way. 
 
1' 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ; 
 
 I 
 
 ® CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LSPER OP IMPURTTT. 148 
 
 The Dheaded Lepeb of Ancient Times. The more 
 Loathsome Lepek of Moderu Times. What the 
 Mebchakts Think of Him. Insanity or Suicide. 
 The Three Doors by which tuis Leper Enters 
 THE Heart. Imagination-Door. Dr. Holland's 
 Words of Wisdom. Eye-Doob and Eab-Doob. A 
 Word to Youno Women. Keep Safe the Jewel. 
 Balls and Skating Rinks, a Dancing-Master's 
 Opinion. Out-Door Sports. The Unspeakable 
 Turk. The Leper s End. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 SAPPERS AND MINERS OP CHARACTER: 
 PEIVOLITY, SELFISHNESS, DISHONESTY. 172 
 At Petersburg in 1864. The Enemies that Work 
 Underground and IN THE Dark. Frivolity The 
 Wrong Names it Assumes. The Laughter of 
 Fools. Portrait of the Frivolous Young Man 
 and Woman. A Business Man's View. Selfish- 
 ness. Cultivate the Generous Nature The 
 Moth Miller of Character. Thomas Canfield 
 Dishonesty. More Warnings from tue MerI 
 chants. Honest George Washington and Honest 
 Abraham Lincoln. A Last WhToper w the Ears 
 OF THE Boys and Girls. 
 
 ^■ii 
 
fc2*n 
 
 148 
 
 :hb 
 
 DB. 
 SRS 
 
 d's 
 A 
 
 EL. 
 
 k's 
 
 LE 
 
 172 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODITCTOBT. 
 
 The Red Flag wirn a Black Centeb. What is thb 
 Use op it? The Object op this Book. The Babri- 
 
 BR BETWEEN TUB CLEKOYHEX AND THE YOUNQ MEN. 
 
 An Attempt to Ovebcoue it. Letter to the Busi- 
 ness Men. Their Response. "Fob the Sake 09 
 THE BoTS." The Pool-Room and the Pbatbb-Rooh. 
 An Appeal to Self-Intebest. 
 
 Sometimes in stormy weather I look oflf toward 
 our Signal Station, and there see a red flag with 
 a black center fluttering in the breeze and I know 
 that a beneficent government has ordered that 
 flag to be flung out as a danger signal to warn the 
 sailor of an approaching storm. "What is the 
 use of doing anything of that sort?" ihe objector 
 might say. " That red flag won't saye the sailor's 
 life. Provide a safe harbor and a breakwater to . 
 keep off the force of the sea, and a lighthouse to 
 maijc the rocks, and a good dock for the vessel, 
 and never mind about that red rag fluttering 
 1* 9 
 
 mm 
 
tl 
 
 10 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 from the Sigual Station." " No," says the govern- 
 ment; "we will dredge out the harbor and pro- 
 vide the breakwater and lighthouse and dock, 
 and we will also run up the red flag to tell the 
 mariner of his need of refuge." The chief office 
 of every church and minister of the gospel is to 
 present the constructive, building truths, to lift 
 up the Cross and the great Sufferer upon it, as 
 the only Redemption of a lost race, to tell of the 
 safe haven, and to point out the good roadstead 
 where tempest-tost vessels on life's ocean may 
 ride out the storm, but it is also the duty of every 
 church and preacher of the gospel to warn the 
 mariner of approaching gales. The red flag saves 
 life as well as the breakwater and the lighthouse. 
 
 Tlaging storms and fierce are abroad. Before 
 we know it our children may be involved and 
 eternally wrecked. For their sakes I have felt it 
 my duty to run up these Danger Signals. 
 
 When this conclusion was reached the next 
 question to decide was how may this best be 
 done. 
 
 Young men are apt to feel that a clergyman is 
 more or hss of a recluse, who shuts himself up 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOXTTH. 
 
 11 
 
 with his books, and knows little of the temptations 
 and struggles of real life. A false idea I believe, 
 for the most part, for the wind howls and the 
 storms beat against the study window as well as 
 against the counting-house window; and if any 
 one has a chance to know something of every phase 
 of life and human nature it is the pastor of a mod- 
 ern parish. However, I recognize that feeling, 
 and know that many half unconsciously say to 
 themselves whenever a preacher presents a truth, 
 or utters a warning, " Oh yes, that 's a minister's 
 vievw , that 's his businesiL. He is expected to say 
 such things." 
 
 Realizing this barrier which some of you would 
 lialf unconsciously set up, I have requested a large 
 number of the business men of Boston to assist 
 me in running up these danger signals, and ac- 
 cordingly sent out the following circular letter : 
 
 "Dkab Sib. For the sake of the boys and young 
 men will you help me point out to them some of the 
 dangers which lie in their pathway? I propose to give 
 a short series of addresses upon the "Enemies of 
 Youth " in which I wish to set before them not only r 
 minister's views, but the opinions of practical and sac- 
 
!?!| 
 
 12 
 
 DAKGEB 8IGNALJ. 
 
 cessful business men such as most of them aspire to be. 
 Such opinions will have the greatest weight with them. 
 
 "So will you please tell them, through mo, what, in 
 your view, are their greatest enemies, e.g. rim, bad 
 literature, gambling devices, low theaters ; these, or any 
 other evils of like nature. 
 
 " I would be very glad of your reasons for these views, 
 and of any incidents or illustrations which have come 
 under your notice, which serve to corroborate them ; but 
 if in asking for this I am trespassing too much upon your 
 time, may I ask yr- to indicate in a word or two the evils 
 which appear to you most dangerous and seductive. 
 Yours in behalf of the boys, " 
 
 Most of these men to whom I wrote thought it 
 worth their while to answer my letter. More 
 than that, many took great pains in answering it, 
 sending me frequently ten or a dozen or fifteen 
 pages of good advice. 
 
 Many of these men are well known, and have 
 been well known for years in commercial circles 
 of Boston. Some of them count their wealth by 
 millions, and all of them have obtained what they 
 have, be it much or little, by honest, straight- 
 forward, manly dealing. Their success has been 
 true success, not the glittering success of prosper- 
 
 mmt 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 18 
 
 ous roguery, which is worse than failure. They 
 are men for whom you work, young men ; men 
 who watch some of you from day to day behind 
 the counter, men who know thoroughly your 
 temptations and diffieulties, men who have been 
 where you are now, climbing up the ladder, men 
 whose places you aspire to fill one of these days. 
 
 I haye been particularly pleased with the gener- 
 ous response I have received from these busy men, 
 because it shows the intense interest that these 
 merchants of Boston take in your welfare. Many 
 of them speak hearty words of approval of this 
 attempt which I am making to hoist these danger 
 signals, and thank me for the opportunity I give 
 them of aiding you by a word of advice. 
 
 These letters show me, too, that the shrewd bus- 
 iness men of Boston have their eyes upon you. 
 They take far more notice of the young men than 
 the young men are apt to think. They know a 
 church from a saloon and they know when you 
 frequent the one and avoid the other. A pool- 
 room and a prayer-room dO not particularly 
 resemble one another, and you cannot hoodwink 
 those men very long as to the place of your pref- 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 ft: 
 
 14 
 
 DAKOEB SIGNALS. 
 
 erence. You may think that in a large city you 
 are lost in the crowd, and that nobody knows or 
 cares what you do with your time or your money, 
 but let me tell you that is a great mistake. Said 
 a very prominent and wealthy man of business to 
 me: "A young man's calibre and habits are soon 
 known in a business community. His employers 
 are reading him while he thinks they are reading 
 the morning paper; and he very soon takes his 
 own place as reliable, honest, and worthy of pro- 
 motion, or the reverse." 
 
 Says another merchant prominent and honored 
 in many circles of Boston: "An employer can 
 quickly tell whether his clerks find their happi- 
 ness in late hours aad dissipation, or in manly and 
 rational and healthy and Christ-like exercise of 
 mind and body." 
 
 Says another merchant of Boston whose name 
 is as widely known as any between the covers of 
 the Boston Directory : " The men who seek clerks 
 or employees for any work seek those who avoid 
 dissipation of any description and now as never 
 before." 
 This same idea I find in many letters. So, my 
 
 m 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 16 
 
 young friend, if I cannot appeal as yet to a noble 
 Christian principle within you, if I cannot argue 
 with you on the highest plain of morality, let me 
 appeal to this lower motive of self-in rest while I 
 ask you to give heed to these " Danger Signals." 
 
i! 
 4 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 KING ALCOHOL. 
 
 Intkmpkrancb a WiTHKBrao Simoon. What the Busi- 
 NKss Men Say. The Story of a Moral Wreck. 
 The Revenues of King Alcohol. The Xcmbeb of 
 HIS Retainers. His Absolute Power over his Sub- 
 jects. One Stronger than Kino Alcohol. 
 
 First on the black center of the blood-red flag 
 which I would hoist before you I read the word 
 "Intemperance." I raise this signal, not because 
 this evil comes first, necessarily, in order of time, 
 not because it is always the most dangerous, for 
 it is too hideous to be seductive to many of you, 
 but because, like a hot-breathed, withering simoon, 
 this storm wind is always blowing, blasting 
 everything strong and fair that comes within 
 its influence. There are twenty-nine hundred 
 saloons in the city of Boston, I understand, and 
 a thousand more unlicensed, and every one of 
 them is a horrible storm center in which the Evil 
 One takes the place of fabled Eolus of old, and 
 16 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YODTH. 
 
 17 
 
 seeks to wreck every fair bark upon the ocean of 
 life. When we see at the signal office a white 
 flf\g with a black center raised over a red flag 
 with a black center we know that it means an off 
 shore cautionary signsll; that is, t^at while tlie 
 storm has not passed, the prevailing winds are 
 blowing off shore, and hence not so dangerous. 
 But in the Simoon of Intemperance the winds 
 never blow off shore. They are always <lriving 
 their hapless victim upon the rocks of destruction 
 and upon the wreck-lined shore of eternal misery. 
 
 Mo^t of the business men to whom 1 applied, 
 have placed this evil at the head of their list, 
 declaring it the gigantic curse of curses. One of 
 them speaks to you in this way : " The good 
 fellowship of friends is pleasant, the politeness, 
 freedom, desire not to be considered green, are all 
 natural, but no business man wants a clerk in his 
 employ, who is a visitor at bar rooms or has asso- 
 ciates who are frequenters of the same." 
 
 Says another : " Intemperance being the leader, 
 none of the other vices can be successfully assail- 
 ed unless this is first controlled. The man who 
 bows to this leadership, though he may be called 
 
-iC 
 
 1^ I 
 
 ■■ m 
 m 
 
 18 
 
 DANQKB SIGNALS. 
 
 a man, has not in my judgment the moral attri- 
 butes in exercise which give the quality of man- 
 hood, having neither instinct nor reason." 
 
 Says still another: "I am decidedly of the 
 opinion that intemneiance is by far the greatest 
 enemy that boys have to contend with. At vari- 
 ous times I h.ive had six apprentices, and nearly 
 all of them have turned out badly and this in 
 spite of ray best endeavors to have it otherwise. 
 It would be doing the boys a great service if you 
 can in any way make them see what the result 
 will be of such a course. The difficulty is to 
 make them believe there is any danger in their 
 case." 
 
 Says yet. another: "As I look back over the list 
 of my friends and acquaintances of the past thirty 
 years I am pained to recall the number of those 
 who liave died or been badly injured by this curse 
 of mankind. 
 
 "The approaches of the evil are so winsome 
 that the young cannot be too constantly on their 
 guard. Some one has well said that A-le, B-eer, 
 C-ider are the beginning of the drunkard's alpha- 
 bet. It was Christian reasoning which led a gen- 
 
 
 K 
 
TH£ BNUMIBS OF YOUTH. 
 
 19 
 
 tleraan daily dining with a score of business 
 friends, when asked by one of the number why he 
 was the only one of the party who never took 
 even a glass of lager beer, to reply, that he was 
 often tempted to do so. as the flavor was appetiz- 
 ing to him, and an occasional glass might do him 
 no harm, but that he realized somewhat the evil of 
 intemperance and so was willing to deny himself 
 what might be a harmless indulgence that he 
 might help by his example others who were strug- 
 gling to overcome the tendency toward strong 
 and ruinous drink." 
 
 I wish I could give you the many sad and 
 touching incidents which have come to me from 
 these men of affairs who wish to save you from 
 the misery which they have witnessed. 
 
 Says one whom many young men in Boston 
 have occasion to revere and love : '• I know a 
 young man who formed the habit of using the 
 social glass while in college, which habit he has 
 never been able to fully overcome, and though he 
 has fine talents, has many friends, and has held 
 important public office, is occasionally overcome 
 for a few days at a time, to his own sorrow and. 
 

 'i 
 
 m 
 
 !■ i 
 
 20 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 shame, to the grief and mortification of his friends, 
 and to loss of that public confidence which might 
 otherwise entitle him to high position in public 
 life." 
 
 A gentleman who is a leading partner in one of 
 the largest firms of Boston sends you this warn- 
 ing in guise of an "o'er true tale." "I know 
 well a family, called by my wife and myself the 
 model family — so gentle and lovely in disposition 
 and so obedient to parents and respectful to 
 everybody. The eldest son expressed a hope 
 in Christ during Mr. Moody's visit to this city 
 some years since and united with the church of 
 which his father and mother were members. He 
 had never been out into the world ; he was sent 
 to a private school in Co|mecticut, and, at the 
 end of the terra, went with his teacher and mem- 
 bers of his class to Europe. How or when the 
 ui)petite for spirituous liquors got hold of him 
 his father could never learn. Suffice it to say 
 that for years his parents and friends have done 
 everything to break its hold, but, well-meaning 
 as he is, the temptation is too strong for his will 
 and he has almost broken his parents' hearts." 
 
 ■iJi'^h- 
 
 n 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH 
 
 21 
 
 his friends, 
 
 lich might 
 
 iu public 
 
 r in one of 
 this wai-n- 
 
 "I know 
 nyself the 
 iisposition 
 pectful to 
 d a hope 
 • this city 
 church of 
 bers. He 
 
 was sent 
 J, at the 
 md mem- 
 when the 
 i of him 
 it to say 
 five done 
 -meaning 
 r his will 
 wta." 
 
 Let me give you one more incident from these 
 stories of the drink curse which have about them 
 a monotony so sad and sequels so appalling. 
 
 This, too, comes from an honored Boston mer- 
 chant, who, for a number of years was mayor of a 
 neighboring city. 
 
 "Some years ago," he says, "a man came to me 
 to purchasje a house. He had a family, — a wife, 
 son, daughter and father. He bought a place 
 worth 112,000. At that time he was in a very 
 prosperous business and had quite a monopoly of 
 it for this part of the country. He claimed to be 
 and I think he was worth 150,000. He seemed 
 to be correct in all his habits ; his family was an 
 interesting one. He kept his own.horse and car- 
 riage, kept a hunting dog, was something of a 
 sportsman, moved in good society and was gener- 
 ally called a good fellow." And then comes the 
 story of the gradual descent, the old, old story, 
 business declining, house sold, the old father goes 
 out to do chores for a living, the family move 
 down througli all the grades of respectability un- 
 til "at last," says this gentleman, "he came to 
 
UMllillip 
 
 22 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 i i- 
 
 i<) i 
 
 me one day to beg, and said that he, wife, and 
 daughter were living in a garret, sleeping on the 
 floor, getting a little food when they could, and he 
 and his son getting drunk whenever they could 
 beg money enough to get rum. Later his son 
 was sent to Deer Island for drunkenness, and this 
 man applied to me to get him a place on a railroad 
 at the West, promising never to touch liquor 
 again. He kept his pledge for a few months and 
 then his poor wife came to my office and told me 
 that her husband had fallen down stairs and brok- 
 en his skull. Strange to say he recovered from 
 this accident — but while he was in the hospital 
 his father, who had given him all his proper- 
 ty to start him in business, died in the almshouse, 
 and there was not a friend or relation to speak a 
 parting word to the poor old man. But libtle 
 more remains to be told of this sad, sad case," 
 continues the merchant who tells the story. " I 
 saw the man a few days ago. He was partly 
 drunk and he came into ray office under the pre- 
 tence of selling me something, but really to beg, 
 and he owned to me that he got drunk whenever 
 
THK ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 28 
 
 lie had money ; did not believe there was a God 
 or a future, wanted to die, the sooner the better, 
 could n't and would n't keep from drinking." 
 
 Such is the awful story, which might be dupli- 
 cated a thousand times today in every large city, of 
 misery and heartache and anguish and hopeless- 
 ness, of a soul in perdition, even in this world. 
 
 I have spoken of this evil which we are consid- 
 ering under the title — King Alcohol. With 
 good reason do I call him King. Whether we 
 consider his revenues or the number of his sub- 
 jects or the completeness of his authority over his 
 vassals we find that no monarch exercises such a 
 wide and absolute sway as King Alcohol. 
 
 Consider firat his revenues : King Alcohol, 
 with what is paid into his treasury in this one 
 land of ours, the United States of America, could 
 buy out today all the presidents and crowned 
 heads of the old and new world. 
 
 Nine hundred millions of dollars is the yearly 
 liquor bill of the United States alone. An almost 
 inconceivable sum. We used to say that Cotton 
 was King, but the value of our cotton goods is 
 not a quarter part of that sum. The value of 
 
 ^ 
 
KESe 
 
 24 
 
 DANCER SIGNALS. 
 
 woolen goods is only about another quarter of 
 the licjuor bill. Our church property has been 
 accumulating for generations, and yet the value 
 of all church property in the United States, of all 
 denominations, is less than one half that of the 
 liquor men pour down their throats every year. 
 We boast of our public schools and point with 
 pride to our fine buildings and excellent system, 
 but the amount paid for public education in this 
 free republic is only §91,000,000, while the 
 amount paid for rum, whiskey, wine, and beer, is 
 $900,000,000. Our countrymen pay ten times as 
 much to ruin themselves body and soul every 
 year, as they do to educate the minds of their 
 children. We think that the contribution box is 
 passed pretty often, and that a large sum must be 
 raised for the conversion of the heathdn at home 
 und abroad in the hundred thousand churches of 
 our land, but for every dollar that goes into the 
 missionary society two hundred dollars go into 
 the till of the rumseller. The yearly liquor bill 
 of this country has been represented by a black 
 line four inches long, and the amount given for 
 foreign and home missions by all the churches in 
 
 ■iiilHMHiWIIil 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 25 
 
 all this laud, is proportionately represented by &' 
 shadowy, hair-like line, almost too naiTow to 
 measure. 
 
 Says Dr. Dorchester: "The indirect cost being 
 allowed to be as much as the direct cost of liquors, 
 the total liquor bill would be $1,800,000,000, or 
 equal to the aggregate cost of bread, meat, wool- 
 en and cotton goods, boots and shoes, public edu- 
 cation and- also the production of gold and silver. 
 It would pay off all the state, county, and mu- 
 I'icipal debts of the United States and leave an 
 amount equal to the yearly gross receipts of all 
 the railroads in the country. It would pay the 
 national debt in one year." So much for the 
 revenues of King Alcohol. 
 
 Then think of his subjects as well as his enor- 
 mous revenues and we see what a mighty mon- 
 arch we are dealing with. Among the high and 
 the low does he claim his subjects, among the 
 rich and the poor, among the young and the old. 
 He is not dainty in his choice of retainers, this 
 old monarch. He claims sometimes the fair 
 young damsel in the careful home, but he does 
 not despise the haggard bloated beldame in the 
 2 
 
DANGER SIGKALS. 
 
 brothel. He often seeks *he comparatively pure 
 young man and drags him out from under his 
 father's roof, out of the church, out of the Sunday- 
 school class, into his own domain, but he is no 
 less willing to accept the service and tribute of 
 the old sot steeped in filth to his very lips, and 
 he continues him in his service until every power 
 of body and mind and soul is corrupted and 
 debauched, and he totters into an untimely grave 
 almost as vile, almost as much of a fiend as those 
 to whom he goes. 
 
 Not only is King Alcohol the monarch of indi- 
 viduals, but he is ruler of cities and nations as 
 well. If all indications which wise men see are 
 not deceptive he is the niler of the city of Bo» 
 ton. Says Edward Everett Hale: "This city is 
 now governed by what is virtually a corporation 
 of dealers in liquor. There are about twenty- 
 nine hundred of them, rather more thpn less — 
 who have been licensed. If we suppose that each 
 of these men employs at his bar two others, there 
 are about ten thousand in all who have one 
 purpose, one instinct, one common interest. — 
 That interest is to sell as much liquor every 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 87 
 
 day as they can. The community of interest 
 and of motive makes of them, I say, virtually a 
 corporation. They defend each other when they 
 are sued. They pay from a common fund the 
 expenses of a trial. They vote for the same can- 
 didates when the day of election comes, and 
 from the government which elects them they 
 expect and receive certain distinct services." 
 
 Surely, whether we consider his revenues or 
 his subjects or the army of rumsellers who officer 
 these subjects, we see that King Alcohol is a 
 mighty monarch and his sway an awful sway. 
 
 Once more we may well call him KING Alco- 
 hol when we think of the completeness of his do- 
 minion and of his authority over his subjects. 
 
 There have been many tyrants whose rule has 
 been well-nigh absolute, but none who ever possess- 
 ed a tithe of the power of this king. Many a 
 monarch has been able to take the life of his sub- 
 jects and confiscate his property and sequester his 
 estate, but none could cause the heart to beat fast 
 or slow, and the nerves to shake, and the brain to 
 reel at his pleasure, like King Alcohol. Careful 
 experiments have been made in scientific circles 
 
28 
 
 DANGEB SIGNALS. 
 
 and it has been proved beyond a doubt that very 
 small quantities of alcohol, the amount contained 
 in half a table-spoonful of spirits, sensibly and 
 decidedly affects the sense of touch or feeling, the 
 sense of weight or the muscular sense, and the 
 sense of sight or vision, and makes them less 
 trustworthy and serviceable. 
 
 It has been proved by careful, scientific experi- 
 ment, that a wine-glass of liquor will increase the 
 action of the heart so as to cause it to do every 
 twenty-four hoors from an eighth to a quarter 
 more work than is necessary in driving the blo«d 
 throughout the system, thus weakening and wear- 
 ing out the system with every heart-beat. There 
 was never another tyrant that had such absolute 
 power us King Alcohol, even affecting every in- 
 voluntary motion of the heart. 
 
 Many a tyrant, as I have said, has taken the 
 I'fe of his subjects, but never was there a despot 
 who could compel his vassals to lose every moral 
 instinct until they should hate father and mother, 
 aud beat and maul wife and child, and perhaps 
 murder their nearest kinsman, yet this is just 
 what King Alcohol does, so absolute is his con- 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 89 
 
 trol. It is not many years ago since a young 
 man, mad with drink, killed his father and mother 
 and cut out their hearts, which he roasted and ate, 
 and, in fiendish atrocity, this crime hardly falls be- 
 low that which we often read in the daily printp. 
 
 Many an Eastern Despot has confiscated the 
 property of his subjects and robbed them of their 
 crops in harvest, but never was there such a rob- 
 ber chief as King Alcohol who every day filches 
 something out of the pockets and the estate of 
 every man in America. Whenever there is a bad 
 harvest, distress is felt in every poor man's home 
 throughout the civilized world, but if the seed 
 which is cast into the mellow soil should fail to 
 produce one half a crop, the misery which would 
 ensue would not be one hundredth part of that 
 which will be produced by the seed which the 
 rumseller and the distiller and the brewer are 
 sowing. 
 
 There was a petty little ruler down in one 
 of the Central American States who, not long 
 ago, encroached on the territory of his neighbors, 
 and our government thought it worth while to 
 send to the Isthmus twelve hundred troops to 
 
 wmr- 
 
30 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 keep that little t)Tant within reasonable bounds, 
 lest he shoivld injure the property or rights 
 of a few of our citizens, or trespass upon our 
 shadowy claim to a right of way through the 
 Isthmus, and yet, all the while, a monster tyrant, 
 who is trampling upon the rights of ten thousand 
 homes, yea upon the lives and eternal hopes of 
 millions of our fellow citizens, is allowed to go on 
 his murderous way unchecked and even un- 
 questioned by our national government,. 
 
 A short time ago the story came from Birming- 
 ham, as quoted by Mr. Gustaffeon in his book, of 
 three little girls, nine, ten, and twelve years old, 
 who purchased whiskey, got drunk, and almost 
 died in consequence. The same paper contained 
 the account of three dogs falling sick upon the 
 road to the meet for fox hunting, presumably 
 having been poisoned. In this case great indig- 
 nation was expressed by the public and a reward 
 of fifty pounds offered for the arrest of the poison- 
 er. There was no indignation expressed at the 
 poisoning of the girls with liquor and no reward 
 offered for the conviction of the poisoner. That 
 shows how touch more a dog is worth than a 
 
t1 
 
 3 bounds, 
 or rights 
 upon OUT 
 rough the 
 Br tyrant, 
 thousand 
 1 hopes of 
 I to go on 
 even vin- 
 
 Birming- 
 3 book, of 
 years old, 
 id almost 
 contained 
 upon the 
 resumably 
 •eat indig- 
 L a reward 
 he poison- 
 sed at the 
 no reward 
 ler. That 
 bh than a 
 
 
 THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 81 
 
 girl in a Christian land. That shows the sway of 
 King Alcohol. 
 
 Said an English paper some time since : " On 
 Monday morning the magistrates of Liverpool had 
 before them twenty-two boys and girls under the 
 age of seventeen, all of whom had been found 
 beastly drunk in the public streets on Sunday and 
 unable to take care of themselves. Again on a 
 given Sunday 22,000 children were counted in 
 the public-houses and beer-shops of Manchester ; 
 and a clergyman, entering one of the beer- 
 shops at one in the morning, found it full of boys 
 and girls drinking." I am glad to believe that 
 the curse of juvenile drinking has not assumed 
 proportions so tremendous in this land of ours, 
 but I have been told by a captain of police in 
 this city of Boston, that boys ten years old have 
 been brought to his station house too drunk to 
 get to their homes. 
 
 Such, young men, is the horrible, sickening 
 work of this tyrant of the nineteenth century. 
 Would that I could excite in you such a loathing 
 and disgust of him. that you would not only keep 
 yourselves free itom his shackles, but that you 
 
 MMV 
 
DANGEB SIGNALS. 
 
 would also arise in the might of your young man- 
 hood to sweep from our beloved land this curse 
 of the ages. 
 
 If a drop of patriotic blood courses through 
 your veins ; if you ever cry in sincerity, " God 
 bless our native land," may you also cry in the 
 same breath, " down with King Alcohol." 
 
 I wonder if any one will read this chapter who 
 feels that his own manhood is being undermined, 
 that he is one of the serfs, that he is in the chain- 
 gang, that his master is King Alcohol. 
 
 Let me tell any one who feels in thb way of an- 
 other King, a stronger King than King Alcohol, 
 a King with more subjects and larger revenues 
 and mightier power. I know not how you can 
 escape from King Alcohol except by transferring 
 your allegiance to this King. Your will is weak, 
 home influences are unavailing, even a mother's 
 prayers and sobs you forget, your pledge will be 
 broken, the antidote that you take will not quench 
 your thirat. This King will be by your side in 
 ever trying hour of temptation. He will break 
 your shackles. He will rescue you from the 
 clutches of the enemy, He will never leave you 
 nor forsake you. His name is Jesus Christ. 
 

 CHAPTER ni. 
 THE hbnchme;n of kino alcohol. 
 
 Kino ALConoL, too Wise to Com b for ms VionMS Him- 
 self, Sends his Better Tx>okino Henohmrn. Per- 
 sonal Experience of Successfui^ Business Mes. 
 Bad Companions. Few Boys Enter the Rum 
 Shops for the First Time Alone. The Boston 
 Boys' Solemn Compact. Weak Will— the Trai- 
 tor. Idleness. Wtty Some of Boston's Business 
 Men are Rich. Busyness that is not Business. 
 Hope for All. 
 
 While speaking to you, in the last chapter, cor- 
 oerning the ravages of King Alcohol, I was fully 
 aware that he often did not come himself to claim 
 his victims, but usually sent in the first place cer- 
 tain retainers Who are more winning and attract- 
 ive to look upon than himself. In fact should 
 he come himself and claim the allegiance of any 
 young man, his foul and bloated countenance, 
 his fetid breath, his reeling gait, his rags and 
 wounds, would frighten away the most reckless. 
 He knows too much for this, does this astute old 
 2* 88 . 
 
 I 
 
 mms^d 
 
84 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 enemy of the race, and so he has a score of 
 menials, better looking and better dressed than 
 himself, ready to do his bidding, and bring the 
 victim under his swa^-. My many correspondents 
 have recognized this truth and they have pointed 
 out to me for your s&kes some of these pimps 
 and procurers of the great enemy, some of those 
 who fetch and carry for King Alcohol. 
 
 I have chosen to call them the Henchmen of 
 King Alcohol. A henchman, according to the 
 original derivation of the word, is one who follows 
 at the haunch of the king or noble; in other 
 words, one who is always hovering near his lord, 
 ready to do his bidding. That is exactly the po- 
 sition of some of these enemies of yours of which 
 I shall speak in this chapter. 
 
 These henchmen do not lurk in the drinking 
 saloon alone. They go out upon the street, they 
 button-hole a .young man on his way home from 
 the prayer-meeting, they knuckle down with the 
 boy who is playing marbles "for keeps," they 
 swarm in dull times when apprentices are out of 
 work, they are particularly active at the noon 
 hour, and during the long evening when the day's 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 86 
 
 I 
 
 work is over, they always rida in the smoking car, 
 they are fondof the innuendo and the low jest and 
 the smutty story. When a young man begins to 
 keep company with them, they rarely leave him 
 until they have carriqd him over, body and soul, 
 into the camp of King Alcohol. 
 
 Several of the successful men of Boston have 
 told me the story of their early lives, and I notice 
 that in eveiy case these men have not only avoided 
 the Prince of Evil who hides in the demijohn and 
 the beer-keg, but have given to all his myrmidons 
 a wide berth. Let me tell you the story of two or 
 three of these successful lives. One man, who is 
 known throughout the whole city for his widely- 
 bestowed and judicious benevolence, says: "I 
 came to Boston a poor boy more than fifty years 
 ago. I came without money, but with that great- 
 est of earthly blessings, a praying mother at home. 
 I came with the full determination that, if God 
 spared my li^e, I would be a successful man. 
 Every young man should begin with this determi- 
 nation. Then, having chosen some trade or occu- 
 pation, stick to it, keeping the old maxim in 
 mind, 'honor and shame from no condition rise.'" 
 
 1 .1. 1 IJM 
 
DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 That determination cherished and held to and 
 realized at last left no room in that man's life for 
 any of the henchmen of King Alcohol. 
 
 Another one writes me : "I began business a 
 poor boy. My mother died when I was an infant. 
 My father was a clergyman, poor in this world's 
 goods, and could give his boys no financial help. 
 As a matter of fact I began business at the ago of 
 fifteen with a capital of five dollars. My fir.'t 
 factory was a one story building, fifteen feet by 
 twelve feet. My first product was a carpet bag 
 full of the articles I made, which I sold from door 
 to door. I struggled with poverty and many 
 obstacles. I worked half the night many a night, 
 and at two or three o'clock in the morning I 
 crawled up into the little attic over my little 
 shop, hardly large enough for a dog to sleep in, 
 and after an hour or two of sleep, got up and went 
 at it again. My factory has grown to cover three 
 acres; my product has grown from a carpetbag 
 full to six tons a day, and the goo<te of my manu- 
 facture are now sold in every civilized country. 
 I never used tobacco, cider, or beer. I never 
 gambled or read low story papers or dime novels. 
 
L 
 
 w 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 87 
 
 but supplemented my meager educational advan- 
 tages with good reading. 
 
 "When a young man I canvassed twenty-two 
 states in the Union, selling my goods. I always 
 refrained from business on Sunday, and went to 
 church wherever Sunday overtook me, and had 
 I a voice that would drown Niagara I would say 
 to every young man, 'See to it that you lay the 
 foundation of your character well. Toucli not, 
 taste not, beer, cider, anything that contains 
 alcohol.' " 
 
 Still another gentleman, who is honored by all 
 who know him, tells me that he came to Boston 
 from the country forty years ago and applied for 
 work. 
 
 "What can you do?" said the man to whom he 
 applied. " I can work," replied the boy, " and am 
 willing to learn." He went to work in the hum- 
 blest place, he was contented to step first on the 
 lowest rung of the ladder. In seven years he was 
 admitted as equal partner in the concern; later 
 still he bought out his old employer and now, 
 after forty years, still does business in the old 
 
88 
 
 DAlTOBIt SIGNALS. 
 
 Store, where twoscore years ago he went to work 
 as errand boy. 
 
 I mention these cases for the encouragement of 
 every struggling, disheartened young man who 
 reads this book. It is no ephemeral success which 
 these men have achieved. It is no Grant and Ward 
 prosperity, where one goes up like a rocket and 
 comes down like a stick. Much that goes by the 
 name of success is not worthy of the name. Suc- 
 cess is not money getting. The rich man may be 
 a pitiful failure. The poor man may be a grand 
 success. It is possible to buy gold too dear and 
 political honor too dear. True success is the 
 attainment of a worthy ideal without the least 
 sacrifice of honor or manliness. 
 
 Thai is what these men to whose lives I have 
 referred have gained and I think I can tell you in 
 a single sentence the secret of their success. 
 They sedulously shunned not only King Alcohol 
 but all his henchmen. 
 
 I have space to mention but three of these 
 henchmen but from looking at these three you 
 can know the whole tribe, for they aU have a 
 
M^.^^::^,.-^.^,. 
 
 11 
 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 80 
 
 family resemblance. These three shall be Bad 
 Companions, A Weak Will, and Idleness. I men- 
 tion these three out of the host of myrmidons 
 whom Alcohol has at his beck and call because 
 they are the three upon whom my correspondents 
 most insist. 
 
 I venture to say that not one boy in five hun- 
 dred ever went into a rum shop eUone for the first 
 time. He went first because he was asked to go ; 
 because some companion took him by the arm 
 and said " Let us see what is going on in there." 
 Oh I if he could only know that that bad com- 
 panion came to him directly from the devil, if he 
 could see the grinning face of ApoUyon leering 
 at him over that companion's shoulder, how he 
 would start back in fright and dread I 
 
 I know of young men who are going to the bad 
 as fast as time can carry them, and I know the 
 cause of their downward course, — it is some evil 
 companion, whom they have not moral courage to 
 break away from. They walk with hJm to school 
 or business, they sit with him in church, they 
 turn to him for his sneer or smile when the most 
 solemn truths are being urged upon them. The 
 
 I tMH in 
 
V.I 
 
 9|i 
 
 It: 
 
 40 
 
 DANOEB SIGNALS. 
 
 tears of mother, the warnings of father, the coun- 
 sel of pastor, are of no avail because of this evil 
 companion. 
 
 In sorrow of heart I say that there are some 
 young people of my acquaintance whom I have 
 given up as far as any direct appeal to their con- 
 science goes, because I see that they are not will- 
 ing to break with their bad companions. It is 
 utterly useless. I can only pray and watch for 
 the time when that evil genius is not by their 
 side. No more surely does the watchful bird of 
 the air swoon down from its perch to capture the 
 seed which the husbandman has just dropped, 
 than does this bird of evil omicn swoop- upon the 
 good seed of the word which is dropped in their 
 heart. The warnings which the business men of 
 Boston send you on this point are many and 
 specific. 
 
 One of them whose name would carry with it 
 much weight, did I feel at liberty to give it, says: 
 " When I look back upon my own narrow escape 
 from evils of which I can hardly conceive the end, 
 it brings tears to my eyes. I think the turning- 
 point was my going to California at the age of 
 
 m^ 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 41 
 
 the coun- 
 this evil 
 
 are some 
 )m I have 
 their con- 
 not will- 
 ns. It is 
 watch for 
 t by their 
 ul bird of 
 ipture the 
 dropped, 
 - upon the 
 )d in their 
 sss men of 
 many and 
 
 pry with it 
 'e it, says: 
 ow escape 
 ^e the endi 
 10 turning- 
 the age of 
 
 nineteen and by that means breaking off the ac- 
 quaintances I had formed. I was away so long 
 that when I returned they had all scattered. I 
 did not think at the time I was very bad, but 
 still from my present standpoint it looks bad 
 enough. I can look around me here in Boston 
 and see many a man who is a perfect failure 
 today, who had the brightest prospects when 
 young, and bad company was the first step down- 
 ward." 
 
 Young man, if you feel that you have not the 
 moral stamina to jreak with the companions who 
 are dragging you down, if you feel that there is 
 no other way to throw off this social chain, every 
 link of which is a fetter for your soul, then I beg 
 you to leave everything and flee for your life, 
 though it be to California, or Australia, or Alaska, 
 or Patagonia, though you leave father and mother 
 and home and church behind you, flee as you 
 would flee from tl'e pestilence. 
 
 Better bury yourself forever in some foreign 
 land and never see your native city again, if the 
 influences at home are too strong for you to resist, 
 than bring heartache and sorrow to every one who 
 
42 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 f- 
 
 loves you by going down to death and ruin, side 
 by side with some rake whom you have allowed 
 to link arms with you, and with whom you feel 
 you must keep step. This is a heroic remedy 
 that I am proposing I know, and I hope that it is 
 not necessary in most cases, but I am convinced 
 that some wills are so weakened, that some well- 
 meaning young men are so under the dominion of 
 evil companions that their only safety lies in a 
 new set of surroundings and companions. Christ 
 our Lord proposed heroic measures when milder 
 ones should fail. " If thy hand or thy foot offend 
 thee, [or cause thee to stumble,] cut them off 
 and cast them from thee ; it is better for thee to 
 enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having 
 two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting 
 fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out 
 and cast it from thee, it is better for thee to enter 
 into life with one eye rather than having two eyes 
 to be cast into hell fire." If your companion, 
 though he be your best friend, cause you to stum- 
 ble, if he leads you into bad ways, if he makes 
 you careless and thoughtless and indifferent of 
 the good and complacent of the evil, cast him off, 
 
 I 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 43 
 
 'uin, side 
 allowed 
 you feel 
 I remedy 
 that it is 
 onvinced 
 me well- 
 ninioa of 
 lies in a 
 Christ 
 in milder 
 tot offend 
 them off 
 3r thee to 
 in having 
 krerlasting 
 ick it out 
 e to enter 
 ; two eyes 
 )mpanion, 
 1 to stum- 
 he makes 
 fferent of 
 }t him off. 
 
 flee from him as Joseph fled out of the way of 
 temptation, though you leave the very garment 
 by which he seeks to hold you in the clutches of 
 the tempter. 
 
 But there is another side to this question of 
 companionship. If there are evil companions 
 whose influence is tremendous in dragging down, 
 there are also good companions wliose influence is 
 no less powerful in building up. Place yourself 
 among them. "Get in" with this "set." They 
 are not exclusive. Their circle will widen. If 
 you have the same aims and motives they will 
 gladly receive you. 
 
 Let me tell you of a compact made by four 
 Boston young men nearly forty years ago, when 
 temperance pledges were by no means as common 
 as today, for it shows that the power of good com- 
 panionship and of union in a good cause, is no 
 less potent than union in evil. This pledge, drawn 
 up by these four young men, reads as follows: 
 "Believing that the use of intoxicating liquor, 
 as a beverage, is both needless, hurtful, and injuria 
 ous to the human system, that it tends to demoral- 
 ize the social, civil, and religious interests of all; 
 
 mM 
 
44 
 
 DANOEn SIGNALS. 
 
 believing that the use of profane language is a 
 low and vulgar habit, betraying ignorance, and 
 that no one who continues its use will respect 
 himself or bo respected by others; and believ- 
 ing that the use of tobacco, whether chewed or 
 smoked, is injurious and hurtful ; We do hereby 
 declare our fixed and unalterable determination 
 to abstain forever from their use and to rest 
 strictly on the principles of total abstinence, and 
 that we will, to the best of our endeavors, try to 
 have these principles adopted by all, and that we 
 will live firmly, so that all may know that these 
 principles tend to happiness, peace, and comfort, 
 making good citizens, faithful, honest men." 
 The pledge then goes on to denounce slavery and 
 war, particularly the Mexican war which was 
 then in progress. It adopts the Bible as the rule 
 of conduct for the signers, and thus this manly 
 paper ended : " And, finally, believing that God 
 created man for happiness here and hereafter 
 and made woman to be his companion, and haa 
 declared that by the sweat of his brow shall man 
 earn his daily bread, therefore we have settled 
 down on this firm resolution: Honest industry 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 45 
 
 and virtuous marriage. To tlie full and faithful 
 performance of all which, we pledge our most 
 sacred honor." 
 
 As three of these noble young men have gone 
 over to the majority and the other lives in another 
 city, I think I need not hesitate to tell you that 
 the pledge ended thus : " Given under our hands 
 and seals, this the 16th day of January A. D. 1848. 
 Lewis Smith, Benjamin K. Ames, Thomas C. 
 SiMONDs, Eliphalet Packaed." 
 
 There we see the power and possibility of a 
 union and companionship that builds up character 
 and insures a noble life. 
 
 But th'-Te henchmen of King Alcohol do not all 
 direct their attacks from the outside. They have 
 a faculty of assaulting the citadel of Mansoul 
 from within, and one of the retainers who often 
 does his bidding is the very porter of the citadel, 
 the doorkeeper of the castle. He is called 
 Weak Will. When Satan corrupts even the 
 guards within the city, little hope is there indeed 
 of resistance to the siege which King Alcohol lays 
 to the character.'" This recreant, traitorous door- 
 keeper plays into the hands of the bad companions 
 
r 
 
 
 46 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 of whom I have just spoken, and opens the gates 
 of the soul. If it were not for this traitor within, 
 the evil influences from without could do little 
 harm. How many wretched homes would be 
 made happy if only this doorkeeper. Weak 
 Will, could be removed, and a stalwart, uncon- 
 querable, resolute determination could be put in 
 his place. 
 
 One gentleman tells me of a young man who 
 came to him the other day confessing that for 
 four years he had averaged a quart of whiskey a 
 day. He had been compelled to sell ( *. what 
 little business he had left and has g 'wa}-, 
 leaving wife and three children without support, 
 when he could have a fine business. He says, 
 "Ae cannot get along without hia whiakey." Ah, 
 poor Weak Will, so often has it played the traitor, 
 that King Alcohol with all his train of evil spirits 
 has come and taken full possession. 
 
 Here is what another says, who is honored in 
 many circles of Boston : 
 
 " Where is the young man when he deliberately 
 entertains the thought that he has a right to 
 indulge in sin? Has he not already prostituted 
 
THE BKBMIBS OF YOUTH. 
 
 47 
 
 his soul to evil? Has not the clean-cut line 
 between good and evil become to him so befogged 
 and indistinct that he is sure to hesitate in the 
 hour of temptation ? 
 
 " There is a spot where only a positive ' no ' is 
 safety. If there be inability to say 'no' to evil, the 
 poor, weakened, undecided soul is open to the 
 attacks of the Wicked One on every side. 
 
 " Tell the young man that the ' I '11 take the 
 risk,' * I don't care,' ' I 'm not afraid to mingle 
 in companionship with the wicked,' is going over 
 the picket line into the ene y's quarters. Tell 
 him the consequence will bo a divided, careless, 
 reckless, impoverished soul, wasted in frivolity, 
 dwarfed in ignorance, made miserable by skepti- 
 cism, blackened by infidelity, abandoned to 
 trample upon God 's law and the Sabbath ; and, 
 soon, loving evil and hating good, his will 
 become a sin-sold soul." 
 
 The third, and last henchman of King Alcohol 
 which I shall mention, is Idleness, and concerning 
 the evil which he has wrought, I have a mass of 
 testimony, all of which I cannot begin to give 
 you. A very prominent railroad man, the presL- 
 
 I i 
 
DANQEB SIGNALS. 
 
 dent of one of our largest roads, writes me : " If 
 I were to addi-ess young men, I should especially 
 urge upon them the need of forming industrious 
 habits ; there was never a truer saying than that 
 ' Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to 
 do.' One great difficulty," he continues, "which 
 stands in the way of the success of many men, 
 as it seems to me, is the desire to get along 
 without work, to obtain easy positions wliere they 
 can dress well and have a plenty of leisure. All 
 through my life I have seen man after man 
 wrecked on these shoals. Having no fixed habits 
 of industry they drift off and fall into the pits 
 always open for them." 
 
 Another man wlio has done as much as any 
 other for the boys of Boston, writes : " If every 
 young man could only see the importance of some 
 definite aim in life worth living for ! The multi- 
 tudes are drifting. There la nothing so hard to 
 steer as a ship in a calm." 
 
 Says another: "In my judgment the wise 
 thing to be done is to keep our boys from 
 idleness ; have them employed in some business 
 even a it is not profitable in a pecuniary way." 
 
 i: \ 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 48 
 
 s me : " If 
 . especially 
 industrious 
 
 than that 
 e hands to 
 les, "which 
 many men, 
 
 get along 
 where they 
 isure. All 
 after man 
 ixed habits 
 to the pits 
 
 ich as any 
 "If every 
 ICO of some 
 The inulti- 
 so hard to 
 
 t the wise 
 boys from 
 le business 
 :y way." 
 
 Another writes : " In my view of the matter, 
 the seeds of evil are oftenest sown early in life. 
 In the absence of employment, boys are brought 
 into temptation by staying away from their 
 homes, during times of idleness or relaxation, and 
 perhaps frequently in the evening with doubtful 
 companions, after the duties of the day are over. 
 And it is during these evening hours that the 
 tempter takes his time to scatter the seeds that so 
 frequently bring forth the fruit of death." 
 
 Here I record the wise words of still another of 
 your friends: "If forty-eight years of life teach 
 me anything they most certainly reveal to me 
 that there is not an evil known to our j-oung 
 people so dangerous and seductive as idleness. 
 In my opinion it is the parent vice of all others. 
 We often speak of intemperance as though it was 
 the cause of all, or nearly all, vice and misery. 
 Although a terrible curse, I think upon careful 
 investigation, we shall find thai nine cases in 
 every ten can be traced to idleness. I happen to 
 know just how several of our most honored men 
 of Boston were brought up, and taught to work; 
 their fathers being farmers in my native town. 
 8 
 
 m 
 
60 
 
 DANOEB SIGNALS. 
 
 One has twice occupied the Mayor's chair, and 
 declined the third nomination, to the regret of 
 our first business men, and he could have been 
 our Governor had he not declined the nomination. 
 I will also mention the president of one of our 
 neighboring colleges, whom I very often met on 
 my four-mile walk to my work, with his farm 
 tools in his hand, all ready for as hard a day's 
 work as any. Take the ciise of that wonderful 
 man, Hon. Oakeii Ames. When a mere boy ho 
 loaded his two-horse team with shovels and was 
 on his way at one o'clock in the morning to sell 
 in Boston, twenty miles distant. Huge snow- 
 drifts could not stop this lad then, and later on 
 when our Government wished to build the Union 
 Pacific Railroad, and was unabl-j to find a man or 
 corporation to undertake it, this same plucky lad 
 took the contract, and started with his load of 
 shovels and built the road to the astonishment of 
 the whole world. Did these men waste their 
 time and opportunities in rum shops, low theaters, 
 gambling dens, low ball-rooms, or in reading 
 trashy novels ? " 
 
 But there is a kind of busyness which is not 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 61 
 
 business, a kind of occupation which is very near 
 akin to idleness. Activity is not necessarily 
 work; the hurrying, bustling, stirring, impatient 
 man may be the veriest idler. 
 
 Really to escape this henchman. Idleness, one 
 must have a high purpose, a noble endeavor, a 
 useful end in view. One niaj'^ do many little 
 things and petty things and do them all scrupu- 
 lously and carefully, but one who really succeeds 
 can have no petty aims. Mr. Cross says in the 
 biography of his wife, George Eliot, that she had 
 a wonderful " genius for taking pains." She did 
 ten thousand little things well, but every one of 
 them tended toward a great result. One of my 
 correspondents has sent me the following clipping, 
 which appeared first, J think, in the Wide Awake. 
 "Two men stood at the same table in a large 
 factory in Philadelphia, working at the same 
 trade. Having an hour for their nooning every 
 day, each undertook to use it in accomplishing a 
 definite purpose ; each persevered for about the 
 same number of months, and each won success at 
 last. One of these two mechanics used his daily 
 leisure hour in working out an invention. When 
 
k:^ 
 
 62 
 
 DANOEB SIGNALS. 
 
 it was complete he changed his workman's apron 
 for a broad-cloth suit, and moved out of a tene- 
 ment house into a brown stone mansion. The 
 other man— -what did he do ? Well, he spent an 
 hour each day, during most of a year, in the very 
 difficult undertaking of teaching a little dog to 
 stand on his hind feet and dance a jig, while he 
 played the tune. At last accounts he was work- 
 ing ten hours a day at the same trade and at his 
 old wages, and finding fault with the fate that 
 made his fellow workman rich while leaving him 
 poor. Leisure minutas may bring golden grain 
 to mind as well as purse, if one harvests wheat 
 instead of chaff." 
 
 I do not intend by any means to imply that I 
 have told you all the henchmen of King Alcohol. 
 The old enemy has ten thousand servants to do 
 his bidding ; in fact almost any good thing can 
 be perverted until it leads one downward and 
 not upwur 1. One of my correspondents well 
 illustrates this truth when he says : " Accom- 
 plishments and recreations, harmless in them- 
 selves, may under some circumstances lead to 
 ruin. I remember that at school we had an 
 
 11*1 
 
THE ENI»nES OF YOUTH. 
 
 68 
 
 exercise in reading entitled ' the dangers of being 
 a good singer ' which greatly impressed me, and 
 which told the story of a youth whose society was 
 BO much sought in places of conviviality, because 
 of his ability to sing a good song, that in the end, 
 he became a frequenter of the lowest resorts, and 
 obtained a miserable livelihood by singing nightly 
 in a tavern." 
 
 It is a delightful thing to be a good singer, a 
 God given talent to be prized and cultivated ; it 
 is worth much to be a good conversationalist, to 
 have a genial disposition, a cordial manner, but 
 we must allow God to have control of them all, 
 OS ministering spirits to lead us upward, and not 
 let the Devil use them, as his henchmen, to drag 
 us down. 
 
 And now I would close this chapter also with a 
 word of encouragement to those who are tempted 
 and tried. Let me say to every one of you, 
 young friends, that your case is not hopeless. 
 However sorely you may feel the terrible pressure 
 of bad companionship, however weak your wills 
 may be, however the hard times have enforced 
 idleness upon you, until you feel unable to do any 
 
 JU^ 
 
— y— MB^itM'SE ,1,1"; 
 
 54 
 
 DAKOEB SIGNALS. 
 
 useful work in the world, though you may have 
 been dragged by these henchmen into the very 
 clutches of King Alcohol, your case is not hope- 
 less, Christ has more servants than King Alcohol. 
 Young men who have been walking arm in arm 
 with these henchmen for years have broken loose. 
 Men who have been picked out of the gutter have 
 risen to the pinnacle of an honorable life. There is 
 only one way; all mere moral reform, without 
 religion, is uncertain. It is of little use to try to 
 break with the henchmen of Alcohol unless you 
 take up with the servants of Christ ; but if you 
 will do this there is eternal hope for you, for one 
 who was never known to lie has said, " My grace 
 is sufficient for thee." 
 
lave 
 rerj 
 i>pe- 
 liol. 
 arm 
 ose. 
 lave 
 re is 
 10 ut 
 T to 
 
 you 
 you 
 one 
 race 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DIRT IN INK. 
 Wht Mant Bcsinbss Men Place Bad Litekatubb 
 
 FiBST AHOXO THE ENEMIES OF TOCTH. THB THEE 
 
 WITH TOE Rotten Hbabt. The Insidioubnbss of 
 THIS Evil. The Gtpsy Dot's Venoeance. Indict- 
 ment OF THE Bad Book. It Givss a Stbainbd, 
 Unnatitbal ""iew of Life. It Globifibs Evil. 
 It Leaves no Room fob the GIood. The Jellt- 
 Bao Readeb. The Cobbcft Litbbatube of 
 Fbanoe. Tbeb-Fboq Minds. What the Law can 
 Do. 
 
 I HAVE entitled this chapter *' Dirt in Ink," for 
 I know of no more expressive or appropriate 
 words to express the exact idea I have iu mind 
 than these, which not long ago stood at the head 
 of an editorial in one of our Boston dailies. I am 
 not writing of literature, though it sometimes is 
 falsely dignified by that name. I am not writing 
 of anything that is worthy the name of book or 
 magazine or newspaper, though these respectable 
 words must often be thus disgraced, but I am 
 
 66 
 
iii«"'^^^3>' 
 
 66 
 
 DANGER SIOKALS. 
 
 writing of what is only fit to be called dirt, dirt 
 in printer's ink, dirt spread over white paper, dirt 
 done up in packets, the shape of a book or pam- 
 phlet, for this and nothing less and nothing better 
 is all the vile reading of which I would warn 
 my young friends. It ia somewhat remarkable, 
 though I cannot say that I am surprised at it, to 
 find many of my correspondents among the busi- 
 ness men placing bad literature in the very fore- 
 front of the evils which assail the youth of today. 
 I asked some of them to number with the figures 
 1, 2, 8, 4, etc., the evils which in their opinion 
 were the most flagrant and seductive, and very 
 many of them wrote at the head, before intemper- 
 ance, before licentiousness, before gambling, the 
 words " Bad Literature." Surely this is not to -be 
 wondered at when we remember that the brothel 
 in the book is usually seen before the real brothel, 
 that the bar-room of the flash story-paper is 
 known before the bar-room of wood and glass and 
 decanters and beer-fountains. If we look for 
 priority of influence we must usually seek for it 
 in the gambling den of the printed page, and not 
 in the gambling den where the rattle of the dice 
 

 
 
 t 
 
 
 THE BNEMIES OF YOUTH. 57 
 
 lirt 
 
 is heard. The poison is first poured into the 
 
 lirt 
 
 stream out of the bad book. 
 
 nn- 
 
 The in»idiou»ne»a of this evil is one of its most 
 
 ter 
 
 dangerous features. If our boys come home 
 
 wn 
 
 , with the taint of liquor in their breath we know 
 
 )le, 
 
 it ; if we hear their latch key stealthily opening 
 
 to 
 
 the door at one in the morning, we are pretty 
 
 isi- 
 
 sure that they have not been at a prayer-meeting 
 
 re- 
 
 all the evening, and we can fight and pray against 
 
 *y- 
 
 the evils that are threatening them ; but we do not 
 
 res 
 
 know when their eyes first fall upon the salacious 
 
 on 
 
 pictures in the shop-window on their way to 
 
 'ry 
 
 school; we do not know when some ragged 
 
 er- 
 
 urchin thrusts a bad paper into their hands aa 
 
 he 
 
 they go to the grocer's, we do not know how they 
 
 -be 
 
 treasure it up and feast upon it in secret, untu 
 
 lel ' 
 
 their very life-blood begins to run in a tainted ' 
 
 el. 
 
 stream. We do not know when these things are 
 
 is 
 
 done, but we know that they are done, and this 
 
 ad 
 
 1 fact is enough to cause us, whether we are parents 
 
 or 
 
 or young people, to give very earnest heed to 
 
 it 
 
 these things. 
 
 ot 
 
 Says one very prominent merchant of our city: 
 
 ce 
 
 *' Bad Literature is undoubtedly as rank a poison 
 
 • 
 
 8* 
 
68 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 to the young mind, as rum is to the body, and 
 surely paves the way to many other terrible evils." 
 Another no less widely known, who puts this 
 evil first, says : " Impure literature enfeebles the 
 mind and heart as deadly malaria does the body." 
 Still another of my correspondents speaks of a 
 kindred evil which often flows from bad reading 
 and ought to be coupled with it. He says: 
 " While I have marked bad literature as No. 1 on 
 the list you give, I think that impure conversa- 
 tion is another great evil, if not equally perni- 
 cious in its effects. The tendency of the low jest 
 and filthy story cannot be other than to contami- 
 nate the mind." The filthy story which goes 
 from mouth to mouth usually starts from the 
 filthy book. Still another writes me as follows : 
 "My topic is vile literature. If there is one 
 method used by the satanic powers more effective 
 than another in the preparation of victims for 
 sorrow and disgrace in this life and the world to 
 come it is the casting into the mellow soil of youth- 
 ful minds of either sex the damnable imaginings 
 of lust which are the seeds of an inevitable harvest 
 embracing every sin in that fearful list in the 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOTTTH. 
 
 09 
 
 fifth chapter of Galatians. Now and then one 
 who has been contaminated may, by the grace of 
 God, be snatched as a brand from the burning, 
 but even then an impression made upon the 
 youthful mind by an obscene picture or a seduc- 
 tive story of lust and crime is never effaced. The 
 wretched scar in the soul remains; it may be 
 overgi'own but never eradicated. I know a man 
 today who would gladly sacrifice a great deal of 
 what the world most prizes, if he could blot from 
 his memory the impressions made in youth by one 
 obscene book. 
 
 " Before the same gale which a few years ago 
 brought down the noble old elm upon the com- 
 mon, a beautiful and stately maple succumbed, 
 upon the lawn of a gentleman in Brookline. 
 Upon examination a decayed spot was found at 
 the point where the tree was broken off. The 
 gentleman recollected, after some time, that many 
 years before, when a boy, he had hacked a place 
 in the trunk with an axe, when angered at some 
 command of his father. After many years the 
 bark grew over the place and tire wound, to all 
 appearances, had completely healed and the tree 
 
iil 
 
 DANOER SIGNALS. 
 
 was apparently as sound as any of its companions 
 upon the lawn. But the winds blew and the 
 storm beat upon it and it fell — because it had a 
 rotten spot at the heart, though hidden from the 
 eyes of men. Ah I how little we know the cause 
 of the sudden and unexpected fall of men and 
 women, who are apparently fair and sound 
 outside. If we could but examine into the inner 
 being of such we should, I think, many times find 
 just such concealed wound, made doubtless away 
 back in youthful dnys by some vile story or print, 
 which could never be completely healed, and that 
 WHS the weak spot which caused so lamentable a 
 Ml. 
 
 *' You cannot swin^ too vigorously this danger 
 signal before your boys and girls," c >ntiuues this 
 /gentleman. "If they wouia be safe and happy, 
 and enjo) .yn^ thoughts in after years as well, 
 implore theni to fnve n wide berth to the cheap, 
 f ; 'hy literature of the day." 
 
 But that I may not be thought to speak 
 tmtirely at random in this matter or to rely 
 wholly upon the representations of others, let me 
 tell you that I have made this a matter of careful 
 
 k 
 
 it' 
 
 i!ir 
 
 nil 
 
 J^m— 
 
^ 
 
 THE EKEMies OP YOUTH. 
 
 ei 
 
 lions 
 tlie 
 ad a 
 the 
 juse 
 and 
 und 
 iner 
 find 
 way 
 rlnt, 
 that 
 le a 
 
 iger 
 this 
 
 ?py. 
 
 rell, 
 eap, 
 
 eak 
 
 rely 
 
 me 
 
 eful 
 
 
 
 study for a number of ye.irs past, and I am con- 
 vinced that the strongest words of my corre- 
 spondents are none too strong. I have seen our 
 shop windows filled and our shop counters covered 
 with this wretched stuff. I have seen our bovs 
 and girls eagerly gloating over the pictures dis- 
 played in these windows, on their way to school 
 and home again. I have seen these papers and 
 the advertisements of them thrust into their' very 
 faces on the street corner. Let me give you an 
 outline of one of these books. This one, which 
 is the only one I have read, is called " The Gypsy 
 Boy's Vengeance." It is the only one I have 
 read through, but, from a hasty glance at many of 
 them, I am convinced that it does not go beyond 
 the average in blood-curdling villainy. 
 
 In the first chapter of the " Gypsy Boy's Ven- 
 geance" a robber. Cartouche by name, runs off 
 with the heroine of the story, a beautiful girl of 
 high family, and the robber strikes a subordinate 
 actor in the story to the floor with his clenched 
 fist. In the second chapter a wild pursuit of the 
 robber, who escapes in a hack, results in the 
 shooting of the hackman and the arrest of the 
 
tmmm 
 
 ""r^^mammmmmmm 
 
 W 
 
 62 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 robber. The third chapter is taken up with the 
 wails of a noble lady and with her efforts to 
 induce a young gypsy boy to kill and thus put 
 out of the way a witness against her virtue. In 
 the fourth chapter the robber, by the aid of his 
 wife, escapes from prison, and, in his exit, by way 
 of diversion, kills a man who is in the passage. 
 In the fifth a hand to hand fight betwepn the two 
 principal characters is rehearsed. In the sixth the 
 robber kiLj the warden of the prison and three 
 guards. In the eighth the robber discards liis 
 wife who had saved his life many times, and takes 
 up with a new attachment, in the meantime 
 nearly killing the first. 
 
 In the tenth" seven or eight policcrucn are con- 
 veniently disposed of, and as many more robbers 
 have their throats cut. Evidently, as the plot 
 thickens, the dramatis personcB are becoming too 
 numerous and so the author takes the shortest 
 way to get rid of them and freely uses the knife 
 and pistol upon bis heroes. In this same chapter, 
 besides murdering sixteen men and throwing one 
 old woman into the river, we are treated to two 
 fierce fights, in both of which the robber is vic- 
 
 ^IM 
 
MWHHMMKffiSSC^ 
 
 THE BNEMIBE OF YOUTH. 
 
 63 
 
 ■ 
 
 torious. In the eleventh chapter we enter a 
 robber's cave, rich with treasure, and are con- 
 ducted by a secret passage into the heart of Paris. 
 In the twelfth the old woman who was thiown 
 into the water again comes upon the stage, and is 
 this time killed out and (tut, a haughty Spaniard 
 is also run through with a sword, the heroine is 
 shot through the heart, and the robber has a 
 bullet neatly lodged in his back. In the fifteenth 
 and last chapter the robber is tortured and then 
 killed by being broken on the wheel, the haughty 
 Spaniard is killed off in battle, and, there being 
 nobody left to kill, (with ono or two unimportant 
 exceptions,) the story naturally comes to an end. 
 Thus, in this short storj', there are two cases of 
 adultery, one elopement, nine bloody fights, and 
 twenty-eight murders. 
 
 This is a sample, and a fair sample, of what 
 our boys and .girls have thrust into their hands 
 from the time they are able to spell out their 
 a, b, abs. Such a tale is worse than the raw-head 
 and bloody-bones stories at which we so often 
 laugh, and of which I shall speak in another 
 

 ri 
 
 64 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 chapter. Much of it is absolutely filthy and 
 unreportable. Let us not say that it is advertis- 
 ing this stuff to call attention to it or to give an 
 outline cf one of these stories. It is impossible to 
 advertise it more extensively than it is advertised 
 at present. If you do r.ot know of it, you, 
 brethren and father, you, grave and reverend 
 seigniors, are the only ones who do not know of 
 it. If you are ignorant, your boys and girls are 
 not. They have the advertisements of these 
 papers and books thrust into their hands as they 
 come out of school, they find them on the door- 
 steps of your houses as they come home from play, 
 they pick up the flyers, telling them about these 
 stories, borne about everywhere on the wings of 
 the wind, their eyes are attracted at a dozen shop 
 windows by pictures which have a horrible fasci- 
 nation and which often border on the indecent if 
 they are not wholly vile and corrupting. With 
 these odds against them, the children of today are 
 beginning the battle of life. The Devil is attack- 
 ing the citadel of their souls in its weakest part, 
 and, by appealing to their imagination and their 
 
 
 i 
 
 ] 
 \ ' 
 
 
 
 
 i, 
 
 1 
 
 ii 
 
 
 
 * 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 65 
 
 , 
 
 love of excitement and adventure, he is seeking 
 to undermine the very foundations of manhood 
 and womanhood. 
 
 This is no Iblind and hidden malady, whose 
 secret springs of poison we cannot get at. It is 
 something we can see and understand. The evil 
 is right in our midst. We can put our hands upon 
 it. We can crush it out if we will. It is a sub- 
 ject which concerns every community, every 
 church, every family in the land. It is a theme 
 which no one of us can afford to ignore, for, 
 while we shut our eyes, the Devil, on these his 
 newest wings of printed paper, is flying into the 
 inmost circles of our homes. No one of us can 
 say, " I am safe," " My boys are beyond such in- 
 fluences," " My girls are incorruptible," " It will 
 not hurt my children if they do read such stuff." 
 We make a great mistake when we reason in this 
 way. 
 
 Smut always crocks. Pitch always sticks. 
 When soot is in tl»'^ air it is just as likely to fall 
 on your head as anj where else, and the smut of 
 these dirty periodicals is actually in the air today. 
 Every age has its peculiar dangers, and needs its 
 
^H 
 
 •i]! 
 
 JiiStim 
 
 66 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 peculiar, trurapet-tonecl warninga. One note of 
 alarm wliich we need to sound today, in this latter 
 part of the nineteenth century, is " Beware of vile 
 books." Centuries ago, when books were scarce 
 and print was sealed except to a very few, the 
 exhortation was, or should have been, " Read, read, 
 unlock for yourselves the treasures of the world's 
 lore." Now the cry of pulpit and press and 
 parental authority should be : " Beware of what 
 you tead, shut the book, burn the paper, unless 
 they are worth reading." Better let the field lie 
 fallow than fill it with thistles and brambles and 
 dog-wood and deadly niglit-shade. Better let the 
 mind be empty than fill it with seeds which will 
 inevitably produce an abundant crop pf disease 
 and death. Dr. Johnson used to say, that " the 
 most miserable man was he who could not read 
 on a rainy day." We must change that motto and 
 say : " The most miserable man is he who reads 
 only vile trash on a rainy day." 
 
 "Don Juan literature," says Cunningham 
 Geikie, " is as pestiferous as an open ditch in hot 
 weather. No genius or wit can excuse or neutral- 
 ize its wantonness. Coarse feeding makes coarse 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 07 
 
 flesh. Filthiness, like toad-stools, springs rank 
 from invisible seeds, and the whole race of unclean 
 books is no better than molds and smuts and mil- 
 dews." 
 
 Let me warn you of this seductive form of evil 
 in the vigorous words. of Scripture: "Avoid it, 
 pass not by it, turn from it and pass away." 
 
 To be very specific. 
 
 I indict this whole class of publications not 
 only for corrupting the imaginations and inflam- 
 ing the passions of the young but I indict even 
 the very best of them for giving a strained, and 
 unnatural picture of life, and. thus unfitting our 
 boys and girls for real life. How can our boys take 
 up the humdrum duties of school on Monday 
 morning when they have spent all Sunday riding 
 over the plains with Texas rangers, and robbing 
 stage coaches with Missouri ruffians? How can 
 they confine themselves to the routine of the 
 counter or the farm or the work-bench when their 
 minds are dancing among the wild delights of a 
 ha,rein of houris ? How small and paltry will the 
 honest nine shillings appear for a day's wages 
 when the mind has been dazzled by the priceless 
 
68 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 i i'-i 
 
 ■ ,!l 
 
 jewels and gold of the robber's cave ? These vis- 
 ions, in manj, many cases, cannot but work the 
 deadliest ruin. The school-book loses its inter- 
 est, the shop or farm becomes distasteful and only 
 excites disgust and longing to escapo, and honest 
 wages are too mean to strive for ; and thus an- 
 other life is wrecked, and wrecked on the rock of 
 these wretched periodicals. 
 
 In the second place I indict these publications 
 for glorifying evil. This, too, is universally true 
 of them. The effect of every one is to make sin 
 attractive. To be sure the murderer sometimes 
 comes to grief, and the robber is occasionally 
 caught, but he is, after alU a noble fellow, and the 
 rollicking fun and excitement of his life more 
 than make up for any "temporary unpleasant- 
 ness " he may have with the authorities. " Every- 
 tLing that is naughty is nice " might be the motto 
 in large capitals over every one of these bad 
 books. In this way, by glorifying evil, these 
 books seek to undermine and destroy all that 
 good men in all the ages have built up with toil 
 and pain. The Bible is given us to teach, among 
 other things, that evil in the long run does not 
 
 n 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 69 
 
 VI9- 
 
 the 
 ater- 
 only 
 nest 
 
 an- 
 skof 
 
 ions 
 true 
 i sin 
 imes 
 lally 
 [the 
 nore 
 lant- 
 ery- 
 
 lOttO 
 
 bad 
 bese 
 that 
 
 toil 
 long 
 
 not 
 
 pay, — these books teach that it does pay. God, in 
 nature and Providence, says over and over agaia; 
 "Beware, beware, touch not the unclean thing. 
 It brings disease, poverty, sickness, loneliness, 
 sorrow, death. The soul that sinneth, it shall 
 die." These books say, " No such thing. Wick- 
 edness is very pleasant. Fondle it. Take it to 
 your bosom. It will never hurt you." The law 
 had made it its business in every civilized country 
 on the globe to emphasize what God and the 
 Bible say, to make crime dangerous and despi- 
 cable and unattractive and hideous, by fine and 
 prison and disgrace and the gallows-tree, and yet, 
 these books say in effect: "The Bible is anti- 
 quated, and God knows nothing about it, and the 
 law is all wrong ; for the freest, jolliest, bravest 
 life in the world is that of the outlaw and the 
 scamp." 
 
 In the third place, I indict these publications 
 for being not only wholly evil in themselves but 
 for taking the place of what is good. There is 
 nothing so entirely captivating and engrossing to 
 the young as these very stories. When this Devil, 
 whose name is Legion, enters their hearts he leaves 
 
70 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 ^i 
 
 no spot for a good angel to occupy. Nay, he 
 drives out sooner or later, every good influence 
 and takes undisputed possession of the heart. As 
 the serpent's deadly eye attracts the young bird so 
 these books attract the young mind, when it gets 
 within their spell, until it becomes too weak to 
 resist their allurements, and the boy or girl finds 
 it as impossible to go by the secret shelf or closet 
 or druvver where the longed-for book lies, as it is 
 for the drunkard to resist his cups or the lauda- 
 num eater his opium. And what chance, O fellow 
 Christians ! has the Spirit of God to influence 
 such an over-wrought and preoccupied mind ? 
 
 How can we hope that such a young person will 
 ever feel his need of pardon and cleansing from 
 defilement when his whole pleasure is found in 
 scenes of defilement ? How can we hope that our 
 churches will be recruited or any of those c&uses 
 which make for righteousness will be advanced 
 when the minds of our young people are filled so 
 full of scenes of vice, that there is no room for 
 calmer, truer thoughts ? For this reason, if for no 
 other, every good man and true ought to take up 
 arms against this crying sin of our times. 
 
 
 I 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 71 
 
 On these three charges I rest my indictment. 
 Many more charges might be preferred, but surely 
 these three are sufficient. These evil books unfit 
 their readers for all real, honest life ; they glorify 
 evil ; they exclude all that is good ; they enervate 
 the mind, weaken the will, stunt the ambition, dull 
 tlie conscience, sear moral percei)tion, not for a 
 month or a year but for a life-time. The com- 
 plete victim of the bad book never recovers. 
 
 Colei'idge divides all readers into four classes: 
 " The hour-glass readers, whose reading, like the 
 sand, runs in and then out, leaving nothing behind ; 
 the sponge readers, who imbibe everything only to 
 return it as they got it, or dirtier ; the jelly-bag 
 readers, who let the pure pass and keep only the 
 dregs and refuse; and the fourth class who, like 
 the slaves in Golconda mines, cast aside all that is 
 worthless and keep only the diamonds and gems." 
 The cl iss of books and papers of which I am 
 speaking continually make jelly-bag readers who 
 keep only the dregs and refuse, and this never 
 gets strained out of their lives until the day they 
 die. 
 
 In a sister nation across the water literature ib 
 
72 
 
 DANOEB SIGNALS. 
 
 notoriously corrupt. This trash which our boys are 
 reading cultivates the very same tastes to which 
 Eugene Sue and George Sand have catered. The 
 most serious count which some Frenchmen bring 
 against the Protestant reformation now prevailing 
 in that country is that it is creating a demand for 
 a Puritanic literature, and is supplying that de- 
 mand, while it is in deadly and uncompromising 
 opposition to loose morals and loose literature. 
 Even M. Talne. fair and just as he usually is, can- 
 not resist a fli.ig at the purity of the best English 
 fiction. la coi lenting upon Dickens he sneer- 
 ingly say . . "In Nicholas Niokleby you will show 
 us two good young men, like all young men, mar- 
 rying two good young women, like all young 
 women. In Martin Chuzzlewit you will show us 
 two more good young men, perfectly resembling 
 the other twu, marrying again two good young 
 women, perfectly resembling the other two. In 
 Dombey and Son there will be only one good 
 young man and one gooti young woman ; — other- 
 wise no difference. The reader woulu like to 
 say to these characters, ' Good little people, con- 
 tinue to be very proper.' " 
 
THE ENBMIBS OP YOUTH. 
 
 TS 
 
 This is the ay that a highly cultivated and 
 otherwise fair minded Frenchman can sneer at the 
 purity of English literature, the purity which is 
 its chief glory. Do you desire to exchange our 
 Dickens for a George Sand? our Thackeray for 
 a Eugene Sue? our Hawthorne for a Zola? 
 Toward lowering the tone of public morality, to- 
 ward pavini tlie way for making just such books 
 the national literature of our land, these exciting, 
 pernicious novels directly tend. 
 
 There are a great many " tree-frog minds," as 
 some oiie has expressed it, minds that take their 
 color from that on which they feed. Among our 
 boys and girls there are ten thousand of these tree- 
 frog minds whu feed on worthless fiction and 
 whose whole lives will be colored by it. " What 
 do you read ? " said the late James T. Fields to 
 the boy fiend Jesse Pomeroy, as quoted by Mr. 
 Kent in his " New Commentary." " What do you 
 read ? " said Mr. Fields. " Mostly one kind," was 
 the reply, " mostly dime novels." " And what is 
 the best book you have read ? " " Well,' ' he replied, 
 »' I like Buffalo Bill best. It 's full of murders and 
 pictures about murders." " And how do you feel 
 
■^ 
 
 74 
 
 DANOEB SIGNALS. 
 
 after reading it?" " Oh, I feel aa if I wanted to 
 go and do the same." But the grout danger of 
 these books ia not that a iow morbidly ferocious 
 boys like Jesse Pomeroy, or a few maudlin, feather- 
 headed girls will be ruined by this trashy novel 
 reading. These results are probable enough and 
 deplorable enough, but the great danger is that 
 the mass of our bo3'8 and girls who are neither 
 brutal, nor ferocious, uor feather-headed, will bo 
 tainted by this mass of printed corruption. Like 
 the exhalation from a foul but unseen sewer it 
 may poison the very air our children breathe 
 before we wake up to the fact that the air is 
 poisoned. 
 
 And now let me apeak for a moment of the rem- 
 edies for this curse, for there are effective remedies. 
 I will speak of other measures at another time, 
 but I believe that the strong arm of the law 
 should be invoked to save our children from 
 this curse. I believe that the law can be en- 
 forced against those who peddle this stuff upon 
 the streets and in our news rooms, until every 
 print that suggesta an impure scene to a prurient 
 imagination shall be torn from our shop windows. 
 
THB ENBMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 76 
 
 If we have law enough to compel the cleaning 
 out of filthy sewera that may poison the physical 
 health of the community, have we not law enough 
 to clean out these ditchwater books and papers 
 which will surely poison the murals of the cotn- 
 munity ? 
 
 If there is power enough in the law to shut up 
 a drunken man simply because he is noisy and 
 boisterous, is there not power enough to shut away 
 from the sight of our boys and girls those books 
 and pictures which will do them more harm than 
 a regiment of drunkards ? 
 
 I am not a visionary enthusiast in this matter. 
 I do not know that public sentiment is ripe 
 enough to sustain the law in prohibiting the blood 
 and thunder novel, I do not know that it can yet 
 drive "Buckskin Burke," and "Moccasin Mat," 
 and "Shorty Jr.. tht; Son of his Dad," into de- 
 served oblivion, but I do believe that it can rid 
 our country of al' ' t is openly vile and lewd. 
 I do believe that 77^; Jolice News and The Po- 
 lice Gazette a,><] pam,^ < that ilk can be prohib- 
 ited and tb.it i^cenj s need no longer be of- 
 
T6 
 
 DAMGEB SIGNALS. 
 
 fended and young imaginations polluted by the 
 pictures which they contain. 
 
 I believe that the law can be so enforced that it 
 shall be safe to publish the catalogues of girls' 
 boarding schools ; and it is not safe to do so now, 
 lest the harpies who vend this bad literature 
 will use them for evil purposes. 
 
 But we must not put off all the responsibility 
 for the suppression of this evil upon the law 
 makers. We have something to do, every one of 
 us, to sustain the law, and to make a public senti- 
 ment which can enforce the law. Let us each 
 bear our full share of the responsibility and do our 
 full duty toward making the literature of our land 
 pure and ennobling. Parents, you who desire 
 that your children should not live, even in imag- 
 ination, with cut-throats and robbers ; young men, 
 you who would not have your future wives ac- 
 quainted with courtesans and harlots ; young wo- 
 men, you who would not have your future hus- 
 bands imbued with the cruelty of the prize ring 
 and the bravado of the gambling hell; philanthro- 
 pists, you who would see the wtrld grow better 
 
 -t 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 77 
 
 and not sink back into filth and barbarism ; Chris- 
 tians, you who love the Lord Jesus Christ and the 
 childi-eu for whom he died ; arouse you all, and 
 with one heart and voice let us stem this tide of 
 evil literature before, it sweeps clean away the 
 foundations of morality and religion. 
 
T 
 
 i 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TEASH IN INK. 
 Infaht Indian Extebminatoks. Fubtheb Wise Wobds 
 
 FBOM THE BUSINEBS MEN. JoVENILE BuBOLABIES 
 
 AND Flash Papebs. One Hcndbed Thousand Peo- 
 ple OP Boston Keep Compant -vtith Tbain Wbeck- 
 KBS AND Highwaymen. The Cause of this Tbabh 
 IN Ink. Cheap Imitation of BuBDKrrE and Mabk 
 Twain. A Waste of Time. A Sum in ABirnMETio. 
 The Scbappt Mind of the Mebb Newspapeb Read- 
 EB. The Young Highwaymen hbab Boston. Thk 
 Stoby of the Judge's Son. 
 
 Some time ago a friend sent me a copy of the 
 New York Puck, and directed ray attention to a 
 cartoon on the first page. For the benefit of those 
 of you who have not seen thii graphic picture let 
 me describe it. An infant, apparently some six 
 or eight months of aw, sits in a cradle, one hand 
 grasps a huge bowie-knife, the other a bull-dog re- 
 volver, across his knees lies a shot gun, while into 
 various crevices of the cradle other knives and 
 pistols are thrust. In the infant's mouth is placed 
 
 78 
 

 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 79 
 
 a tube through which he draws nourishment from 
 a huge bottle labeled " Dime Novels," " Half Dime 
 Stories," " Five Cent Papers," etc. A wild and 
 lurid light gleams from the infant's eyes, his tow 
 hair stands on end with excitement, a fierce and 
 implacable look settles around the corners of his 
 mouth. The exciting causes of this preternatural 
 ferocity lie scattered about on the floor, labeled, 
 *' Buccaneers of the Battery," "Ike the Indian 
 Killer," " Bloody Ben," " The Pirates of the Pas- 
 saic," etc. In short this "Infant Indian Extermi- 
 nator " in the cradle had been nourished on such 
 food as made his hair stand on end, and his fin- 
 gers naturally clutch the bowie-knife and the re- 
 volver. There is a startling truth hidden in this 
 grotesque cartoon. The very babies in their 
 cradles have this exciting, pernicious trash rained 
 upon them. As they draw milk from the nursing 
 bottle, they suck in blood and thunder from the 
 dime novel. Instead of the ' Three Bears," the 
 child of today reads about " The Five Skulls." 
 Instead of " Dick Whittington and his Cat," he 
 reads about "Dick the Destroyer." Instead of 
 '♦Cinderella and her Golden Slipper," he reads 
 
80 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 about the "Tlie Girl Trailer" or "Wild Nell on 
 the Scaffold." The spirit of that cartoon has its 
 counterpart in ten thousand households, all our 
 country over. It is hardly an exaggeration to 
 make the victim of these worthless novels a tow- 
 hep.ded baby in his cradle. 
 
 This subject is very closely allied to the one pre- 
 sented in the last chapter. Dirt and trash go to- 
 gether in literature as well as in th-i scavenger's 
 cart. The dirty is always trashy; the trashy is 
 usually dirty. 
 
 In the last chapter were quoted the opinions 
 of some of Boston's prominent men of business 
 on the kindred subject. I need to add but little 
 to this testimony to show you what their advice 
 would be. Let me, however, quote a few more 
 valuable testimonies. Says one : " I think low lit- 
 erature is to the mind what scrofula is to the 
 blood. It soon permeates the whole mind, and 
 terminates in the malignant cancer which contains 
 all the vices man is addicted to." 
 
 Says another : " Young people, given to the habit 
 of reading liglit and trashy novels, dilute their 
 minds, destroy the power of concentrated effort. 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOTJTH. 
 
 81 
 
 
 and make it impossible for them to grasp and con- 
 quer that which requires hard and continuous 
 study. One can read too much for recreation for 
 a time, and then find to his mortification that the 
 ability to grasp great truths has departed from 
 him, perhaps forever." 
 
 Still another friend of yours, who says that in 
 the business in which he has been engaged for 
 fifty years he has had the training of a score of 
 young men, some of whom have been very suc- 
 cessful in life, remarks, that he is sorry to see in 
 visiting our public library the unread appearance 
 of scientific ami historical books, and that, so sel- 
 dom are they called for, it is not deemed necessary 
 to provide thtun with the usual paper covers. 
 
 Another gentleman, who has had much to do in 
 furnishing you with good reading, writi s : '"My 
 experience leads me to place Bad Literature first 
 among the causes leading to the decline of virtue 
 in youth. This poisons the mind and prepares 
 the way for dime and other low theatres, intem- 
 perance, gambling, and licentiousness." 
 
 You see most of tliese gentlemen emphasize 
 the fact, which we cannot make too prominent, 
 
 ¥ 
 
82 
 
 DANGEB SIGKALS. 
 
 that bad books are the starting-point for other avils. 
 " A trashy novel looks innocent," do you say ? "I 
 can read it without being any the worse." Ah 1 
 but if it is one key that has often unlocked the 
 door of perdition for other bright boys and girls 
 is it safe to fumble with it in the lock, because 
 you think you may and escape where bo many 
 have entered in and been lost? In thii> line 
 another of your friends sends you the following 
 warning: "The prime cause of ruin would be 
 the first step taken, as the others would be sure to 
 follow. Boys would be more likely to start with 
 bad literature than with anything else." 
 
 Let me tell you how I came to have my atten- 
 tion directed to this subject. Some time ago, as I 
 was walking along one of the streets in the city 
 where I then lived, which was most frequented by 
 boys and girls, the following advertisement, for 
 substance, struck my eye : " All the boys should 
 read the wonderful story of the James brothers, 
 the desperate outlaws of the Western plains, 
 whose strange and thrilling adventures of success- 
 ful robbery and murder have never been i»qualled. 
 The account of these brave and daring spirits, 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 88 
 
 
 who still defy capture, wUl interest every boy. 
 For sale here. Price five cents," The next morn- 
 ing I read the following item in one of the daily 
 papers of that city : " Seven boys arrested yester- 
 day for burglary ; four stores having been broken 
 into by the gang at different times. One of the 
 ringleaders who had been in all four of the rob- 
 beries is but ten years old." A few days after 
 that appeared this item : " Boys made three breaHu 
 lait night stealing goods and money in as many 
 dLTerent stores." 
 
 1 remember, too, the horrible story which Mr. 
 Comstock vouches for, of the bloodthirsty band of 
 ten year old boys who, excited by such stories, 
 bound themsuives with an oath to slay their own 
 mothers, and were only discovered because the 
 heart of one of the little fellows failed him at the 
 last moment, and he thought he would practice on 
 the servant girl ; and I remember that these in- 
 stances are but specimens of a hundred items 
 which we may read in the papers every year. 
 
 But to bring the matter very near home. What 
 are our boys and girls reading in this year of 
 grace ? Much that is useful, much that is health- 
 
fin! 
 
 84 
 
 DAITOBB SIGNALS. 
 
 ful, much that will make them good citizens and 
 honored men and women, no doubt. I am happy 
 to believe that large numbers read only such 
 books. But step into any of our news-stores in 
 any of our large cities, and a single glance at 
 those counters, filled with rubbish, will tell us that 
 other large numbers read only such stuff as tends 
 to weaken the mind and unnerve the will for hon- 
 est endeavor, and to graduate in the end either 
 worthless loafers or state's prison convicts. I, for 
 one, was totally unaware, until my attention was 
 directly called to the subject, how, of late years, 
 this crop of worthless print hab increased. Even 
 a casual glance would amaze many who have not 
 studied the subject. Why 1 Fathers and Mothers, 
 Beadles Dime Novels which, when we were boys 
 and girls, were the sjmonyras for all this class of 
 literature, seem to havo gone to seed in these latter 
 days and a most abundant and pernicious crop has 
 sprung up iu their stead. The evil genius of our 
 childhood has taken to himself more than seven 
 and more than seventy-seven spirits worse than 
 himself, and all are clamoring for admittance to 
 the minds of our children. In a single periodical 
 
 ^ 
 
 ' 
 
 ! IJI' 
 
 iHi' 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 86 
 
 store I have counted twenty-one publications of 
 this class for our young people alone ; twenty-one 
 different flash papers and magazines bearing the 
 imprint of different firms, but all bearing the 
 trade-mark of the Devil. 
 
 It is impossible to do more than roughly esti- 
 mate the number of those who read these publica- 
 tions, but, from a careful study of the facts and 
 inquiry into the number of these periodicals sold, 
 I am convinced that at a very low estimate one- 
 third of all the inhabitants of any large city are 
 habitual readers of this trash. This is not random 
 guess-work. It is founded on careful study and 
 estimate. I am convinced that if I should say 
 that one-half of our people read this stuff I should 
 be easilv within bounds. But for the sake of 
 being very moderate and conservative I will say 
 one-third. Then more than one hundred thou- 
 sand men and women and children in this city of 
 Cotton Mather and Lyman Beecher and Charles 
 Sumner and Wendell Phillips are todry spend- 
 ing their time in the company of thieves and mur- 
 derers and highwaymen and adulterers, gloating 
 over their adventures, revelling in their perilous 
 
86 
 
 DAKGEB SIGNALS. 
 
 escapes and glorying in their dastardly crimes. 
 And the saddest part of all this is that many of 
 these readers are young people. At least one-half 
 this army belong to this class. At least sixty 
 thousand young people in this one city are study- 
 ing, not the story of Moses and Joshua and Paul 
 and Jesus Christ which our Sunday-schools teach, 
 not the wonderful dealings of God with his people, 
 not the deeds of real men in real life, not the 
 facts of history which elevate the mind, not the 
 truths of science- which quicken the intellect, but 
 they are studying " The Gypsy Boy's Vengeance " 
 or " The Dead Witness " or " Evil Eye, the King 
 of the Cattle Thieves." There are more boys and 
 girls in every city and town of our land locked 
 up every Sunday, (for they get more time as a 
 general thing to read this trash on Sunday than 
 any other day), with these exciting and pernicious 
 stories of unreal and improbable and utterly 
 detestable life, than assemble in all our Sunday- 
 schools. There are more of our youth who are 
 being excited and unstrung and filled with morbid 
 fancies by these books than are being strengthened 
 and fitted for life by the sweet influences of the 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 m 
 
 Sabbath day. There are hundreds of thousands 
 of our young people who are less fitted to take up 
 life's secular duties on Monday on account of what 
 they read on Sunday, — the day of rest, in which 
 God meant that they should be strengthened and 
 made more ready for life's battle. 
 
 The cause of this dire evil is not far to seek. 
 It has been growing gradually for many years, 
 and the appetite has been fostered by what it has 
 fed on. These flash papers whose name today is 
 legion may be traced back to one or two more 
 decent progenitors which have had great influence 
 in shaping the tastes of our youth. They have 
 begun by sipping their small beer from these very 
 respectable papers and have endied by taking their 
 whiskey straight from the rankest and vilest peri- 
 odicals of the day. In my opinion the sinners, 
 above all others in this direction, are certain re- 
 spectable story papers, and for the paradoxical rea- 
 son that they have been so good as they have been. 
 Have not well-known men of letters and science, 
 and eminent divines, even, written for these papers? 
 do they not contain many really valuable articles, 
 the record of many scientific discoveries ? are not 
 
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 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 many of their contributions of a high order of 
 literary merit? Yes, I admit all this, and for 
 this very reason they have done so much harm. 
 Their very excellencies have glossed over their 
 defects and concealed from the eyes of parents 
 and teachers the fj'.ct that their tendency was in 
 the direction of trashy sensationalism. In tea 
 thousand cases they have created an appetite they 
 could not satisfy, a morbid craving which their 
 brethren of lower degree and coarser, more un- 
 blushing sensuousness, have satisfied. It is a long 
 step from these story papers to the Police O-azette, 
 but it is a step which is very often taken. 
 
 In public readings I have been surprised, often- 
 times, to notice how even a respectable and intelli- 
 gent audience will eagerly listen to the silliest 
 nonsense. Tlie real fan found in the Burlington 
 Hawkeye and the Detroit Free Press has a thousand 
 cheap imitations, and the extent to which our cur- 
 rent literature is flooded with these cheap imita- 
 tions of Burdette and Mark Twain and Charles 
 Dudley Warner would be alarming were the lucu- 
 brations not so puerile. The way in which an audi- 
 ence will applaud and encore some graphic descrip- 
 
 »« 
 
THE ENEMIES OP VOUTn. 
 
 89 
 
 tion of how Mr. Jones chased his liat around a .11 ".d 
 puddle, or the side-splitting manner in which Mr. 
 Brown sat down on a pin, or the coo-funny-for- 
 anything way in which one of our Teutonic or 
 Hibernian neighbors got drunk and sung a maud- 
 lin song in broken dialect, hardly speaks well for 
 the intelligence of the audience. In our enter- 
 tainments why cannot we have real wit to laugh 
 over instead of this sick and silly semblance of 
 wit ? Against this kind of tru 1 which is some- 
 times forced upon us in otherwise unobjectionable 
 entertainments, we are defenceless, perhaps, but I 
 am chiefly concerned with the trash which you vol- 
 untarily read, and there is another class of books a 
 grade higher than the " Gypsy Boy's Vengeance," 
 which, while it is more likely to be read by the 
 self-respecting young person, is almost equally 
 pernicious. These books are found in all our li- 
 braries, public and circulating, and I understand 
 from those in authority that they constitute the 
 great bulk of the books that are taken out. If I 
 should look at that volume covered with brown 
 paper, my young friend, which you are carrying 
 home from the public library, should I not find 
 
 ■\,. 
 
90 
 
 DANGER SIGNAL*?. 
 
 that it was a book by Mrs, Southwortli or Ouida 
 or the Duchess or one of those dozen other authors 
 whom I am afraid you know better than I do? 
 " Such delicious love stories," you say. " Such 
 thrilling situations." Ah yes, but if they received 
 their just deserts I think they must be consigned 
 to the scavenger's cart with the rest of our trash. 
 There is nothing absolutely vicious about many of 
 them, but others are really bad and are read by 
 respectable people only because their eyes are not 
 open to their real tendency. 
 
 The New York Evening Post, quoting from a 
 pamphlet which recently appeared criticising the 
 books in the Boston Public library, says : " ' Vul- 
 gar 'is the mildest epithet applied to this class 
 of literature; 'maudlin sentiment,' 'nauseous,' 
 ♦fleshly taint,' 'unwholesome,' ' unoleanness,' 'snig- 
 gering suggestions,' are the flowers of criticism 
 which may be gathered on every page." I do not 
 know how far this criticism is true of the books 
 in one of the best public libraries in our land, as 
 the Boston public library undoubtedly is, but I 
 ' am inclined to think there is a great deal of truth 
 in it, and I utter it in order to put you on your 
 
 • 1 1 
 
MKHiWiWiK 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 It. 
 
 guard against the trasli and chaff even in that col- 
 lection where you think there ia nothing but 
 choice wheat. 
 
 In the last chapter I brought some charges 
 which seemed to me most serious and weighty 
 against the viler class of periodicals ; allow me to 
 prefer charges which seem to me no less weighty 
 against the trashy literature of which I am speak- 
 ing in this chapter. A very serious charge which 
 may be brought against this trash is that, to say 
 the best of it, reading it involves a sheer waste of 
 time. The shortness of human life should pre- 
 vent any reasonable young person from touching it. 
 Do you remember what Dr. Johnson had engraved 
 on the face of his watch ? " Ihe night cometh." 
 Let us remember that when we take up a book. 
 The nigh'> cometh. The daylight is too short to 
 be wasted upon that which is not worth reading. 
 The multiplicity of books repeats this same advice. 
 Go with me into the British Museum in London, 
 and there a well-nigh innuraerabld array of books, 
 five hundred thousand of them, look down upon 
 us from their resting places on the shelves. Let 
 us do a little sum in arithmetic. Five hundred 
 
 J 
 
92 
 
 DANGKTl SIGNALS. 
 
 hi 
 
 thousand books before us, little and big, wortliy 
 and worthless, and there are three hundred and 
 sixty-five days in the year. Can you read one of 
 them through every day of the year, Sundays and 
 all ? If 80 you can get through the library in one 
 thousand three hundred and seventy years, or a 
 few days less. Even Methuselah, you see, would 
 have needed an extension of time of nearly four 
 hundred years to accomplish this task. But you 
 cannot read one book a day. Those great folios, 
 those huge black-letter volumes, make any such 
 idea ridiculous. No, if you read one a week you 
 will do well, and pretty steadily you will have to 
 work to do this. Well then, in nine thousand four 
 hundred and ninety years you will have finished 
 ' the last book in that collection. That is, if you 
 read until the inhabited world is once and a half 
 as old again as it is at present, until Adam has 
 been dead fifteen thousand years instead of six 
 thousand, you will have finished the collection,— 
 provided no new books are added. But new 
 books will be added at the rate of at least three 
 thousand a year at a very low estimate, and if 
 even this rate of increase keeps up during the 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOXJTH. 
 
 93 
 
 nine thousand odd years j'OU are at work on the 
 original library, you will at the end of that time 
 be twenty-eight million five hundred thousand 
 books :n arrears, or enough to occupy you some 
 five hundred thousand years more. I will not 
 appall you by carrying our sum in arithmetic any 
 farthor. It has accomplished its purpose, if it has 
 shown us that in these days, when it is so pre- 
 eminently true that of making many books there 
 is no end, we must make a strict and rigid 
 choice in that which we read. 
 
 When you have the whole world of books to 
 choose from, will you take the very poorest and 
 clieapest? When you may live with ^'hakespeare 
 and Milton and Macaulay and Scott will you 
 choose Buckskin Burke and Moccasin Mat and 
 Evil Eye the King of the Cattle Thieves for com- 
 panions ? When you wish to laugh will you choose 
 the sloppy wit of some third rate or thirteenth 
 rate imitator, when you might have the genuine 
 hum or of Tom Hood or Charles Lamb or Leigh 
 Hunt or Charles Dickens ? Will you choose to 
 spend an evening with a drunken cut-throat when 
 for the same price you might have the company oi 
 
u 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 ill 
 
 s i 
 
 the greatest men who ever wrote or sung ? " Stu- 
 pidity or commonplace," says one, "is tolerable 
 only when no better can be had ; like bread of moss 
 or sawdust that needs a famine to get it down, 
 except with simpletons who will e^t anything. 
 "To read in these days is like standing m an or- 
 chard laden with fruit ; it is not a matter of choice 
 but of falling too and eating the best. The worm- 
 eaten,' the wind-blasted and the rottea will of 
 course be passed by, by a^ sensible man who real- 
 izes the value of his time." • '_ - 
 
 Again this trash in ink not only wastes the time 
 but it renders the mind of him who indulges in it 
 scrappy and unable to grasp solid truth, ihis 
 charge applies to much of the unobjectionable 
 reading of the day, with what double force then 
 does it apply to the worse than worthless stories of 
 which I have been speaking. He who attempts 
 to read everything will know nothing. 
 
 In that thought lies the bane of the multiplicity 
 of newspapers and magazines of these latter dajs. 
 And let me here file a caveat against too much 
 newspaper reading. We can resist the temptation 
 of reading many books, for books are oftentimes 
 
THE BNEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 m 
 
 "Stu- 
 lerable 
 )f moss 
 
 down, 
 thing." 
 I an or- 
 ' choice 
 a worm- 
 will of 
 'ho real- 
 
 the time 
 gea in it 
 1. This 
 stiouable 
 rce then 
 stories of 
 attempts 
 
 iltiplicity 
 Iter daj s. 
 boo much 
 imptation 
 ftentimes 
 
 expensive luxuries, but to the ubiquitous newspa- 
 per there is no such let or hindrance. It touches 
 upon every subject and exhausts none. The 
 name of the newspaper readers of our day is legion. 
 I mean the exclusive newspaper readers, who 
 hardly know how a bound volume feels in their 
 hands. Such people read a little of everything 
 and very little of anything. Their minds become 
 as scrappy as their reading, until at last they can 
 fix their attention upon nothing which is not 
 dressed in displayed lines, or which is longer than 
 a cable dispatch. Some one has compared the 
 mind of a man who reads in this way, to a 
 boy's pocket. First the boy pulls out a marble, 
 and then a bit of string, and then a toothless 
 comb, and then a peanut, and then a shingle- 
 nail, and tlien a jackstone, and then a rusty screw, 
 and then a piece of an apple, and then a bit of 
 candy, until the bottom is reached. The pocket 
 is full to be sure, but it is full of scrappy trash. 
 So is the mind of him who contents himself with 
 the lightest kind of reading. He has a fact here 
 and a fact there, something curious about alliga- 
 tors in this corner and a receipt for maiiing apple 
 
"TT" 
 
 M 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 pie in that ; a vague impression that Bismark is 
 ruling Germany with a high hand, and one of 
 Spoopoiulykc's quarrels with his wife in the same 
 part of his cranium. Ho knows that there has 
 been trouble between England and Russia, though 
 he hardly knows what it is all about, and he also 
 has a vague impression that Lydia E. Pinkhain 
 cures all diseases. Such is the typical newspaper 
 reader. As for me, give me the trash the bov 
 carries in his pocket rather than the trash such a 
 one carries in liis head. "Marshall thy notions 
 into a handsome method," quaintly says old 
 Thomas Fuller. "One will carry twice more 
 weight, trussed and packed, than when it lies 
 untoward, flapping, and hanging about the 
 shoulders." ' ' 
 
 But there are even more serious counts than 
 waste of time and dissipation of moral and intel- 
 lectual energy which I have to bring against this 
 worthless reading. Its direct tendency is, like the 
 vile reading before alluded to, toward a worthless, 
 vicious life. This tendency is too palpable to need 
 extended illustration. I have hinted at it already 
 and we can hardly take up a public print without 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 97 
 
 having our previous knowledge of the evils of 
 this class oT literature extended and confirmed. 
 Let me mention one or two facts which have re- 
 cently come to my knowledge. In a country 
 town about thirty miles from Boston it was found 
 recently that many of the boys, incited by these 
 stories, had formed themselves into gangs, after 
 the manner of their favorite desperados. They 
 would hold secret meetings in old barns or, pref- 
 erably, in some cave, if they could find one, as 
 being raore romantic. They had their signs and 
 passwords and flash names fdr robbery and murder 
 and plunder, and burglar's tools, just as they had 
 read in their favorite story papers. And, had they 
 not been accidentally discovered and broken up, 
 actual robbery and murder would undoubtedly 
 have brought disgrace and sorrow to a score of 
 families in that pleasant village. I have heard 
 the master of one of our largest schools in Boston 
 say that he has discovered and broken up similar 
 plots among his own boys, and that one of these 
 plots contemplated violence upon his own life, 
 though personally he believed that the boys w juld 
 all love him as he loved them, were they not ex- 
 6 
 
 
 '"-^flii«MB!B»B^I^Bii»»iaii)S^BW^^ iiif^^^ATi^^r ' 
 
i m.Mi. "■.^H'lt'i 
 
 ■ W. DANOEB 8IGKAL6. 
 
 cited by the mock heroics of these bloodthirsty 
 books. 
 
 How these novels corrupt and ruin a life of 
 bright promise is vividly illustrated in a true tale 
 which appeared some time ago in one of our relig- 
 ious papers, but which is worth reproducing because 
 it presents a living example of the degradation and 
 infamy to which this miserable fiction leads. It 
 does not land all its victims in the same abyss, 
 perhaps, but it faces them all and starts them all 
 in the same direction. The story is briefly this : 
 A lad/ in one of our southern cities had her atten- 
 tion arrested one day by a ragged and half drunken 
 boy of about seventeen, who was declaiming for 
 the amusement of a crowd of drunken loafers, 
 from the English and Latin classics, urged on to 
 this exhibition of his powers by the promise of 
 " two big drinks." 
 
 An undefinable air of refinement, in spite of 
 his profane and drunken conduct, attracted the 
 ladj'^s attention, and his pure pronunciation and 
 admirable declamation caused her to stop and lis- 
 ten. While she was listening a dispute arose, a 
 fight ensued, and the boy was arrested and taken 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. f^ 
 
 to jail, where it was discovered that he had re- 
 ceived internal and fatal injuries in the melee. 
 The lady interested herself in hira, found that he 
 was the son of a rich judge in Mississippi, that 
 he had run away from home a year ago, and now 
 he waa dying, a drunken vagi\bond in jail. We 
 will let hira tell the causes which brought hira 
 there in his own words. 
 
 " Were your parents unkind to you that you 
 left thera ? " said his benefactress. " Unkind," 
 he repeated with a sob. "Oh, I wish I could 
 remember a single harsh or unkind word from 
 them I That would be a little excuse, you know. 
 No, they were only too indulgent. I was a little 
 wild then, and I 've heard father say, after I 'd 
 sowed my wild oats I 'd come out all right." " I 
 can't understand why you left good parents and 
 home," said the lady. " Wait a minute, I 'm coming 
 to that. I 'm almost ashamed f^ tell it, it sounds 
 so silly. You see I had been i ng a great many 
 i^tories of adventure. I bought every new volume 
 as it was issued. My parents did not disapprove 
 of these books and did not question rae in regard 
 to them. They did not suspect how tired I was 
 
 iB^j«>iX!i^ 
 
w^ 
 
 T 
 
 100 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 growing of my dull life, and how I longed to imi- 
 tate some of my plucky young heroes. I thought, 
 as soon as I was free, adventure would pile in 
 upon me." "I interrupted him," says the lady, 
 " How is it possible that you, whose education had 
 been so carefully carried on, who can even appre- 
 ciate the beauties of classical literature, could be 
 influenced by such trash?" "I don't know," he 
 answered, "but I was. Perhaps I really didn't 
 what you call appreciate better things, but just 
 learned them by rote because I liked the sound. 
 They did n't seen, to belong to my real life, but 
 these stories did. They were boys like myself who 
 did these wonderful things and were so reckless 
 and brave, and they lived in a world like ours." 
 
 Thus this boy died; but seventeen years of age, 
 carefully reared, lovingly nurtured, but he died 
 an outcast, a drunkard, a tramp in jail, and his 
 last words to this lady who had been his only friend 
 were : " Warn, warn all young people whom you 
 know to let these foolish books alone. They are 
 very silly, but they do harm to many and they 've 
 ruined me. They take you one step on the bad 
 road and the rest comes easy." * 
 
 • Fom The Congregationaliat. 
 
THE EKEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 IM 
 
 And now the old question returns : What are 
 you going to do about it? Young people, what 
 are 3^0M going to do about it? Will you let this 
 Octopus, when he is plainly pointed out to you, 
 twist his slimy arras about you, until your minds 
 are besotted and your wills weakened, and he has 
 you completely in his power? Parents, what are 
 you going to do about it ? You would not allow 
 a prize fight or a bull fight to take place within 
 the limits of your municipality, if you could help 
 it. Why should you allow scenes of greater cru- 
 elt}'^ and shameleasness to be exhibited to our boys 
 and girls every day without a protest ? You would 
 not allow " Leadville Luke " or " Rattling Rube " 
 to ride through these streets, shooting and robbing 
 to their heart's content. Why should you allow 
 them, decked in all the pleasing colors of romance, 
 to roam through the imaginations of your children ? 
 Leadville Luke running amuck seven times in a 
 week through these streets would not do as much 
 harm as he and his class accomplish in the minds 
 of our young people. ^ 
 
 If the people of the land would arise in their 
 might, if public sentiment would back up the law, 
 
102 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 this gigantic evil would be quickly disposed of. 
 ♦' There is no evil, the power of which is stronger 
 than the people," is the noble utterance of the 
 governor of one of our western states. Of this 
 wrong thing these words are true. Prevalent as 
 it is, insidious as it is, it is not stronger than the 
 power of the people. 
 
 Then let us all, young men and fathers, maidens 
 and mothers, by our influence and example, by 
 words of warning and prayers for help, by form- 
 ing and molding public sentiment aright, by coun- 
 t .racting evil with good, do our share in unmask- 
 ng and silenciag this battery of the Evil One. 
 
 1 
 
ed of. 
 fonger 
 )f the 
 )f this 
 ent as 
 Ein the 
 
 laidens 
 ?le, by 
 f form- 
 f coun- 
 amask- 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE LOW THEATER. 
 
 The General " Theater Question" hot Dibcubskd. 
 Warnings from the Business Men. The Murder- 
 er's Stabting-Point. The Pbbtt, to Purity of 
 Cbabacteb. The Low Theater Always Caters 
 TO Lust. Three Theater Bills. The Rom Shop 
 NtxT DooB. Jesse James Plays and their 
 "Strong Situations." The Low Tiikatbr At- 
 tempts TO Make Black Appear White and Con- 
 fuses MoBAL Distinctions. The True Picture of 
 Vice. . . i. 
 
 I DO not propose to discuss the " Theater Ques- 
 tion" in this chapter. Tliat is a broad subject 
 whose discussion is rarely profitable except in 
 private corversation with those who are conscien- 
 tiously troubled by the matter. By every one who 
 bus reached years of discretion this question, like 
 othera of Christian ethics, card-playing, dancing, 
 etc., must be settled for himself. Ask a few ques- 
 tions like this of yourself. " Can I serve my God 
 as well if I go to the theater as if I stay away ? 
 
 108 
 
104 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 {. 
 
 can I help those who see me there? c&n I build 
 up my own character in the best manner ? can I 
 ask God's blessing upon me there ? " If your answer 
 to these questions is an unhesitating " yes," then 
 go. If it is a doubtful or hesitating " yes," or an 
 unqualified "no," then stay away. Never offend 
 conscience in any of these matters. You are put- 
 ting out the eye of the soul when, for the sake of 
 present gratification, you are doing that which 
 you think may be wrong. The apostle's old rule 
 about the unclean meat applies here. " He that 
 doubteth is damned if he eat." 
 
 But I am not discussing the general subject of 
 the theater. There is a phase of the subject which 
 is often overlooked, but which sadly needs thought 
 and prayer and careful attention from all true 
 men. There are certain plague spots, called thea- 
 ters, before which I must wave the danger signal. 
 As the red flag waves from the pest-house to warn 
 people of their danger in passing or entering, so 
 the only appropriate banner for these play-housea 
 is the red flag of warning. Indiscriminate de- 
 nunciation of all theaters has sometimes over- 
 leaped itself, concealed from the eyes of the Chris- 
 
THF ENE>rrES OF YOUTH. 
 
 106 
 
 tian public the fact that there are festering places, 
 called theaters, in every large city, nrhich bear the 
 same relation to other theaters that adulterated, 
 poisoned "tanglefoot" bears to pure wines and 
 liquors. I have not been to these places myself, 
 and I know that when I make this confession some 
 will say, " Then you are talking of something you 
 know nothing about. Your testimony must be 
 ruled out of court." But softly, my friends. One 
 does not need to go into a small-pox hospital to 
 know that small-pox is a horrible disease ; the tes- 
 timony of others, the scars and pits of those who 
 have been there, and one's o\^n common sense, 
 will keep him out of such a place, and yet not 
 leave him ignorant of the loathsome malady. The 
 experience of others, the scarred lives of those 
 who have frequented such places, the indecent 
 posters with which these places advertise them- 
 selves upon every dead wall, all tell me what they 
 are, and tell me ;o wave the danger signal before 
 your eyes. In order to tell you that it is danger- 
 ous business to fall off a wharf into deep water I 
 need not go and fall off first myself. 
 Bat, as in previous chapters, let me first give 
 
f 
 
 I ! 
 
 u 
 
 106 
 
 DANGEB SIGNALS. 
 
 the boys the messages which some of their friends 
 have sent them, through me. Says one : "A loose 
 play, a suggestive play, carries impure thoughts and 
 desires with it, ~ it degrades instead of elevates. 
 No young man can afford either money, time, or 
 reputation in this direction." Another sends me 
 a strong arraignment, which he clips from his daily 
 paper, of "bill-boards, flaunting in the face of day, 
 and the eyes of every passer-by, advertisements 
 of blonde burlesque or opera-bouffe troupes, too 
 indecent and too shocking to be tolerated in any 
 community that considers itself enrolled under 
 the banner of Christianity." Another classes low 
 theaters with bad literature and promiscuous dan- 
 ces, and thinks that they all lead on to gambling, li- 
 centiousness, and intemperance. "Low theaters," 
 says still another, " are about as bad as they well 
 can be." Another writes : " I was in the habit of 
 attending the theater mostly for the music, of which 
 I was very fond, and let me tell you, boys, there 
 is nothing but harm in them. The play on the 
 boards is all right, perhaps, but the afterpiece and 
 the company that attends are full of dangers. 
 Break away from these places, or, rather, never 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 107 
 
 friends - 
 A loose 
 rhts and 
 ilevates. 
 time, or 
 mds me 
 liis daily 
 ! of day, 
 seraents 
 pes, too 
 1 in any 
 d under 
 isses low 
 ous dan- 
 ibling, 11- 
 heaters," 
 ;hey well 
 habit of 
 
 of which 
 lys, there 
 ly on the 
 piece and 
 
 dangers, 
 er, never 
 
 begin to go to them." Still another writes: 
 " Young people should avoid these places entirely. 
 The habit of attending them, if once formed, 
 often leads to dishonesty. I have known many 
 young men from good families who went into 
 stores with good prospects, but other young men 
 in business persuaded them to go to low thea- 
 ters, as the first evil step. Being ambitious to 
 appear as smart as their companions and not 
 having the means for such indulgence of their 
 own, they purloined from their employers, were 
 detected and disgraced." Here is a sad story which 
 tells how one fair, young life went to pieces on 
 this shoal. . ' - 
 
 "About twenty years ago," says one whose 
 name is well known throughout Boston, "there 
 came to my iitore, bringing letters of recommenda- 
 tion from a firm in Vermont, as bright and hand- 
 some a boy as I have ever seen. His face was as 
 fair as that of a girl. His whole appearance was 
 captivating. We engaged him as boy in the store. 
 He won favor with all. After a few months I dis- 
 covered that some of his evenings were spent at 
 the theater and other places of amusement. J 
 
108 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 ?U' 
 
 |ii^ 
 
 warned him kindly of the results likely to follow. 
 He confessed it to be unwise and promised to shun 
 them. A few weeks later he again yielded to the 
 enticer and went a step lower in the way of evil. 
 Again I warned him, pleaded with him, prayed for 
 him, and begged him in the name of and for the 
 sake of his sainted mother to resist such tempta- 
 tions, and again told him that the end was death. 
 With many tears he promised to reform. Not 
 long after, he left us, married a young and beauti- 
 ful girl. I then said ' You now have a double 
 motive for right living.' He promised that his life 
 should henceforth be upright. But appetite was 
 strong, and will was weak. His wife had money, 
 and wine could be had in place of cheaper drinks. 
 He went into business, failed, and, step by step, 
 sunk down lower and lower in the scale. He 
 became a drunkard, and in the frenzy of madness 
 toward his wife, who had left him on account of 
 his brutality, he drew a pistol and shot her dead. 
 Three years ago, or thereabouts, this young and 
 beautiful boy, grown into a murderer, finished 
 his course on the gaUows at the state's prison in 
 Vermpnt." "^ 4" 
 
 Ui ! 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 109 
 
 But now let us reason about this matter calmly 
 and rationally. Let ne talk with you, young 
 friends, as though we were sitting together in 
 your parlor and talking over these matters confi- 
 dentially, and will you not deal honestly with 
 yourselves? You know something about these 
 places, I am afraid. At least you know what the 
 staring bill-boards say. Do you not think that 
 there is a peril there to purity of character ? I do 
 not believe that any of you have got so far that 
 you despise purity of character and laugh at femi- 
 nine modesty. I do not believe that any of you 
 have sunk so low that yoa have forgotten how to 
 blush. I pity you if you have. Would you not 
 hang your head in shame if you saw your mother 
 or your sister attired as some of those whom you 
 go to see at the low theater are attired ? " Yet 
 you propose," says Dr. Cuyler, "to pay 3''our 
 money (through the box-office) to somebody else's 
 sister and daughter to violate womanly delicacy 
 for your entertainment. If 'the daughter of He- 
 eodias ' dances to please you, then you are respon- 
 sible for the dance, both in its influence on the 
 dancer and on your own moral sense. Your eyes 
 
110 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 and ears," he goes on to say, " are windows and 
 doors to the heart. What eaters once never goes 
 out. Photographs taken on the memory are not 
 easily effaced or burned up ; they stick there and 
 often become tempters and torraenters for a life- 
 time. ' I 'd give my right hand,' said a Christian 
 to me once, 'if I could rub out the abominable 
 things that I put into my mind when I was a fast 
 young man.' He could not do it ; neither will you 
 be able to efface the lascivious images or the impure 
 words which the stage may photograph on your 
 soul." Let us, I say, be honest with ourselves. 
 Have you ever attended one of these low shows 
 but there has been something about it to pander 
 to lustful desires and appetites ? 
 
 A great deal is said about elevating the tone of 
 the stage. I do not despair of that being done. 
 I sincerely hope that it may be done and that one 
 of these days it may take its place with the acad- 
 emy and the church as one of the teachers of a 
 pure, exalted morality. If we could remove this 
 mighty moral influence from the Devil's clutches, 
 a great stride in the regeneration of the world 
 would be taken. But it does not look as though 
 
 i: 
 
THE ENBMIES OF YOTTTII. 
 
 Ill 
 
 the tendency was in that direction. As I walked 
 out the other day I took especial notice of a huge 
 bill-board which always greets our eyes as we go 
 down town. On that board three plays were ad- 
 vertised. One was called a musical farce and ex- 
 travaganza, if I remember right, and the chief 
 figure which struck the eye upon it was a hide- 
 ously bruised and bloated individual, with a bristly 
 beard, and his head covered with patches of court 
 plaster, and otherwise deformed to the full extent 
 of the bill printer's power. If such an individual 
 presented himself at our doors he would frighten 
 the ladies, and receive a polite invitation from the 
 gentlemen to descend the steps, until he could 
 make himself presentable. The next bil on the 
 same board represented a scene in a parlor, where 
 one man is reeling backwards from the effects of 
 a shot, from a smoking pistol in the hands of 
 another man, while the legend underneath the pic- 
 ture, referring, evidently, to the shooting scene, 
 reads, " Take that, you fool." On this same board 
 is still another placard advertising a dramatization 
 of Peck's Bad Boy, one of the worst books that 
 has been issued during this generation. It is the 
 
 i 
 
=9 
 
 "^. '.\--«iiBl*~ 
 
 iPii 
 
 
 112 
 
 DANOEn SIGNALS. 
 
 quintessence of disrespect of parents, vile sugges- 
 tivcness, and coarsest kind of low wit. I would 
 rather a poison adder should wriggle into my chil- 
 dren's nursery, than that such a book should find 
 a spot in their hearts ; and yet it is the dramatiza- 
 tion of such a book that tliis poster invites all 
 the children to witness. Such is the choice 
 selection of announccmi nts borne by one bill- 
 board on a single day ; and the theaters where 
 these plays are enacted Jo not all belong to the 
 " low " class of which I have been speaking. If 
 such are the apples of Sodom borne on these so- 
 called respectable trees, what sort of fruit do the 
 others bear? 
 
 Another peril of the low theater is its inevitable 
 surroundings. I will not speak of the character of 
 many of the performers, nor of the company you 
 may meet there, but ask you for a moment to think 
 of that rum-shop next door. Did you ever see one 
 of these establishments without its grog-shop? 
 Like the Siamese twins they always go together. 
 Chang and Eng are never separated. If you have 
 too much self-respect to go out between the acts 
 "to see a man" or tr get some "cloves," there is 
 
 %i' 
 
TTIE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 in 
 
 ) sugges- 
 I would 
 my chil- 
 >uld find 
 ramatiza- 
 vites all 
 10 choice 
 one bill- 
 13 where 
 g to the 
 king. If 
 these so- 
 Lit do the 
 
 nevitable 
 iracter of 
 pany you 
 t to think 
 er see one 
 rog-shop ? 
 together, 
 you have 
 I the acts 
 " there is 
 
 the free lunch counter and biir-roora, brigJitly 
 lighted and attractive, standing open, when you 
 come out late at night, tired and thirsty. If a 
 man is known by the company he keeps, is not an 
 institution known in the same way, and is not the 
 low theater always known by the grog-shop that 
 nestles under its shadow ? 
 
 " It is a prevalent hubit with young people who 
 attend the theater," says ane who has written 
 wisely upon this subject, " to remain until a late 
 hour amid the excitements of the plays and then 
 finish off with a midnight lunch, or a wine supper, 
 at some neighboring restaurant. To this practice 
 a young lady of my acquaintance owed her down- 
 fall. Long after sensible people have laid their 
 heads upon their pillows, the frequenters of the 
 theater are apt to be adding a second scene of dis- 
 sipation to the first." This writer puts it very 
 mildly when he says, "It must bo pretty hard 
 work for a Christian to finish up such an even- 
 ing's experience, with an honest prayer for God's 
 blessing. That is indeed a poor business and a 
 poor pleasure on which we cannot with a clear 
 conscience ask our Heavenly Father's approval." 
 
114 
 
 DAKQEB SIGNALS. 
 
 But there is still another peril connected with 
 these low places of amusement, which I would 
 dwell upon for a few minutes. This is the unnat- 
 ural and impossible views of life which these ' 
 theaters present. In this respect the bad book and 
 the bad play exert very much the same influence, 
 except that the play, from its very nature, is more 
 alluring and fascinating. Our lives are very much 
 as are our early dreams of life. If we start with 
 noble ideals the lives will pretty certainly be 
 noble. If the ideals are degraded the lives will 
 pretty certainly be degraded. There is a type of 
 play very popular, just now, which tends to con- 
 fuse all moral distinctions, and make black appear 
 white, and white black; which sets before our 
 young people, as their ideal of manhood, the out- 
 law of the plains. That evil is in the same class 
 as the flashy, blood-and-thunder novel, and is 
 bven more alluring, since it decks out with scenery 
 and paint and action, and places behind the foot- 
 lights, that which the bad book can only represent 
 with cold type and printer's ink. I have fre- 
 quently seen upon our bill-boards, just such shows 
 advertised and they are never long absent from 
 
 mmi 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 115 
 
 ed with 
 [ would 
 3 unnat- 
 ih these ' 
 »ook and 
 ifluence, 
 , is more 
 iry much 
 bart with 
 ainly be 
 ives will 
 V type of 
 a to con- 
 ic appear 
 jfore our 
 , the out- 
 me class 
 I, and is 
 1 scenery 
 the foot- 
 represent 
 have fre- 
 ch shows 
 ent from 
 
 any large city. A friend recently sent me an ac- 
 count of such a show, which was recently wit- 
 nessed in St. Louis by forty thousand people. 
 Such is the kind of Sunday show which is set 
 before the young people of a western city. 
 
 If there is anything that is particularly harmful 
 to the average American boy it is just such repre- 
 sentations of exciting crime. Our boys are high- 
 strung, nervous, excitable, like the rest of our 
 people. It is like bringing a spark to a mass of 
 tow to emblazon our walls with these pictures, 
 and parade our streets with music and painted 
 Indians, and then to go through with the mock- 
 fights and murders and robberies in our places of 
 public amusement. The phlegmatic Dutchman or 
 the stolid Indian might stand such scenes and not 
 be much harmed, but the young American, all 
 nerves and imagination and enthusiasm, to him it 
 is often like the intoxicating cup to see such 
 things. If Buffalo Bill or Jesse James gets a 
 secure lodging-place in these young minds, I see 
 no chance there for the example of Jesus Christ 
 or the words of St. Paul to take root. As well 
 might you sow wheat in a field completely covered 
 
mn 
 
 116 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 with Canada thistles and expect to reap an abun- 
 dant harvest. First root out the thistles, then 
 BOW the wheat. Let us try to pull up the thorns 
 that the good seed may have a chance to grow. 
 It is but following our Lord's example. He drove 
 out the money-changers from the temple, as well 
 as proclaimed in the temple the way of life. He 
 pronounced a woe upon the proud as well as a 
 beatitude upon the meek. 
 
 I will not attempt to describe the highly wrought 
 sensationalism of these plays, but simply give a 
 quiet, evidently truthful newspaper account which 
 describes one of these typical dramas. " The sen- 
 sational play, recounting the deeds of the famous 
 Missouri bandit, Jesse James, drew a large up- 
 stairs audience last night. The play proved to be 
 all that its patrons could desire. They went to 
 see murders, robberies, fights, and other such pleas- 
 ant little pastimes, and they were satisfied to their 
 heart's content. All the strong situations with 
 which the piece abounded, were received with 
 demonstrations of delight." A " strong situation," 
 I suppose, consists in a peculiarly dastardly 
 robbery or an unusually blood-curdling murder. 
 
 41 
 
 mmi 
 
'4:^^^; 
 
 m abun- 
 les, then 
 e thorns 
 to grow. 
 He drove 
 I, as well 
 life. He 
 veil as a 
 
 wrought 
 y give a 
 int which 
 
 The sen- 
 e famous 
 large up- 
 ved to be 
 r went to 
 uch pleas- 
 d to their 
 ions with 
 ived with 
 dtuation," 
 
 dastardly 
 gr murder. 
 
 THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 117 
 
 These horrors have been received with " demon- 
 strations of delight " by New England audiences, 
 by audiences in which were some of our boys and 
 girls, by men and women upon whom have been 
 turned aU their lives the electric light of nineteen 
 centuries of civilization and Christianity. " The 
 play," continues this newspaper account, "con- 
 sists of a series of scenes and incidents in the 
 Hves of Jesse and Frank James. Tlie first repre- 
 sents their happy home [the happy home, I would 
 have you notice, of thieves and murderers and 
 blacklegs] ; the second, the plains of Kansas ; the 
 third, a horse race and a robbery ; the fourth, the 
 outlaws on the Missouri river, introducing an en- 
 counter between the outlaws and the sheriflf ; and 
 the fifth, the home of Jesse James and his assas- 
 sination by the Fords." Though the James Broth- 
 ers are passing into deserved oblivion, the type of 
 character which they represent is still multiplied 
 by these catch-penny shows. 
 
 I do not believe that a civilized community ever 
 suffered from an exhibition of more outrageous 
 crime. We reprobate and loathe the gladiatorial 
 shows in which the old Romans delighted, but 
 
118 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 I \- 
 
 there was some excuse for those shows. With all 
 their cruelty they were exhibitions of muscular 
 strerigtb and physical endurance. These shows 
 are exhibitions of little besides perfidy and crime. 
 The only redeeming feature about them is the 
 horses, which, I have no doubt, could they speak, 
 would tell us they were ashamed of the company 
 they keep. Napoleon was not a man of strict mor- 
 als ; he did not govern his people upon Puritanic 
 models, by any means, but, fronr what I know of 
 his code of laws, I do not believe he would have 
 allowed any such plays within the borders of his 
 land. He had had a demonstration of the evils of 
 such plays in the great revolution which preceded 
 his accession to power. Says Edmund Burke, 
 writing of the French Revolution: "While 
 courts of justice were thrust out by Jacobin tri- 
 bunals, and silent churches were only funeral 
 monuments of departed religion, when Paris was 
 like a den of outlaws, a lewd tavern for revel and 
 debaucheries, there were in that city no fewer 
 than twenty-eight theaters, crowded night after 
 night. From the theater at night back to butch- 
 ery, blasphemy, and debauchery in the day-time. 
 
 aiMi 
 
m i JiB - u j, jyjn» i j i , i j I _ivtffl i nVMt-M»..iM ' ^utw^ivmM.ty »'.. ~ .«. 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 119 
 
 With all 
 muscular 
 sse shows 
 ,nd crime, 
 im is the 
 ley speak, 
 I company 
 itrict mor- 
 
 Puritanic 
 I know of 
 ould have 
 lers of his 
 he evils of 
 I preceded 
 nd Burke, 
 " While 
 icobin tri- 
 ly funeral 
 
 Paris was 
 f revel and 
 
 no fewer 
 aight after 
 i to butch- 
 3 day-time. 
 
 IVom butchery, blasphemy, and debaucliery in 
 the day-time back to the theater at night." In 
 our orderly cities we allow what Napoleon Bon- 
 aparte would not allow, we allow one of the 
 agencies which has always been hand and glove 
 with rapine and anarchy. Whatever may be the 
 pretext of these plays, or the eloquent denun- 
 ciations of crime which are sometimes out into 
 the mouths of the despairing ouUaw just as he 
 dies, their real effect is to make the cut-throat 
 not the villain of the plot, but the hero. What- 
 ever may be the pretence, his deeds in reality 
 are never held up for detestation and scorn. Ac- 
 cording to these plays it is a brave thing to rob 
 an unprotected stage-coach I It is a r.oble deed 
 to make families penniless, and wives widows, and 
 children orphans, if it is only done out-doors on 
 the Kansas plains. The repi-esentation of that 
 which ought to send the perpetrators to the gal- 
 lows is received with demonstrations of delight 
 by an American audience. ^' I ' i 
 
 Did you know, my young friends, that the Devil 
 has always been at work in this way from the 
 time Eve ate the apple, trying to prove that evil 
 
w^ 
 
 m 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 is good and good is evil ? " It will not hurt you," 
 he said to the mother of the race. " It is good. 
 It -.vill make you wise ; that is the reason God is 
 afraid to have you eat it." With Eve's sons and 
 daughters, ever since, he has been pursuing the 
 same line of argument, and I believe he never 
 found a more useful agent to do his bidding than 
 ^when he sent out these theatrical troupes to make 
 robbery, and murder, and arson appear brave and 
 attractive ; and slow, plodding virtue to appear 
 correspondingly tamp and uncttractive. Suppose 
 we should wake up some morning to find all the 
 ordinary distinctions which nature makes between 
 the harmful and the harmless blotted out. Here is 
 a red-hot fire of coals, but it does not look like a 
 fire, it looks like a bed of roses, so you take a hand- 
 ful and put them in ytur bosom. Here is a serpent 
 with a deadly fang, but it does not look like a ser- 
 pent, it looks like a beautiful singing bird, which 
 we carry home as a plaything for our children. It 
 is a bitter, zero day, but it does not look or feel so, 
 and, tempted by the false idea that it is a balmy, 
 June-like day, we venture out, unprotected, and 
 meet death in the frosty air. Would it be the 
 
THE ENEMIES OF TOUTH. 
 
 121 
 
 a art you," 
 t is good, 
 on God is 
 ) sons and 
 •suing tho 
 
 he never 
 [ding than 
 3S to make 
 
 brave and 
 
 to appear- 
 Suppose 
 and all the 
 es between 
 Lit. Here is 
 look like a 
 ike a hand- 
 is a serpent 
 I like a ser- 
 bird, which 
 lildren. It 
 k or feel so, 
 
 is a balmy, 
 )tected, and 
 d it be the 
 
 sign of a wise, benevolent Providence thus to con- 
 fuse natural objects and signs of danger and make 
 the evil in the world appear good and the good 
 evil ? Nay, would it not be a proof that a malev- 
 olent deity ruled the world? God never thus 
 treats" us. Fire burns and we always know that 
 it will burn ; deadly serpents sting and we know 
 they will sting. Zero weather freezes and we 
 know it will always and everywhere freeze. God 
 never makes a bed of coals look like a bed of 
 roses, or a rattlesnake look like a humming bird. 
 But that is just what these miserable dramas of 
 successful villainy too often accomplish, by mak- 
 ing a murderer into a hero, and a thief into a 
 "bandit king." These plays, too, drag into the 
 full glow of the calcium light that which God in- 
 tended to stifle in the low, dark dens of vice, or to 
 hide in the fastnesses of the Western woods. 
 
 God has permitted evil in the world, but he has 
 compelled it for the most part to hide its head. It 
 goes abroad in the night not in the day-time. It 
 recruits its forces in dark cellars. It has its hid- 
 ing place in the outlaw's cave, where the light of 
 the sun never pierces, and, if we cannot extirpate 
 6 
 
■BPia-i.^ 
 
 122 
 
 DANGEB SIGNALS. 
 
 it, we should not parade it in the brightness of 
 day. One great demoralizer of our times is this 
 parade of evil. The latest murder is too often 
 displayed in head lines, the latest deed of benevo- 
 lence is found in nonpareil type at the foot of the 
 column. The last scandal is the talk at every 
 breakfast-table, the latest proof that Christ's king- 
 dom is extending over all the world is never men- 
 tioned. These plays of which I am speaking are 
 only exaggerated signs of this tendency of our 
 times, to drag out into the light the vicious and 
 degrading. If we cannot reform the villain," let 
 us at least compel him to hide away and not go 
 about dressed in better clothes than honest folks 
 can wear. A murderer's life is not happ^'. 'A 
 robber's home is not an earthly paradise, and it 
 never can be until God and Satan change places. 
 Satan would be very glad to have you think so. 
 He is always trying to make it out so. Don't 
 believe him, young people. He tells the young 
 tippler tljere is happiness in the wine cup. Ten 
 thousand drunkards give the lie to his words. He 
 makes the young girl think that a life bordering 
 on the indelicate and the fast is most pleasant. 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 128 
 
 ightness of 
 mes is this 
 3 too often 
 of benevo- 
 foot of the 
 ik at every 
 hrist's king- 
 never men- 
 peaking are 
 ency of our 
 vicious and 
 ) villain, let 
 and not go 
 honest folks 
 i happy, 
 adise, and it 
 lange places, 
 '^ou think so. 
 ,t so. Don't 
 Is the young 
 le cup. Ten 
 s words. He 
 ife bordering 
 lost pleasant. 
 
 Ten thousand old ball-room flirts know better. 
 He makes the boy believe that the fast young man 
 about town has the best time. Ten thousand 
 debauchees, worn out with lust before they are 
 fort} know, now, hQw they were deceived in 
 believing this. Vice does not contribute to the 
 enjoyment of life. Its place is not in a pleasant 
 parlor, with a happy wife and children, and with 
 pious mottoes over the fireplace. Wickedness 
 tends directly to rags, filth, squalor, misery, and 
 despair. « 
 
 If you really want to see the outcome of vil- 
 lainy do not look to see it represented by a Jesse 
 J.nmes troupe or expect to sec it depicted in their 
 gaudy posters. Go to the upper end of North 
 street in Boston or the slums of New York. 
 There is where you see the real results of disobe- 
 dience to the laws of God and man. In those rum- 
 soaked, blear-eyed, broken-down men; in those 
 brazen-faced, blasphemous women ; in those ragged, 
 dirty, half-naked children ; iu those filthy alleys ; in 
 those dilapidated tenements; in those windows 
 stuffed with hats and bundles of rags to keep out 
 the winter cold and snow ; in them you will find ' 
 
^ 
 
 124 
 
 DANGER 8IOKALS. 
 
 the true picture of the outcome of evil, and it is 
 an outrage upon the morals of any community to 
 paint it otherwise. Hogarth deserves the thanks 
 of the Christian world for painting the steps in a 
 drunkard's life as he did ; for showing the gradual 
 descent from respectahility to loathsome and exe- 
 crable debauchery. If he had gone the other way 
 and represented a rake's progress as pleasant and 
 respectable, and on the whole quite enjoyable, he 
 ■would deserve the sternest rebuke of every moral- 
 ist, but no more would he deserve it, than do 
 those actors who make the outlaw into the gentle- 
 man, and surround the thief with the blessings 
 which only an honest life can bring. 
 
 My young friends, I pray that none of your 
 lives ma- be wrecked on this rock which I have 
 pointed out. I feel indeed that you are in danger 
 of being led to call evil good and good evil, if 
 you look upon these false and silly representations. 
 Have nothing to do with them. In spite of you, 
 if you witness them, they will lower your moral 
 tone and corrupt the springs of your life. No 
 true manhood ever grew out of a boyhood ab- 
 sorbed in such scenes of vice and crime. Christ 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 125 
 
 il, and it is 
 mrauuity to 
 the thanks 
 le steps in a 
 the gradual 
 me and exe- 
 le other way 
 [)lea8ant and 
 jnjoyable, he 
 every moral- 
 it, than do 
 ;o the gentle- 
 the blessings 
 
 lone of your 
 which I have 
 are in danger 
 good evil, if 
 presentations. 
 I spite of you, 
 jr your moral 
 ^our life. No 
 I boyhood ab- 
 crime. Christ 
 
 will never take np his abode in company with 
 thieves and cut-throats. If you have been har- 
 boring one of these villains of late in your imugi- 
 nation, turn him out, I pray you, before he makes 
 you in spirit like himpelf. Hear the end of the 
 woe against those who call evil good and good 
 evil, for just this blotting out of moral distinctions 
 is what these plays accomplish. "Therefore as 
 the fire burneth up the stubble and the flame 
 consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rot- 
 tenness and their blossom shall go up as dust." 
 So, I fear, will it be with you, if you give place in 
 your heart to these demons who are trying to 
 crowd their way in ; your root of good principle 
 will be as rottenness, and the blossom of your 
 future promise will go up as dust. Then beware 
 of the low, play-house door. " Avoid it, pass not 
 by it, turn from it, and pass on," 
 
 ■C-o. 
 
I; , 
 
 ll 
 
 If 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GAMBLING DEN. 
 
 THB LITTLK HOR8K9 OF INTEBLAKKN. BA9E-BALL POOI^ 
 
 Booms. Fbom the Prize Candy Bag to the Rou- 
 
 LETTB TABLE. THE BEANS IN A BOTrLE. THE 
 
 Soap Lottery. What the Boston Merchants 
 
 HAVE to say. THE BUTCHER BIRD OF THE COM- 
 MUNITY, now A MILLION DOLLA.W A YEAR CHANGE 
 HANDS. REVELATIONS OF AN OlD OAMBLEB. TH« 
 GAMBLER'S PREVAILING TRAm. CUPIDITY AND 
 LAZINESS. MIDAS' EARS. GOOD THINGS ALWAYS 
 
 COST. The Devil's Private Way. 
 Whoever visits Interlaken goes, of course, 
 to the Kursaal, which is one of the chief attrac 
 tions of the place. Here are beautiful gardens 
 and floNving fountains, placid little lakes, and 
 beds of swceUcented flowers, while, off m the 
 distance, towers, ever, the white-veiled Jungfrau 
 Here in the garden are little parties, sitting about 
 small tables, eating and drinking and smoking 
 and chatting, but the center of attraction i. the 
 corner where the petiU cheveam are racing about 
 
-MA.-MoaM 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 m 
 
 -Ball Pooi/- 
 to the rou- 
 JorrLK. Thk 
 Merchants 
 df the com- 
 
 iTEAB CHANQB 
 miBLEB. THJS 
 DPIDITY AND 
 IING8 ALWAYS 
 
 , of course, 
 chief attrac- 
 ;iful gardens 
 3 lakes, and 
 e, off in the 
 ed Jungfrau. 
 sitting about 
 and smoking 
 raction i"8 the 
 1 racing about 
 
 their miniature ring. Placards on the walls tell 
 you to go and see the " little horses," and when 
 you come to them, you find a row of little silver 
 steeds on a circular board which the o^'rc sets 
 in motion, while an eager crowd all ab>."* Lira, 
 young men and women, sedate fathers nd 
 matrons, grandfathers and grandmothers even, 
 are betting their francs on which of those little 
 silver images will spin the furthest on the smooth 
 board. 
 
 I think that scene is typical of gambling opera- 
 tions the world over. The little horses are always 
 racing, and racing away with the money of the 
 victims. The little horses are always under the 
 control of the gambler. He sets them spinning, 
 or stops them at his pleasure. Whoever loses, it 
 is never the gambler behind the horses. Who- 
 ever wins, it is sure to be, in the long run, the 
 gambler behind the horses. To tell you of some 
 of these little horses who are likely to run off 
 with your money, and good name, and good prin- 
 ciples, is my purpose in this chapter. You need 
 not go to the Kursaal of Interlaken to find them. 
 They are racing about in every city, and I fear 
 
128 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 that on them some of you have already taken 
 your first ride in the direction of the bottomless 
 pit. A short time since there were over forty 
 well-known faro houses in Boston, whose names 
 have been given in one of our daily papers, where 
 the proprietors and the trustees and the owners 
 of the buildings were known. Everybody that 
 looked into the matter knew where they were 
 except the city authorities, whose duty it was to 
 shut them up. 
 
 But I am hot so much afraid of these notorious 
 gambling dens as I am of the many pool-rooms, 
 and poker-rooms, and billiard saloons, where the 
 little horses are always racing, and tempting you 
 to a ride to death with them. I am told that in 
 three pool-rooms of Boston in the year 1884, at 
 least one million dollars changed hands, mostly 
 during the base-ball season. Do you know what 
 that means? It does not mean that our capital- 
 ists, our solid men of business, who have money 
 to spare, risk and lose their money on the all- 
 engrossing question, whether the Bostons will 
 beat the Providence nine or not, or whether Gal- 
 vin will make a run, or Burdock will score on t^e 
 
 
idy taken 
 )ottomles8 
 )ver forty 
 Dse names 
 era, 'vhere 
 he owners 
 body that 
 they were 
 r it was to 
 
 3 notorious 
 lool-rooms, 
 where the 
 npting you 
 )ld that in 
 ar 1884, at 
 ids, mostly 
 know what 
 our capital- 
 lave money 
 on the all- 
 ostons will 
 whether Gal- 
 score on t'le 
 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 129 
 
 seventh inning of the league game. It would be 
 bad enough if such men, who had money to risk, 
 lost it ; but these base-ball pool-rooms mean that 
 our clerks and school boys and artisans, who have 
 no money to spare, are taking losing rides on these 
 little silver horses. Tlie great bulk of that mil- 
 lion dollars, lost last year, came from just this 
 class. You see in the rum-shop virindows this pla- 
 card in election times : " Election returns received 
 here every hour " ; and when the base-ball season 
 commences, we see in those same windows : " Base- 
 ball returns received here after each inning." 
 Look out for those places, boys 1 The little silver 
 horses are waiting in there to give you a swift 
 ride to destruction. It is a shame that our 
 national game, about which there is so much that 
 is truly admirable in skill and athletic exercise, 
 should be prostituted to fill a gambler's till. 
 
 Then there are lotteries in all forms and shapes. 
 I wish I might open them to your view in their 
 real character, and write over the door of every 
 one of them : " Beware, beware ! The little horses 
 within here seem to be of silver, but it is silver 
 wrung in ten cent pieces from the pockets of the 
 6* 
 
180 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 poor man, and every one that takes a ride on them 
 will be nearer the gates of destruction than when 
 he started." Says one of the Judges of the 
 supreme court of Kentucky, as quoted by Anthony 
 Comstock : " Lottery gambling is the worst spe- 
 cies of gaming, because it brings adroitness, cun- 
 ning, experience, and skill, to contend against 
 ignorance, folly, distress, and desperation. Every 
 new loss is an inducement to a new adventure ; 
 and, filled with vain hope of recovering what is 
 lost, the unthinking victim is led on, from step to 
 step, till he finds it impossible to regain his 
 ground, and he gradually sinks into a miserable 
 outcast, or, by a bold and still more guilty effort, 
 plunges at once into that gulf where he hopes for 
 protection from the stings of conscience, a refuge 
 from the reproaches of the world, and oblivion 
 from existence." ^ : ^. 
 
 It woul 1 b<! amusing, were it not so sad, to 
 observe iii' n'^enuity of the Devil in offering 
 our young , •;)1>j a ride on one of the little silver 
 horses of chance. Here is that noble institution, 
 the church fair. Of course it is all right, the 
 boy or girl tliinks, to attend a church fair, and 
 
on tliem 
 m when 
 
 of the 
 \nthony 
 )r3t spe- 
 eds, cuii- 
 
 against 
 . Every 
 venture ; 
 r what is 
 m step to 
 egain his 
 miserable 
 ,lty effort, 
 hopes for 
 ), a refuge 
 1 oblivion 
 
 so sad, to 
 n offering 
 little silver 
 institution, 
 right, the 
 h fair, and 
 
 
 THIS ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 181 
 
 here in the fair is a guess-cake, or a grab-bag, or 
 Pandora's box, or Fortune's well, or some chance 
 to invest a dime or a quarter, with the chance of 
 drawing an unknown prize. If there is anything 
 to be reprobated or despised, it is just this species 
 of gambling. 
 
 We do not wonder when we see the gambler's 
 table and the rum-shop side by side. They are 
 congenial companions. But when the gambler's 
 tools and methods are brought into the house of 
 God for the ostensible purpose of sui)porting 
 public worship, or some charitable institution, it is 
 time for every Christian man to repeat his Mas- 
 ter's words : " My house shall be called the house 
 of prayer : but ye have made it a den of thieves." 
 The church or the charity which cannot live with- 
 out grab-bags and guess-cakes, had a thousand 
 times better die. 
 
 But the Evil One uses still subtler means than 
 the church fair, to incite the love for gaming. 
 Here is the little five-year-old, who looks with 
 longing eyes at the tempting candy, or toothsome 
 pop-corn in the shop window. He begs a couple 
 of pennies of papa or mamma, and makes his first 
 
 
 
s — 
 
 132 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 investment in a prize candy bag, or pop-corn pack- 
 age. He takes hia first ride on the silver horse. 
 The notion is first started in his little head, that 
 perhaps he can get something for nothing, which 
 is the idea at the root of all gambling. 
 
 Cleanliness is next to godliness, we are told, 
 and soap is essential to cleanliness, and yet, even 
 V ith this most unpromising article, the gambler 
 found a way, a year or two ago, to make money. 
 
 "The plan is," says Mr. Comstock, in his 
 "Traps for the Young"; "in order to induce 
 people to buy their soap, to take advantage of the 
 gambling propensities of the day, and to adver- 
 tise a lottery or game of chance in connection 
 with the soap business. They wrap each cake of 
 soap with a printed wrapper. For twenty wrap- 
 pers thus brought back, they trade a ticket bear- 
 ing a number, and this number represents a share 
 or interest in a distribution of presents at some 
 future date. Practically these schemes are sops 
 thrown to servant girls to encourage extravagance 
 and dishonesty. There are wastes and peculations 
 enough in the kitchen without offering ' presents,' 
 'rewards,' or 'prizes' iu this line. There are 
 
 ':iMlM«U»'>.->«ttAtw-. 
 
 timw'* i C Mk**»» 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTII. 
 
 133 
 
 •n pack- 
 ir horse, 
 ad, that 
 J, which 
 
 ire told, 
 et, even 
 gamhler 
 money. 
 :, in his 
 ) induce 
 se of the 
 to adver- 
 )nnectiou 
 h cake of 
 nty wrap- 
 sket bear- 
 its a share 
 ) at some 
 s are sops 
 iravagance 
 )eculation8 
 ' pr<j8ent8,' 
 There are 
 
 enough supplies passed out to poor relations to 
 satisfy every housekeeper, as it is, and there is no 
 necessity for chromos or prizes in this department. 
 These devices practically say to Biddy, 'The 
 more soap used, wasted, or otherwise disposed of, 
 of this kind, the more tickets in the distribution.' 
 Do thinking men and women watit a lottery 
 started in their kitchen ? " There is another 
 means of whipping the Devil around the stump, 
 resorted to very frequently, but still, under the 
 thin disguise of an exercise of judgment, I can 
 see one of the little horses waitinf^ for victims who 
 shall mount and ride. Some merchant with an 
 unsalable stock will put, perhaps, a bottle of 
 beans in his window, and give to any one, who 
 buys a suit of his clothes or a pound of his tea or 
 coffee, a prize, if he guesses the right number of 
 beans. As this affords very little opjiortunity for 
 judgment, but is purely a matter of guess work, 
 it is nothing more nor less than a disguised lottery. 
 I only speak of these various cheats to remind 
 you that the cloven foot may lurk under very 
 innocent looking forms, but that the spirit of the 
 thing, from the baby's prize candy package to the 
 
134 
 
 DAKOEB SIGNALS. 
 
 
 gambling hell of Monaco, is always the same. But 
 I have not, as you know, simply my own wisdom 
 or experience to give you in this matter. A score 
 of Boston merchants have placed this evil high 
 up in the list of your enemies. One of them, 
 whom I well know, in whose heart is a warm spot 
 for young men, writes: "Among the dangerous 
 places to be avoided is the billiard table. I knew 
 a young man, some years since doing business in 
 Boston, whose prospects were as briglit as those of 
 any young man I ever saw, whose first step in t' 3 
 downward path was billiard playing. I used to see 
 him frequently at the door of the billiard stUoon. 
 Soon he neglected his business, and prosperous 
 business soon left him, he contracted other bad 
 habits, failed, and died, a miserable wreck, before 
 he was forty years old. To be avoided is the 
 smoking car, and p ving cards in the cars, as well 
 as elsewhere. No careful merchant would employ 
 a young man who has such habits." 
 
 Says another : " Poker is a fascinating game 
 and many a young man quiets conscience by mak- 
 ing the limit one cent or half a dime, but the love 
 for the game continues, uo matter how small the 
 
 »T . 
 
 .<»faawta»Mt*MW<w.»»C'iii .'n i mm miuwmv m im t t tii 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 
 me. But 
 J wisdom 
 A score 
 evil high 
 of them, 
 ravm spot 
 langerous 
 I knew 
 usiness in 
 IS those of 
 itep in t^ 3 
 used to see 
 rd saloon, 
 prosperous 
 other bad 
 eck, before 
 ied is the 
 ars, as well 
 old employ 
 
 iting game 
 ice by raak- 
 )ut the love 
 w small the 
 
 sk." 
 
 risK. ■ Another prominent merchant writes you : 
 " The desire for the excitement and possible gains 
 of the gambling saloon is a very great danger, 
 and a most painful personal experience with a 
 young man, formerly in the employ of the firm of 
 which I am a member, prompts me to suggest a 
 temptation which I fear is not appreciated and 
 spoken against as it should be. I refer to the 
 almost universal pastime of card-playing as prac- 
 ticed in the smoking-cars, both on long and short 
 trains. As you are aware, thousands of young 
 men use these trains in coming to and going from 
 the city every day. The smoking-car is furnished 
 with card-tables, and actual gambling is not an 
 unheard-of experience. The young man to whom 
 I have referred came into our employ from a 
 Christian home, and had our confidence in a large 
 degree. He boarded with his parents seven miles 
 out of the city. After a time we noticed a change, 
 and later it proved that he had been stealing, had 
 then taken nearly a thousand dollars. His own 
 explanation was that the desire for gambling was 
 developed in the smoking-car and from that he 
 went to the saloon and became a thief that he 
 
186 
 
 DAKOER SIGNALS. 
 
 ■,ii 
 
 i 
 
 11 
 
 Hi 
 
 Fi 1 
 
 ?'U 
 
 might indulge the passion which had grown from 
 such small beginnings." 
 
 Another of your friends sends you this terse 
 message : " Gambling, an inordinate desire to 
 be rich, lotteries, pool-rooms, stocks, and other 
 speculations, are fatal fascinations. The example 
 of a very few successful speculators has lured 
 hundreds of thousands to disgrace and ruin." 
 Another large merchant for whom, very likely, 
 some of you may work, writes : " I regard pool- 
 rooms as most dangerous to the young, and have 
 had to fight them on account of their influence 
 on young men, sf^rae of them mere boys, in ray 
 own employ. There is a fascination about games 
 of chance, hard to account for by those who have 
 no taste for such things, and their influence is 
 most pernicious." I will quote to you the wise 
 words of only one more of your friends in this 
 connection. " In these days of money kings and 
 fabulous riches, young men become discontented 
 with the slow way of getting a competence, and 
 their discontent often develops into a mania for 
 lottery tickets. I have known young men, strug- 
 gling in business, with chances of success waiting 
 
own from 
 
 this terse 
 desire to 
 and other 
 le example 
 has lured 
 aud ruin." 
 ery likely, 
 Bgard pool- ' 
 g, and have 
 r influence 
 )oys, in my 
 ibout games 
 33 who have 
 influence is 
 )U the wise 
 snds in this 
 y kings and 
 iiscontented 
 petence, and 
 a mania for 
 [ men, strug- 
 jcess waiting 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTU. 
 
 187 
 
 on close application, who have become unsettled 
 by this feverish anxiety for a sudden impetus. 
 They have lived on expectation from week to 
 week, until ' unsuccessful in business,' is written 
 over their doors." 
 
 And now, as plainly as I can, let me place 
 before you my special reasons for waving this 
 danger signal. In the first place, to put the mat- 
 ter Upon the k vv^est grounds, you are sure to be 
 fleeced, if you have any dealings with the profes- 
 sionp.l gambler. The fly, stepping daintily into 
 the spider's web, has just as much chance of 
 coming out unhurt, as you have, when you enter 
 the gambling den. The lamb, venturing into the 
 lion's jungle, is as safe as you are, when you open 
 the door of the pool-room. The lion and the 
 lamb may lie down peacefully together, but, it is 
 a very old witticism that tells us which will 
 occupy the interior apartment. There is a very 
 savage bird that is not uncommon hereabout in 
 winter, called the shriek or butcher bird. It 
 pounces upon little, unoffending members of the 
 feathered tribe, scares the canaries behind our 
 windows, devours all the victims it can, and is 
 
188 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 .1 
 
 said to spit tlio rest upon the spike of some thorn 
 tree. I do not know any bird of the air that the 
 professional gambler so much resembles, as the 
 butcher bird. He dashes even into the family 
 circle, as the shriek dashes at the glass to secure 
 the canary. Is it best then for the other birds to 
 enter his very nest, and invite him to strike his 
 talons into them? I do not say that you may 
 never win a dollar in a pool-room, or a prize in a 
 lottery. But I do say, that it is even worse for 
 you if you win, than if you lose. I should pray 
 that if you ever went into the gambler's den, you 
 might lose every time. It is better to lose a few 
 feathers, if that will show you the true nature of 
 your enemy, than to be lured on until he can 
 drive his claws into your heart. 
 
 An old gambler, wlio signs himself C. D. in the 
 Boston papers, and for whose identity the gamb- 
 ling fraternity of Boston have offered to give one 
 thousand dollars, says, virtually, that he has been 
 through it all, has been a recognized leader among 
 the gamblers, and he knows that there is no honor 
 among this class of thieves. They will not hesi- 
 tate to swindle any one whom they can swindle 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 189 
 
 le thorn 
 that the 
 , as the 
 ! family 
 
 secure 
 hinls to 
 ^rikc his 
 row may 
 rize in a 
 ^orse for 
 uld pray 
 den, you 
 030 a few 
 nature of 
 
 1 he can 
 
 D. in the 
 he gamb- 
 > give one 
 has been 
 ler among 
 I no honor 
 not hesi- 
 ,n swindle 
 
 safely. He says that in each of two pool-rooms 
 one thousand one dollar base-ball combination 
 pt)ol tickets are sold everi/ day of the base-ball 
 season. Beside this the manager has control ot 
 the telephone and solicits bets of two dollars and 
 fifty cents each on the possibility of a score being 
 made in each inning as played. A, for instance, 
 bets two dollars and fifty cents that no score will 
 be made in the first inning of the Boston and 
 Providence game. B accepts the bet, and they de- 
 posit five dollars in the hands of the management, 
 who, for their commission hold back fifty cents. 
 Their profits from these commissions alone average 
 fifty or seventy five dollars per day. Moreover, 
 having control of the telephone, they can learu 
 before their victims the results of each inning, 
 thus putting their confederates up to bet always 
 on the winning side. Has the fly any more chance 
 in the spider's house than you have in tjie gamb- 
 ler's house ? We can form some estimate of the 
 number of victims of this evil when we remember 
 what Mr. Conistock tells us, that in one office of 
 the Louisiana lottery in New York City, which 
 hm been advertised in many papers, calliug them- 
 
140 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 selves resi-ectablo, throughout the country, the 
 average receipts for twenty days prior to a raid 
 which ho made upon them, were five thousand 
 one hundred and seventy-six dollars per day by 
 actual count, while tlio average daily orders and 
 letters received were one thousand seven hundred 
 and fifty. " I saw, at one time,"' he says, "deliv- 
 ered to one clerk, from this office, at tlie New 
 York post-oflice, over five hundred and fifty reg- 
 istered letters. The annual income of this com- 
 pany alone, according to their own showing is 
 four million dollars." 
 
 How many little birds killed and spitted by this 
 detestable shriek do these thousands of letters indi- 
 cate ? But I would put this matter upon higher 
 ground. If it was only a matter of your losing 
 a few dollars or a few hundred dollars it would 
 not be worth while perhaps to take the time to 
 utter this warning. But ah I character is involved 
 in this loss. You can win back the money you 
 lose by persistent toil, or fortunate business invest- 
 ments, perhaps, but you cannot win back the 
 character you lose so easily. 
 
 Character is a plant of slow growth, and he 
 
■yjwB » jW! " m^ 
 
 T 
 
 and he 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 141 
 
 who hacks at this tree destroys what years cannot 
 replace. Says the reformed gambler, whom I 
 have before quoted: "Gambling, being illegiti- 
 mate, and ostracized by society, ii only adopted 
 as a business by men dead to a moral sense of 
 right and wrong. A careful analysis of my own 
 case and that of my colleagues has confirmed me 
 in the belief that the two chief components 
 which go to make up the profeBsional gambler are 
 cupidity and laziness." These also, I believe, are 
 the motives which lead the foolish flies to venture 
 within the gambler's web, — cupidity and laziness. 
 A desire to get something for nothing, a desire 
 for an easy life, for a soft cushion, for a sinecure 
 office, for a fat place, with little work about it. 
 This is the demoralizing spirit which honeycombs 
 character, which eats the pith out of every manly 
 life, which fills the policy rooms, and lines the 
 pockets of the gambler. How many of our young 
 men are drifting about from place to pla y look- 
 ing for the easy spot ; dissatisfied wita this, 
 because the work is hard, and with that, because 
 the hours are long, and with the other place 
 because the pay is small, unwilling to do their 
 
w* 
 
 142 
 
 DANGER SIGKAL8. 
 
 honest best because of some fancied grievance of 
 work or pay ; unwilling to do a stroke of work 
 that they can live without doing, always waiting, 
 like Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up, that 
 shall furnish a snug berth and demand no equiva- 
 lent of muscle or skill or brain. That is the 
 gambler's s drit, whether you ever risked a cent 
 or handled a cue in your life. That is the 
 spirit which demoralizes and degrades, and opens 
 the door at last of every gambling hell. Cupidity 
 and laziness are the two elements of the gam- 
 bler's character. Sweep them away, and our 
 gambling dens would be closed to-morrow. 
 Beware of tliem both. They are soul poisoners. 
 Whenever you are tempted to wish for money 
 without wurkinjr for it, think of the story of 
 Midas. That was just what he desired, you 
 know, tnd the gods granted his request, and 
 everything that he touched turned into gold. But 
 he found this exceedingly inconvenient, for even 
 his food turned into the bright, yellow metal, and 
 he could not eat it. Miilis, moreover, had the 
 ears of an ass given him by the gods. He con- 
 trived to conceal them under his Phrygian cap for 
 
 ' M * ' "- > i. ^ H-'^ i .. ' 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 143 
 
 3vance of 
 of work 
 1 waiting, 
 I up, that 
 .0 equiva- 
 at is the 
 ed a cent 
 at is the 
 ind opens 
 Cupidity 
 the gam- 
 and our 
 ;o-morrow. 
 poisoners. 
 For money 
 3 story of 
 sired, you 
 ^uest, and 
 gold. But 
 t, for even 
 metal, and 
 3r, had the 
 1. He con- 
 ;ian cap for 
 
 a time, but the servant who cut his hair discovered 
 them. The secret so much troubled him, for he 
 could confide it to no human being, that he dug a 
 hole in the ground and whispered into it, " King 
 Midas has ass's ears." He then filled up the hole 
 and felt relieved, for he thought the secret was 
 buried. But on the same spot a reed grew which, 
 as it waved in the wind, whispered his secret, 
 " King Midas has ass's ears," and so betrayed him 
 again. Look close enough and you will find that 
 all chose who seek for money without working for 
 it have the same deformity. Scan the crowds in 
 the gambling den. They are all alike in this 
 respect. They all have ass's ears. No Plirygian 
 cap can conceal them. Their laziness, too, is as 
 great as their cupidity. "The down-right lazy 
 man," says Geikie, " is commonly as mean as he is 
 shiftless, willing to take without giving any equiv- 
 alent ; if he must work he does as little as posb^"- 
 ble ; he talks longer about doing, than it takes 
 others to act. His life might be spent in the 
 circumlocution office, for it is a long- study of 
 ' how not to do it.' As Gibbon puts it, ' He well 
 remembers, he has a salary to receive and only 
 
 -^^''^''t^fflB^r"" 
 
II 
 
 i i 
 
 J ' 
 
 i«i 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 forgets that he has a duty to perform.' " " In 
 the way of writing," says Carlyle, "no great thing 
 was ever or will ever be done with ease, but with 
 difficulty. Is it with ease that a man shall do hit 
 best in any shape ? Not so. Goethe tells us he 
 ' had nothing sent him in his sleep, no page of his 
 but he know well where it came from.' " 
 
 Would that I could impress upon you, my 
 young friends, this one truth : " Good things 
 always cost.!' For if, in all the fullness of its 
 meaning, this one thing could be made plain, 
 no one of you would ever darken the door of a 
 gambling saloon again. " Good things always cost." 
 I do not mean to say that money was never won 
 at a roulette table or from a faro bank or a lottery 
 wheel. It has been thus won, but money thus 
 won was never a good thing. I do not mean to 
 pay that politicjil honor was never bestowed where 
 it was not deserved or earned. It has been thus 
 bestowed, but such honor was never a good thing. 
 " Great men are hard-working men," it has been 
 well said. "Genius means a great capacity for 
 work. Genius will work. The m§n eminent iu 
 all the noble walks of life have been, and are now, 
 
 ' I ; 
 
 'I 
 
1.'" "In 
 reat thing 
 but with 
 ball do hia 
 3II8 us he 
 )age of his 
 
 L you, my 
 od things 
 less of its 
 lade plain, 
 door of a 
 ways cost." 
 never won 
 Df a lottery 
 Qoney thus 
 3t mean to 
 Dwed where 
 8 been thus 
 good thing, 
 it has been 
 japacity for 
 eminent in 
 ind are now, 
 
 THE ENEMiaS OF YOUTH. 
 
 145 
 
 great workers. They are trained to endure, and, 
 when occasion requires, can, and do, labor tremen- 
 dously. Are you dazzled by the lives of generals, 
 senators, millionaires, or great men of letters? 
 Consider the cross,^ ere looking at the crown. It 
 is a grand thing to win the crown. Try for it. 
 Try with all the manhood there is in you. You 
 are worth little if you do not make the trial. Let 
 no word of mine discourage you. But try no 
 short cuts. Count the cost and then do valiant 
 battle. Determine to win all these good things but 
 win them legitimately." This weakening of the 
 moral fibre resulting from cupidity and laziness, 
 fostered by the gambling den, works out its legit- 
 imate results in defalcation, forgery, embezzle- 
 ment. The papers are full of stories of dreadful 
 falls from high places. Our ears are stunned and 
 our hearts grow sick, but it is the gambling spirit 
 of the age that will account for every one of them. 
 "Pool-rooms are the most demoralizing of all 
 kinds of gambliAg," says the old gamester I have 
 already quoted. "The defalcations, the direct 
 cause of pool gambling, are usually first offences, 
 and are condoned without publicity, but justice 
 7 
 
 mj^j.n ' j » .ii|» ww w » 
 
I f 
 
 146 
 
 DANOBB SIGNALS. 
 
 overtakes the thief at last. Every pool gambler 
 knows his victims, and in the slang of the trade 
 says, ' So and so will come a " header " for " dip- 
 ping " too often in the well.' I know a case in 
 point. There was a young fellow in one of our 
 large crockery houses whose fall was predicted in 
 a pool-room two weeks before it occurred" I 
 have in my possession the account of scores, who, 
 in the expressive language of the gambler, have 
 come just such headers from decency, respectabil- 
 ity and honor, to shame and degradation and ever- 
 lasting contempt. And what is the meaning of 
 that large American colony in Canada except that 
 its members gambled too* long in wheat or flour 
 or bank stocks or mining shares, until at last the 
 long embezzlement came to light, and they had 
 to flee their country, leaving only a dishonored 
 name behind. 
 
 Am I writing to any one who has taken the 
 first step on this road, who has begun with penny 
 ante, or taken a ten cent play in a policy shop, or 
 a single dollar combination in a base-ball pool? 
 Let me say io you, most solemnly, that, at the end 
 of this road is the county jail or the state's prison, 
 
 ^'%. 
 
 V 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 147 
 
 !)1 gambler 
 ' the trade 
 " for « dip- 
 w a case ia 
 one of our 
 redicted in 
 jurred " I 
 jcores, who, 
 mbler, have 
 respectabil- 
 )n and ever- 
 meaning of 
 except that 
 sat or floiir 
 1 at last the 
 nd they had 
 k dishonored 
 
 IS taken the 
 1 with penny 
 )licy shop, or 
 je-ball pool? 
 it, at the end 
 state's prison, 
 
 with grated windows and bolted doors. At the 
 end is sorrow and shame and a blasted life. The 
 road which you have begun to travel is strewn 
 with the carcasses of men who are dead while 
 they live, dead to everything that is good, to their 
 families, their homes, their loves, their hopes. 
 This road is worn smooth by the feet of forgers, 
 defaulters, and thieves. Let me put up a sign- 
 board which all may read as they come in their 
 life's journey to this by-path which leads to the 
 gambling den. 
 
 On this sign-board shall be printed in large 
 letters, 
 
 THE DEVIL'S PRIVATE WAY, 
 
 DANGEROUS PASSING. 
 
 Whoever takes this s-oad, does so at j 
 his own risk. 
 
 .:i^ | f^,^i«a!tAiA«a^vs:WM■.Trtv^-«f^^.|lW■-l^^prtlMa^t 
 
! i! 
 
 1:1' 
 
 M 
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 
 the lbpeb op impuritt. 
 
 The Dbeadkd Lepbb of Ancient Times. The more 
 Loathsome Leper of Modern Times. What the 
 Merchants Think of Him. Insanity or Suicide. 
 The Three Doors by which this Lbpeb Enters 
 the Heart. Imagination-Door. Dr. Holland's 
 Words ' op Wisdom. Eye-Door and EAB-Dooa A 
 Word to Younq Women. Keep Safe the Jewel. 
 Balls and Skating Rinks. A Dancing-Master's 
 Opinion. Out-Door Sports. The Unspeakable 
 Turk. The Leper's End. 
 
 In some respects the subject which forms the 
 caption of this chapter is the most difficult of all 
 to treat. It is seldom alluded to in public, the 
 literature of the subject is very scanty, and every 
 writer hesitates to speak of that of which, never- 
 theless, his conscience tells him he ought to speak, 
 when writing upon such a subject as the Enemies 
 of Youth. 
 
 Of all the diseases that afflicted the ancient 
 world leprosy was the most dreadful and the most 
 148 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 149 
 
 ), The mors 
 i. What thk 
 r OB Suicide. 
 jtpss Enters 
 
 IB. HotXAND'S 
 
 Eab-Doob. a 
 'E THE Jewel. 
 
 [CINQ-MASTER'S 
 
 Unspeakable 
 
 jh forms the 
 lifficult of all 
 ^n public, the 
 ty, and every 
 which, never- 
 light to speak, 
 I the Enemies 
 
 i the ancient 
 . and the most 
 
 dreaded. The leper was loathed and driven out 
 from all companionship, except with those who 
 were diseased like himself. If he ever entered 
 the synagogue he was railed in from the rest of 
 the congregation and must enter before and depart 
 after the rest of the worshipers. As the disease 
 increased in violence he was more and more iso- 
 lated. When he approached a fellow creature the 
 law obliged him to throw dust in the air, to cover 
 his mouth with his hand, and cry " unclean, 
 unclean." The utmost care was taken to detect 
 the presence of the disease, for its approach was 
 insidious ; and washings and cleansings and exam- 
 inations, minute and well-nigh innumerable, were 
 required. If the Jew found that his nearest 
 friend, his brother, his wife, his child, was a leper, 
 he had to leave him to his lonely life of separation 
 and death. The disease began its work very 
 slowly, it might exist for months and hardly be 
 known, a slight discoloration, a little scab, was all 
 that was noticed, but, by and by, it spread with 
 terrible rapidity, and resulted at last in the com- 
 plete corruption and dropping away of a hand 
 or foot or arm, until at last death came to the 
 slow relief of the sufferer. 
 
'\\ 
 
 ! '' '• 
 
 1 t! I 
 
 i: I 
 
 . i; 
 
 li \ 
 
 150 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 Do j'ou wonder that the Jews feared the leper ? 
 Do you wonder that strict laws prevented the 
 spread of the contagion ? Leprosy, the physical 
 disease in its most dreaded forms, has been about 
 stamped out of the modern world, but there is a 
 moral leprosy which is more loathsome and more 
 deadly, which walks our streets and enters our 
 homes, alasl which creeps into our hearts. In- 
 stead of being afraid of it, we laugh at it, we treat 
 it as a joke, we invite the leper to our firesides. 
 He is found everywhere. He dwells in the brown- 
 stone mansion, and in the filthy cellar. He 
 sleeps on a bed of down sometimes, and sometimes 
 on a heap of rags. He walks our streets, he rides 
 in our horse-cars. He goes to school with our 
 boys and girls, and his contact is as contagious 
 and deadly as the leper of Judea. It is not at 
 hap-hazard that I call this evil spirit of impurity 
 a leper. If I were able I should not dare to lift 
 the veil which hides this leper from the gaze of 
 men. If some omniscient being should go up and 
 down these streets, sprinkling with blood the doors 
 where this leper had entered, what thresholds 
 would be bloodless here ? 
 
 \ : 
 
 ''■ ^j_ 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 151 
 
 the leper ? 
 irented the 
 he physical 
 been about 
 1 there is a 
 5 and more 
 enters our 
 liearts. In- 
 it, we treat 
 ur firesides. 
 1 the brown* 
 cellar. He 
 i sometimes 
 ets, he rides 
 ol with our 
 s contagious 
 [t is not at 
 of impurity 
 dare to lift 
 the gaze of 
 Id go up and 
 jod the doors 
 ,t thresholds 
 
 I have received concerning this evil of sensual- 
 ity many warnings from your friends, the business 
 men, young people, which I am glad to give you 
 
 right here. 
 
 One of them writes : " If you ask what I think 
 is the most dangerous or seductive influence, in 
 city life especially, 1 should say licentiousness." 
 
 Another one rehearses the story, only one 
 among ten thousand it is sad to think, of a young 
 man with bright hopes who was first led away by 
 the lustful attractions of promiscuous balls, until 
 he fell to the depths of infamy, and adds: " The 
 superintendent of one -of our large railways in 
 Massachusetts told me that for no one cause did 
 he so quickly discharge an employe as for being 
 seen with disreputable women ; for, looking at it 
 from the business, railroad-man's standpoint, 
 merely, such connection surely leads to extrava- 
 gance and defalcation." 
 
 Another, who is always on the lookout for some 
 chance to help the boys and girls of Boston, writes : 
 "You put 'rum' first in your list of 'enemies,' 
 and I have always done so in my thinking. But 
 I fear there is another evil, which lurks more in 
 
 ■/■i^a*MBtovaa^iig^i^agta»'; S a»fc t. . irt i w a fei i W ia*'' 
 
"■Pr.'.f i^j.' A'H ' -"*' ,f w— ^ '. ' * 
 
 152 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 the dark, and which is working nearly as much 
 destruction. I refer to licentiousness. I helieve 
 it is on the increase. Our young men and women 
 are not warned as they should be, it is such a deli- 
 cate matter to speak about." 
 
 Another writes these strong words: "Islu.iild 
 say that the most dangerous and seductive of all 
 evils is licentiousness, tlio damning sin, the first 
 poison of the race, starting in the garden, and, 
 with crushing force, descending from generation 
 to generation, until, today, its eflPect is felt in 
 every homo. It is sending more young men to 
 ruin than all other influences combined. It is not 
 so open as intemperance and there is its danger, 
 but if you look for it you will see its marks in the 
 pale clieek and wan features of our boys and girls 
 in our homes. Its very secrecy is its danger. Its 
 victims are filling premature graves, or, what is 
 worse, our houses for the insane. I believe I am 
 justified in saying that thousands of new-made 
 graves are dug yearly to take in the young vic- 
 tims of this cursed vice whose cause of death is 
 unsuspected. Oh, for some power to show to the 
 young the deadly poison of this growing vice ! " 
 
 / 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 168 
 
 Says another of your friends, speaking of this 
 same evil : " This vice not only ruins the natural 
 body, but impairs the spiritual also. We can 
 form no conception of its extent for H is known 
 only to the victim and Him who knows all things. 
 I speak very stronglj' on this point, for an inci- 
 dent comes to my mind of a young man of Boston 
 who took his life by shooting himself some thirty 
 years ago. Ho was supposed to be of unblemished 
 character, and probably his relatives and friends 
 knew nothing to the contrary, but I was on the 
 jury of inquest and a letter was found on his 
 person saying that one of two things was before 
 him — insanity or suicide, therefore he chose the 
 latter, as the vice he had contracted was too 
 Btrong for him to conquer. No one can tell what 
 he must have passed through before he committed 
 the deed. The contents of that letter have never 
 been effaced from my memory." I can say 
 "amen" with all my heart to thia friend's closing 
 words: "'Would that every young person, aduicted 
 to this evil, could be warned of the results of such 
 debasing vice." 
 
 T will quote from only one more of the scores of 
 7« 
 
^ 
 
 I »» - ' B »n . 1 . r > ■ . ^1^ ' t ' -.■. ' ,'■■ ' '' ■ ' ■* ' V > ,".;" T* ^?^ ' "' "^t" 
 
 154 
 
 DANOEB SIGNALS. 
 
 letters wliich refer to this leper of impurity. Says 
 this gentleman : " My observation leads me to 
 fear chiefly the impure literature of the day and 
 the impure companion, who teach the practices 
 that sap the young life at its first springing. I 
 tell my boys, ' If you will promise your father and 
 see to it that your mouth and hand are kept pure 
 until you are twenty-one, I will promise you 
 health, happiness, and usefulness, and all the good 
 things you will then care to ask for.' " Here are 
 some good rules which he adds: "Let the boy 
 read no book and look at no picture he would not 
 show his mother or sister. Let him drink nothing 
 which ho would not ask his mother to sweeten. 
 Instead of the low theater, the skating rink, and 
 ball-room, let him organize a home orchestra, in 
 which sister shall play the piano, brother the 
 volin, and himself the flute, while baby disarranges 
 the mu';ic for them all. In this way is safety." 
 
 But I hardly need to multiply these warnings 
 for you are all aware that such a leper as I have de- 
 scribed is abroad in the land. I need not make that 
 point any plainer. Alas ! he is too well known to 
 some of you. But if I cau but tell you of some of 
 
 ""'<ftii'^'iiifiTSikA'^'Hif''-"irfciiii"- 
 
 iVrTifritf-hgii-i^/ift^fclrt'iM 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 .m- 
 
 the doors by which he will enter your hearts, and 
 thus put you on your guard, I should be doing 
 you a real service. If any one could have warned 
 the Jewish youth of old of the leper in the way, 
 giving him sorao infallible rule by which he might 
 tell of his approach, that secret would have 
 been of value incalculable to him. If one could 
 have said to him, "Look outl there, there, through 
 that door, by that alley-way, you will come in 
 contact with the leper," how he would have 
 blocked up and guarded that door or pathway, 
 lest there he should contract the terrible contagion. 
 If I can tell you of the three doors by which this 
 leper, Impurity, will be most likely to enter your 
 heart, will, you not block them up against his 
 entrance and forever guard them well? These 
 three doors are Imagination-door, Eye-door, and 
 Ear-door. Guard these three entrances to your 
 soul, and the enemy can never take its citadel. 
 
 Of all these doors, I think Imagination-door 
 most often admits the Leper of Impurity. No 
 one on earth sees this leper when he knocks at 
 the door of the imagination, no one on earth 
 notices when it is opened, a crack at first and then 
 

 DANQEU SIGi^AXS. 
 
 flung wide open to the unclean guest, but the 
 devils in hell exult, for they know that he who 
 opens the door of his heart to such a guest is fast 
 on the \Tay to join their ranks. Let us give heed, 
 just hero, to the words of Dr. J. G. Holland, they 
 are so true and appropriate to this subject. 
 
 "Oh, if this imaginary world of sin could be 
 unveiled," he says, "this world into which the 
 multitude go unknown and unsuspected, how 
 would it be red with the blush of shame 1 This 
 world of se^se, built by the imagination, how fair 
 and foul it is I Like a fairy island in the sea of 
 life it smiles in sunlight and sleeps in green, 
 known of the world, not by communion of knowl- 
 edge but by personal, secret discovery! The 
 waves of every ocean kiss its feet. The airs of 
 every clime play among its trees and tire with the 
 voluptuous music which they bear. Flowers bend 
 idly to the fall of fountains, and beautiful forms 
 are wreathing their white arms and calling for 
 companionship. Out toward this charmed isk nd 
 by day and by night a million shallops push, un- 
 seen of each other and of the world of real life 
 they leave behind. The single sailors never meet 
 
 
THE EITEMIES OF YOUTH, 
 
 167 
 
 each other, they thread the same paths unknown 
 to each other; they come back and no one asks 
 them where they have been. If God's light could 
 shine upon this crowded sea and discover the 
 secrets of the island which it invests, what shame- 
 ful retreats and encounters should we witness. 
 Fathers, mothers, maidens, men, — children even, 
 whom we have deemed as pure as snow, — flying 
 with guilty eyes and white lips to hide themselves 
 from a great disgrace. There is vice enough in 
 the world of actual life and it is there that we 
 look for it ; but there is more in that other world 
 of imagination which we do not see, — vice that 
 poisons, vice that kills, vice that makes whited 
 sepulchers of temples that are deemed pure, even 
 by multitudes of their tenants." 
 
 Beware of Imagination-door which this leper 
 so often uses to make his entrance into your soul. 
 Lock up Eye-door and Ear-door also. I have tried 
 to put you on your guard in other chapters against 
 bad papers, pictures, books, and evil companions, 
 with their dirty story and smutty joke, but, boys 
 and girls, you must lock these doora from the 
 imide. When the burglar comes to your house by 
 
 
 1r,3f««J'?ST-:'s<r',»ra;<S"?l''- 
 
158 
 
 DANOEB SIGNALS, 
 
 night, it makes very little ditference how many 
 bars and bolts there are on the outside ; if there 
 is no bolt on the inside, he can withdraw thom 
 all and walk in at his pleasure and roh the 
 house. All that one can do by words of warning, 
 all that your parents and teachers can do by their 
 loving advice, is to lock the door from the outside ; 
 it remains for you to turn the key and drop the 
 bolt of a firm, resolute, pure purpose, which shall 
 keep out all these demons from the pit. I often 
 think, almost with a shudder, of the boy who goes 
 out from his father's house into the impurity of 
 the street and the school. He has been most care- 
 fully reared, every evil thing has been kept beyond 
 his reach, he has been loved and guarded and 
 prayed for, but j'-et one half hour with the bad 
 companion, one glance at the lewd picture, and the 
 careful training of years is forgotten, and the 
 leper, entering tlirough Eye-door or Ear-door, has 
 taken up his abode in that pure young soul and 
 only too ready to open the door over and over 
 again to his loathsome companions, until, at last, 
 little is left but corruption and death in that 
 heart which left the father's house white and 
 unsullied. 
 
 ^Uatmllm I mi ni nl 11 i»i I 
 
' 
 
 - ; 
 
 lany 
 here 
 hom 
 
 the 
 
 • 
 
 their 
 
 
 dde; 
 
 
 ) the 
 shall 
 
 
 )ften 
 
 goes 
 
 
 tyof 
 care- 
 
 
 yond 
 and 
 
 
 bad 
 
 
 dthe 
 
 
 the 
 
 
 , has 
 
 
 nd i 1 
 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 169 
 
 Young friends, God has put your manhood, wo- 
 manhood, and purity, in your own keeping. You 
 can barter them away for smut, you can soil them 
 with an indelible staia if you will, or you can pre- 
 serve them unsullied, as your best heritage and chief 
 glory. Your friends cannot preserve them for you, 
 they can only give advice ; your pastor can only 
 warn you. You, yourself, must lock the door, if 
 you would keep your enemies out. Upon you 
 alone will it depend whether you rise to the 
 company of angels or sink to the level of the 
 devils. I wish that I might say an earnest word, 
 right hei'e, to the ^irls and young women who shall 
 read this chapteu This subject concerns you 
 more vitally, perhaps, than any one class. 
 
 If you had one jewel among your possessions 
 that was worth a thousand times more than all the 
 rest of your treasures put together, would you be 
 careless of that jewel ? Would you leave it lying 
 about ill a public place for every chance passer- 
 by to pick up and make off with if ho chose? 
 Would you see how near you could come to drop- 
 ping it into some dark cess-pool without actually 
 letting it fall? Would you carelessly throw it 
 
 ii'i i iii 
 
ijl-*""??'*?!'?' 
 
 il 
 
 DANOBn SIGNALS. 
 
 away from you some dark night, on the chance 
 that you could find it again in the morning? You 
 have such a jewel, a treasure that is worth to you 
 a thousand Kohinoors, and yet I see some of you 
 trifling with it, as though it was a worthless pebble, 
 which you might retain or throw away at your 
 pleasure. Your personal purity, unsullied, immac- 
 ulate, unsuspected, — that is your jewel. You are 
 playing with it, holding it very near the edge of the 
 moral cess-pool, throwing it away, perhaps, for a 
 little, thinking you can pick it up at your pleasure. 
 Oh 1 let me tell you how priceless is your treasure, 
 let me warn you of the awful risk you run. 
 
 The snow once sullied can never be whitened, 
 the lily once crushed and withered can never be 
 restored to what it was, the maiden soul once 
 befouled can never regain its freshness of purity. 
 To my sorrow and shame I see some young girls 
 whose only thought seems to be of the young men. 
 On the street, in the horse-cars, in the Sunday- 
 school, in the prayer-meeting, they are never happy 
 unless they are whispering and making eyes at 
 some young man. They are the laughing-stock of 
 the thoughtless, and they make the judicious 
 
 Iw i a tl to iiii i iit i i i rf I lilii r i m ii 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 161 
 
 le chance 
 ig? You 
 th to you 
 ae of you 
 !ss pebble, 
 T at your 
 1(1, immac- 
 You are 
 ige of the 
 laps, for a 
 • pleasure, 
 'treasure, 
 in. 
 whitened, 
 
 never be 
 30ul once 
 of purity, 
 lung girls 
 mng men. 
 e Sunday- 
 ver happy 
 g eyes at 
 g-stock of 
 
 judicious 
 
 grieve, and yet they never seem to suspect their 
 folly or see themselves as others see them. Every 
 social gathering, every meeting of prayer, every 
 promenade on the street, every visit to the public 
 library, is only an excuse for continued flirtation ; 
 the mind becomes unstrung and is filled with light 
 ard trifling fancies, the imagination is perverted, 
 and the will is weakened for any useful efibrt. 
 Books lose their relish, housework becomes an 
 unbearable drudgery, and the image of that young 
 man is seen on the page of every book, sewn into 
 the garment with every uneven stitch, and is 
 worked into every slovenly piece of housework 
 which the giddy girl ia obliged to do. I am not 
 speaking now of true love, for which this frivolous 
 passion which borders on the indelicate is often 
 mistaken. There is as much difference between 
 true lovers and mere flirts, as there is between the 
 quiet, steady, cheerful fire on the family hearth- 
 stone, and the changeable, deceptive flicker which 
 glows on the rotten stump in the woods at night. 
 True love is holy and is one of the handmaidens 
 of God. The mere flirt, male or female, is the 
 servant of Satan. If you could know, young 
 
«f 
 
 ^1 
 
 (! 
 
 I! 
 
 162 
 
 DANGER SIQNALS. 
 
 ladies, what these same young men, whom you 
 believe are so devoted to you, really think oC the 
 forward, bold, young woman, your cheeks would 
 glow with shame whenever your eyes met theirs. 
 They are bright enough to understand that the 
 apple that drops too easily into their hand most 
 likely has a rotten spot at the heart. If you could 
 hear their jokes and innuendoes, and flings at your 
 womanhood ; if you could hear them talk about 
 their " rock maidens," and their " piazza beauties," 
 and their " bliggy girls," you would never run the 
 risk again of being called by those names, — that 
 is if you have a spark of womanhood left, as I 
 believe you all have. 
 
 But do you say, " I mean nothing bad. I am 
 only bound to have a good time, to enjoy myself I 
 I shall look out to stop in season, before I am 
 ruined" ? Perhaps you will, and oh I perhaps you 
 may not stop before you are ruined and driven an 
 outcast from home and friends. But it is not ou 
 this low plain of possible final escape from the 
 worse consequences that I would put this subject. 
 Your treasure is too precious to be trifled with. 
 Your jewel is too priceless to be risked. It is not 
 
 MB 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 168 
 
 best to set fire to your house, because it may be 
 put out before the house is burned to the ground. 
 It is not wise to fall into deep water because you 
 may be dragged out before life is quite extinct. 
 Let me say again, your treasure is too precious 
 to be trifled with. Your jewel is too priceless 
 to be risked. It is beciuse personal purity ia 
 your jewel that I thus plead with you to run no 
 risk. He who leaves open a safe filled with rub- 
 bish id not particularly to be blamed. He who 
 leaves open the safe that contains a million dollars 
 in securities, is guilty of carelessness which is 
 almost as criminal as dishonesty. 
 
 Let me tell you this, too, young ladies, you are 
 not only injuring yourselves, you are bringing 
 reproach upon all womanhood when you thus 
 cheapen and trifle with the charms of a pure 
 maidenhood. For nineteen centuries past, Chris- 
 tianity has had it for her task to raise womanhood 
 out of the gutter of sensuality and bestiality 
 where it so long lay helpless.- Patiently, quietly, 
 faithfully, has Christianity wrought, and right well 
 has she succeeded, until woman sits upon the 
 throne, with the sparkling crown of purity encir- 
 
^n"" 
 
 164 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 . I 
 
 cling her brow. Will you do your little best to 
 pull her from that proud position, and snatch away 
 her crown? 
 
 Every one who has ever known the influence of 
 a pure, gentle, loving woman, be she mother or 
 wife or sister or friend, can sing with Tennyson in 
 the Princess : 
 
 " Happy he 
 With Buoh a mother! faith in womankind 
 Beats with liis blood, and trust in all things high 
 Comes easy' to him, and tho' ho trips and falls, 
 Ho shall not blind his soul with clay." 
 
 "Will any of you help to destroy this faith in 
 womankind ? Will you not rather show us what 
 Wordsworth calls, 
 
 " A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
 To warn, to comfort and commi.od.'* 
 
 " Show us how divine a thing 
 A woman may be made." 
 
 But I can hear some of you say. Are you not 
 going to give us your opinion on balls, dances, 
 skating-rinks, and such amusements ? I have not 
 been ready to do so before but I think the way is 
 
THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 165 
 
 best to 
 baway 
 
 snce of 
 iher or 
 jTSon ia 
 
 aith in 
 IS what 
 
 you not 
 dances, 
 lave not 
 3 way is 
 
 open now. I have no quarrel with the ball-room 
 in itself. I do not know that it is any more sinful 
 in itself to skip lightly about to the sound of 
 music, than to walk gravely and sedately, without 
 any music to hujry the feet. I have no prejudiiJe 
 against roller skating in itself considered, but I 
 have an undying and unconquerable prejudice to 
 anything and everything which will endanger the 
 purity of young manhood and womanhood. I 
 have an undying hatred of any place or any 
 amusement which tends to soil the white lily of 
 maidenly modesty, and this, from all that I know, 
 promiscuous dancing and promiscuous skating in 
 the public rink does tend to accomplish. 
 
 The men to whom I have written send many 
 warnings against the ball-room and the skating- 
 rink, and seud many sad stories of ruined lives, 
 which received their first impetus on the down 
 hill road in such places. I have not time to quote 
 these wise words, but, as in a previous chapter the 
 testimony of an ex-professidrial gambler against 
 gambling was brought forward, let me here quote 
 the testimony of a dancing-master againsL the 
 waltz. 
 
166 
 
 DANGER RIONAL8. 
 
 Mr. James P. Welsh, who, for ten years, was a 
 dancing-master, has said in public print : " I have 
 no hesitation in saying tliat I attribute much of 
 the vice and immorality now proviiiliiig to the 
 insidious influence of tiie waltz. I tell you that 
 in the high circles, young ladic- ;it paitios and 
 balls are absolutely hugged, — 'erabrac «i" would 
 be too weak to express my meaning. — by men 
 who were altogether unknown to theui before the 
 music for the waltz began to inspire the toes of 
 the dancers. Is this a pleasant siglit to contem- 
 plate ? " Mrs. General Sherman, who has written a 
 book against waltzing, takes the grountl tljut it is 
 immodest, that it detracts from the purity of the 
 young ladies engaged in it, and that it is demoral- 
 izing in the extreme. I venture to say that if it 
 were not for what this dancing-master calls " the 
 hugging," the ball-room would lose its chief 
 attraction. Is it worth while to risk the purity of 
 manhood or womanhood, for a little temporary 
 excitement on the waxed floor of. the ball-room ? 
 It is not as though there were no other pleasures 
 accessible to the young than those found in the 
 ball-room and the skating-rink. The purest joys 
 
 ^;fe::' 
 
 1_J 
 
 tm 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 167 
 
 are those that we experience when we get nearest 
 to nature. Find your arauseinenta out doors, boys 
 and girls, and not in the close and dusty halls of 
 pleasure. Use every holiday for a trip into the 
 country, if you can. See how many things God 
 has provided to make you glad, and do not get 
 the idea that the only possible amusements are in 
 these stuffy halls and rinks. 
 
 There is a thousand tunes more music in the 
 song of the birds, and the ripple of the brooks, 
 than there is in the fiddle of the ball-room. There 
 is vastly more health, wealth, and wisdom, for the 
 genuine soul, with the blue sky for the curtain 
 and the light and shade on forest and river 
 for shifting scenery, than there is in the frescoed 
 theater with painted trees and rivers and skies for 
 scenery. I would rather walk ten miles into the 
 country for a couple of hours in the silent woods, 
 than go across the street to eoe a score of people 
 skip up and down a slippery floor. I should like 
 to have all my boys, yes, and girls too, learn to 
 fish, shoot, row, swim, play base-bull, and skate in 
 winter, (I have no great opinion of skating in 
 summer time,) so that they may grow strong and 
 
1! ' 
 
 Se: 
 
 168 
 
 DANQKR SIGNALS. 
 
 brave and sound of lu^art; and limb, but I have no 
 dcsiro to have tbem spend much time or money to 
 Icaru the false graces and poor acconiplishmeiits 
 of • 'iC dancing-master. Every season has its out- 
 door sports and joys, eviMi city boys can have 
 their share of them. Learn to love them, and my 
 word for it, a purer, nobler, stronger manhood 
 and womanhood will be yours. 
 
 Not only are individuals in danger but our 
 nation is. threatened witli this leprosy. The awful 
 evils of sensuality and impurity arc shown on 
 a large scale in the degeneracy and imbecility 
 of the modern Turk. No race has suffered 
 so much from licentiousness, says u writer in the 
 Saturday Jlevietv, quoted by a recent American 
 author: " That the conquerors of Constantinople 
 were a haniy raoe of great physical orength 
 there can be do doubt ; that the great 'iiajor'^j 
 of modern Turks are of an effemiua'e j\-:_m i-» 
 equally certain ; very many of them j.'o jei .us 
 of fine appearance, but they ar^ phy> icily wos.!;. 
 without elasticity, giving the ai^^^aj^ntc- ^ «' .a 
 who have lost their vitality. The ssliu- may 
 be said, even more emphaticady, of Turkij«li 
 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 169 
 
 1 have no 
 : money to 
 plishments • 
 lias its oiit- 
 I can havf 
 <.m, and my 
 c manhood 
 
 er but our 
 The awful 
 shown on 
 I imbecility 
 las suffered 
 Titer in the 
 it Auiorican 
 nstantiuoplo 
 cal : orength 
 •eat ruajor'^7 
 aa'a 'jy *,><.' i'* 
 
 • ic.-ily vov.i;. 
 
 e sjaui may 
 , of Turkx-li 
 
 women; they are small in stature, of a sickly 
 complexion, easily fatigued by exertion, and 
 become prematurely old. After the ago of forty 
 all feminine beauty is gone; the ryes have become 
 sunken, the cheek* hollow, and tlie face wrinkled. 
 Another immediate result of the prevailing sensu- 
 ality is the mental imbecility of multitudes of the 
 Ottoman Turks ; great numbers among them are 
 intellect iially stupid. Many even of the young 
 men have the vacant look which borders close on 
 the idiotic state. This is not owing so much to a 
 lack of education as to a mental incapacity wliich 
 often amounts to real imbe( ility." Such an account 
 of a whole nation weakened and unnerved by sen- 
 suality is terribly suggestive. The " unspeakable 
 Turk " is an awful warning. In the "sick man of 
 Europe " there is a lesson for the young men of 
 America. 
 
 Let me tell you of the leper's end. " His dis- 
 ease began with little specks on the eye-lids, and 
 on the palms of the hand," says one authority, 
 "and gradually spread over different parts of the 
 body, bleaching the hair white, wherever it 
 blKJwed itself, crusting the, affected parts with 
 8 
 
 ■■■• "fc^^t 
 
 ■■ 
 
11 r 
 
 170 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 ghining scales and causing swellings and sores. 
 From the skin it slowly ate its way through the 
 tissues to the bones and joints and even to the 
 marrow, rotting the whole body piecemeal. The 
 lungs, the organs of speech and hearing, and tlie 
 eyes, were attacked in turn, till, at last, consump- 
 tion or dropsy brought welcome death." 
 
 It almost seems while reading this awful ac- 
 count of wasting disease, as though I were de- 
 scribing the living death of the moral leper, the 
 sensual man. His disease begins with a littlo 
 spot, a little impure thought, a little dalliance in 
 imagination with unholy things, but the end, oh, 
 the dreadful end ! 
 
 From the outside this moral disease, too, slowly 
 eats its way through the tissues even to the mar- 
 row of the soul, rotting away the whole moral 
 nature, piecemeal. The affections, the will-power, 
 all the organs of right-thinking and riglit-acting 
 iire attacked in turn, till at last tlie first death, the 
 death of the body, brought on by lust and passion, 
 ushers in the second death, the death of the soul. 
 We know not what lies beyond the death of the 
 bv)dy, but we do know that there shall in no wise 
 
 mSfJm. 
 
and sores, 
 irough the 
 ven to the 
 leal. The 
 ig, and the 
 t, consump- 
 
 i awful ac- 
 I were de- 
 1 leper, the 
 ith a little 
 dalliance in 
 the end, oh, 
 
 , too, slowly 
 
 to the mar- 
 
 vhole moral 
 
 I will-power, 
 riglit-acting 
 3t death, the 
 and passion, 
 . of the soul, 
 leath of the 
 
 II in no wise 
 
 rr.-^ 'um i i_fj[.m":>! \ i%wiK<i^,im.' ' ^ffm ' $\mi--'^^i)>»:u^ f^i-!>wviiiw»;j'*.ii4,.it ' »jiii¥Vi.W:»Hi4yj--8'L^''.^ 9!i 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 171 
 
 enter into the heavenly city " anything that defil- 
 eth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or 
 maketh a lie," and we also know that " without 
 are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and 
 murderers and idolaters and whosoever loveth and 
 maketh a lie." 
 
 •■i' 
 
r 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SAPPERS AND MINERS OF CHARACTEB! 
 . FRIYOLITY, SELFISHNESS, DISHONESTY. 
 
 At PETEB8B0RQ IN 1864. THE ENEMIES THAT WOEK 
 UNDEBGBOUND AND IN THE DABK. FRIVOLITY. TUE 
 
 • Wbong Names it Assumes. The Laughteb of 
 Fools. Pobtbait of the Fbivolocs Young Man 
 AND Woman. A Business Man's View. Selfish- 
 ness. Cultivate the Generous Natube. The 
 MOTH Milleb ofChabacteb. Thomas Canfield. 
 Dishonesty. More Warnings fbom the Mer- 
 chants. Honest George Washington and Honest 
 Abraham Lincoln. A Last Whisper in the Ears 
 of the Boys and Girls. 
 About day-break on the thirtieth of July, 1864, 
 a tremendous explosion was heard in the neigh- 
 borhood of Petersburg, Virginia ; a huge fort was 
 blown into the air, carrying with it its whole gar- 
 rison—a South Carolina regiment, and, where^ a 
 moment before the fort had been in all its grim 
 defiance, was seen nothing but a great pit with 
 ragged edges, two hundred feet long and thirty 
 172 
 
mt.ii^iaiMiti>/ii..ij 
 
 B> g!ivv i' -y^ '' a p gwi'Mayvf ! ■" ?''*' ' '? «■ ■ ^ ■ y^ ^ iag 7 5y'.-:'^- ^ J?B^y w ^ '' y ?* !" ? *^ 
 
 THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 173 
 
 ACTEB: 
 
 E8TY. 
 
 THAT WOEK 
 
 voLiTY. Tub 
 aughtkb of 
 Young Man 
 tw. Sklfisii- 
 &.TUKK. Tub 
 LS Canfield. 
 
 I TUB MEB- 
 
 AND Honest 
 
 IN THE EABS 
 
 '. July, 1864, 
 1 the neigli- 
 iige fort was 
 ;8 whole gar- 
 md, where a 
 all its grim 
 ■eat pit with 
 g and thirty 
 
 feet deep. That awful piece of destruction was 
 the work of the sappers and miners. That hole 
 beneath the fort had been dug a little at a time ; 
 one shovelful after another had been removed. 
 
 For many days and nights before, Union troops 
 had been at work digging away noiselessly but 
 rapidly beneath that fort, the garrison above never 
 suspecting what they were about. Eight thou- 
 sand pounds of powder were placed in this hole 
 and then all that was left to do was to apply the 
 fuse, and fort and garrison and munitions of war 
 were blown into the air. 
 
 I think there are some enemies iu your way 
 that seek to undermine your character just as 
 these sappers undermined the fort at Petersburg. 
 In the preceding chapters I have endeavored to 
 point out tc ihe young people some of their ene- 
 mies who were waiting at every corner to give 
 them battle and capture them, body and soul, if 
 possible. But most of these enemies of which I 
 have spoken have been visible and open enemies. 
 The rum-shop stares at you every time you go 
 down street, and the bright light which shines 
 from the window at night is like a warning bea- 
 
IH 
 
 DANGER BIGNAL8. 
 
 con to tell you of the rocks and whirlpools which 
 await every one who comes too near. The bad 
 paper is flaunted in all our shop windows, while 
 the bill of the low theater, on every dead wall, tells 
 you, in letters six feet long, what to expect if you 
 are so foolish as to enter that spider's trap. 
 
 But here is another class of enemies who work 
 underground and in the dark ; they never show 
 their horns and hoofs, but before the poor, thought- 
 less boy or girl knows it, the mine is dug, the train 
 is laid, the character is honeycombed, and all the 
 Arch-enemy has to do is to apply the spark of 
 some terrible temptation, and another life is for- 
 ever ruined and another home disgraced. We 
 hear nothing luit the explosion, but the silent 
 preparations for the explosion may have been 
 going on for years. We see the hopes and fond 
 expectations of a generation flying into the air, 
 like the di'bris of the ruined fort on that summer 
 morning in 18G4, but we do not see how, little by 
 little, like rust spots eating away at the polished 
 Bteel, the preparation for that destruction of hopes 
 and joys and life plans has been going on. 
 
 We are terribly allocked by the news of the 
 
W|!Wl i 4W|PMir 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 175 
 
 ools which 
 The bad 
 ows, while 
 [ wall, tells 
 pect if you 
 rap. 
 
 , who work 
 lever show 
 )r, thought- 
 g, the traia 
 aud all the 
 \G spark of 
 life is for- 
 aced. We 
 ; the silent 
 have been 
 es and fond 
 into the air, 
 hat summer 
 )W, little by 
 the polished 
 ion of hopes 
 ;oo. 
 news of the 
 
 defalcation when it gets into the paper. But the 
 defalcation is nothing but the explosion. The boy 
 began to dig the mine for that explosion when he 
 cheated in marbles and stole cookies from his 
 mother's pantry. When the young woman is dis- 
 graced and driven out of respectable society that 
 is the explosion, but the girl began to dig the mine 
 years ago, when she flirted with the boy in the 
 Sunday-school class on the other side of the aisle, 
 or allowed some little familiarity from a man who 
 was neither father nor brother. There are many of 
 these sappex-3 and miners who are constantly at 
 work trying to find the easiest way into the very 
 citadel of your cliaracters, boys and girls, but I 
 can mention only three of them here. And 
 these three shall be Frivolity, Selfishness, and i>t«- 
 honesty. If all the trouble they make you was the 
 trouble they seem to work today that would be 
 bad enough. No one likes a frivolous, thought- 
 less, light-headed young person, a selfish girl or a 
 boy whom he cannot trust. If that was all thes'? 
 enemies of yours did, rendering you disagreeable 
 and unpleasant to others for the time being, it 
 would be enough, but oh, thhik of the future! 
 
 
 I^MM 
 
DANGEIc SIGNALS. 
 
 V;- .■.. 
 
 They are not only injuring you now, but they are 
 preparing the way for an awful explosion one of 
 these days, in which manhood and womanhood, 
 home and friends, prospects and hopes, will all be 
 involved. Let us take a look at these under- 
 ground enemies of yours one by one ; if possible 
 unearth them and discover what they are about. 
 
 First, Frivolity. I mention this sapper of char- 
 acter first because he does far more harm than is 
 generally supposed. He tries to borrow the 
 clothes of some one else, and palls himself Gay- 
 ety. Happiness, Light-heartedness. But these are 
 not his true names. Gaj'ety is a very different 
 personage. Pleasure and Frivolity do not long 
 keep company, and Frivolity instead of being 
 light-hearted often carries a very heavy heart. In 
 telling you to beware of Frivolity I would not 
 take away a single real enjoyment out of your 
 lives. God has put you in a beautiful world and 
 He meant to have you enjoy it. Every green shoot 
 that thrusts its head above the soil, every bright- 
 hued flower, every sweet-voiced bird, tells us how 
 many things God has provided to make us glad. 
 When you feel the life coursing through your 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 m 
 
 thej' are 
 on one of 
 manhood, 
 V'ill all be 
 ise imder- 
 f possible 
 J about. 
 ir of char- 
 m than ia 
 rrow the 
 iself Gay- 
 
 these are 
 ' different 
 
 not long 
 
 of being 
 heart. In 
 would not 
 it of your 
 world and 
 rreen shoot 
 ery bright- 
 jlls us how 
 e us glad, 
 ough your 
 
 veins so that you cannot help running and shout- 
 ing and laughing, why run and shout and laugh, 
 if it is the proper time and place. I like to see 
 girls play with their dolls and their hoops, and 
 boys fly their kites and kick foot-ball and jump 
 leap-frog, and have right merry times. This is not 
 what I mean by Frivolity, the sapper and miner 
 of character. There is always a taint of evil 
 about the fun he brings. There is usually some- 
 thing low and smutty and tainted about his so- 
 called pleasure. There is often a smile on his face 
 and a laugh in his voice, to be sure, but it is hol- 
 low, insincere sort of merriment. 
 
 " The laughter of the fool," says Solomon, " is 
 as the crackling of thorns under a pot." I think 
 he had the grin and the hollow laugh of the frivo- 
 lous man in mind when he wrote that verse. We 
 all know young men whose lives are all honey- 
 combed with this evil. No one puts any confidence 
 in them. If one had an important place to fill he 
 would not think of looking to them to fill it, simply 
 because their lives give the impression of being so 
 frivolous. Let me say to you all, very seriously, 
 life is not a huge joke, by any means. It is not all 
 8* 
 
■f^ 
 
 178 
 
 DANOEn SIGNALS. 
 
 one long holiday. There are some holidays in it, 
 and many days of quiet, health-giving recreation, 
 but life is no joke. Life means hard, serious work 
 of hand or brain. It means ten hours a day over 
 the ledger, or ten hours a day at the forge, or at 
 the carpenter', bench, or it means five hours in 
 the school-room and two or three more of hard 
 study at home, or it means drudgery in the kitchen 
 or over the wash-tub ; and, if you make up your 
 mind, as the frivolous person seems to do, that life 
 is a sort of huge Barnum's circus, where- you must 
 play the part of clown, and wear the cap and bells, 
 you will find out before long that you are dread- 
 fully mistaken, ard that you are being left away 
 behind in the race. 
 
 I think I can draw the picture of the frivolous 
 young person. If it is a yomg man, he never 
 sticks long to any one thing. He gets tired of 
 this and that and the other because there is too 
 much work about it. He is always looking for the 
 easy place, with little work and large pay. That 
 is the fool's paradise. He gets half an education, 
 but studying is hard work and he soon leaves 
 school for business. He secures a good place 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 179 
 
 lya in it, 
 jcreatiou, 
 OU8 work 
 day over 
 [•ge, or at 
 hours in 
 •e of hard 
 le kitchen 
 e up your 
 0, that life 
 ). you must 
 , and bells, 
 are dread- 
 left away 
 
 e frivolous 
 ,, he never 
 its tired of 
 ;here is too 
 king for the 
 pay. That 
 I education, 
 soon leaves 
 good place 
 
 before he is well known, but very soon loses it 
 because it is found that he cares more for his own 
 amusement than his employer's interests. He is 
 very often seen hi the ranks of the sidewalk bri- 
 gade, who have such a laborious time holding up 
 the lamp-post on the street corner of a summer ev- 
 ennig. If he ever goes to church he is apt to come 
 in on Sunday evenhig about fifteen minutes before 
 the service is through, for the sake of ogling the 
 girls or going home with them afterward. But he 
 is more likely to stay outside, for the purpose of 
 pufl&ng cheap cigar smoke into the faces of the 
 people when they come out, or of making ungal- 
 lant remarks about the young ladies of the audi- 
 ence. If he happens to be rich he is very likely 
 to be a dandy and to carry his arms bent out, 
 while he sucks an ivor}'-headed cane, and apes the 
 English fool. 
 
 If the frivolous young person is of the other 
 sex, she pats all sorts of tawdry finery upon her 
 back, where it will make the most show possible, 
 like the merchant who puts all his best goods in 
 the show case, and has no stock in trade behind. 
 She is always on the lookout for the frivolous 
 
DAKOEB SIGNALS. 
 
 young man. She understands all about handker- 
 chief and glove flirtation, and is an adept in all 
 those arts which lie on the debatable border -land 
 between innocence and virtue. As was said before, 
 the sappers and miners in warfare dig underground 
 for the sake of undermining something at a dis- 
 tance. They start their tunnel a thousand yards 
 away, perhaps, from the fort they wish to blow up. 
 So this sapper, Frivolity, begins with something 
 which seems very innocent, but ends with some- 
 thing very different, for the end thereof is death. 
 
 To show you that I am not alone in ray esti- 
 mate of this enemy of yours let me give you the 
 message which one of the gentlemen to whom I 
 wrote in your behalf has sent yoi; : " Perhaps one 
 of the most common, and, in its beginning, seem- 
 ingly the most innocent enemy of youth, is frivol- 
 ity. By this I don't mean cheerfulness, vivacity, 
 the love of a good story or a good joke. I pity 
 the young person who is habitually gloomy and 
 fails to enjoy innocent amusement, but I refer to 
 the habit, so common among many, of thinking 
 and speaking lightly on serious subjects. Once 
 commence the habit of thinking or speaking 
 
THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 181 
 
 handker- 
 pt in all 
 rder-land 
 id before, 
 ergroiiiid 
 at a dia- 
 ixid yards 
 ( blow up. 
 5ome thing 
 ith some- 
 is death. 
 ft my esti- 
 re you the 
 o whom I 
 erhaps one 
 tiing, seem- 
 b, is frivol- 
 s, vivacity, 
 ke. I pity 
 ;loomy and 
 it I refer to 
 of thinking 
 ects. Once 
 Di speaking 
 
 I 
 
 lightly of temperance, virtue, duty to others, 
 reverence for God, and the course is entered upon 
 that leads to acts corresponding with the thoughts 
 and words." ^ '' — 
 
 Let us thi\»k for a moment of some of the sins 
 to whiih habitual frivolity is almost sure to lead. 
 I never saw the boy, wlio, the first time he ever 
 tried to swear, uttered a loud-sounding oath. It 
 was a little, timid, half-and-half sort of an oath 
 that he began with, and back of that was some 
 trifling jest about serious things. He begins with 
 some poor witticism about religious matters, but 
 he ends with the shocking oath which is uttered 
 almost unconsciously, and by that time the charac- 
 ter is pretty well honeycombed with irreverence 
 and profanity. 
 
 Or take the sin of Sabbath breaking for in- 
 stance. Very few boys go sailing or horse rac- 
 ing or to a base-ball match at first on Sunday. 
 They begin by thinking lightly of God's day, by 
 giving up habits of church-going on every frivo- 
 lous pretext, by trying to make themselves believe 
 that the fourth commandment has very little to 
 do with them, but this frivolous view of the 
 
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182 
 
 DANGEil SIGNALS. 
 
 Sabbath and God's house does not end here. 
 " Young men are not aware," writes one of your 
 friends, "how much a steady observance of the 
 Sabbath and attendance on public worship estab- 
 lish their character and prospects of success in 
 this life, to say nothing of their eternal hopes." I 
 know a case where a father with his son applied 
 to the president of a bank for a vacant position 
 for that son. The president was not a Christian 
 but a shrewd, business man of the world. After 
 inquiring about the young man's education and 
 acquirements, he said to the father: "One thing 
 more, is he in the habit of attending church 
 regularly? I do not care where he attends, but 
 we cannot employ any one who is not regularly an 
 attendant on church. Any young man who is 
 known to be an habitual Sabbath-breaker stands 
 a sorry chance to obtain a good position or to 
 retain it after his habits are known." 
 
 I might give you a score of such warnings from 
 the business men of Boston, but I feel that I am not 
 going to the root of things until I begin further 
 back and warn you, not only of profanity and 
 Sabbath-breaking, but of that habit of mind from 
 
" i iJJUJJ.I I llJ jf'WISWW 
 
 ««fi«lj»^ j.|yi | uina!),% i J'» ' ,[ 
 
 THE ENBMIB8 OP YOUTH. 
 
 188 
 
 which they spring, of that light and frivolous way 
 of living which regards life as nothing but a show 
 or holiday, out of which you must get only the 
 greatest possible amount of fun. When you have 
 become habitually profane or habitual Sabbath- 
 breakers, the tunnel has been dug, the fortress has 
 been undermined, and the explosion only awaits 
 the spark of temptation. But if I can lead yoi? 
 to kaow that 
 
 " Life is real, life is earnest" ; 
 if I can lead you to realize that muscle and brain 
 and heart and a steadfast purpose and a soul given 
 to God are the winning factors in life's battle ; if 
 I could show you that a laugh at serious things 
 and a sneer at religion, and dalliance with tempta- 
 tion, tell of a shallow brain as well as a tainted 
 heart, I would be doing you a service for which I 
 should thank God as long as I live. 
 
 Another of the sappers ar. 1 miners of which I 
 would warn you is Selfishness. One gentleman 
 well known in business circles, writes these wise 
 words on the subject : 
 
 "Perhaps Selfishness must rank among the 
 greatest enemies of youth. The desire to get and 
 
 n 
 
 HHH 
 
184 
 
 DANQEB SIGNALS. 
 
 not give is one of our constant foes. One of the 
 roost important results of the church system of 
 weekly offeungs for charitable purposes is the 
 early training of children to habitual, systematic, 
 and intelligent giving. A gentleman who was 
 solicited to contribute to a worthy object gave 
 promptly but rather sparingly. When afterward 
 shown the need of a larger contribution he pleas- 
 antly responded with the desired addition, accom- 
 panied with the remark, 'I was never in a condi- 
 tion to give much until lately, and I find that one 
 requires education in giving as much as in every- 
 thing else.' I have often been called upon to 
 raise money for benevohnt objects," continues this 
 gentleman, "and it has been painfully interesting 
 to observe the disposition of the majority of peo- 
 ple either to avoid giving, or to give as little 
 as decency or conscience will allow. My life's 
 observation leads me to the conviction ^that no 
 man succeeds so well in life as he who tries to 
 li;ve his neighbor as himself." 
 
 I have noticed that this sapper, Selfishness, 
 begins way back in babyhood to undermine the 
 ckiracter. When the little girl begins to play 
 
ine of the 
 system of 
 les is the 
 yrstematic, 
 who was 
 aject gave 
 afterward 
 [X he pleas- 
 ton, accom- 
 in a condi- 
 id that one 
 as in every- 
 id upon to 
 ntinues this 
 r interesting 
 rity of peo- 
 ive as little 
 . My life's 
 tion that no 
 who tries to 
 
 , Selfishness, 
 ttdermine the 
 jgins to play 
 
 . , 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 186 
 
 with her dolls he tells her to keep the best doll 
 for herself and give her playmate the homely rag- 
 baby ; when the little boy begins to build his first 
 block house he tells him to use the best blocks 
 and give his companions the poorest. Before the 
 baby has discarded her pinafores this evil spirit is 
 always whispering to her*to look out for number 
 one; to take the biggest lump of sugar and incest 
 piece of cake and the handsomest plaything and 
 every time she does this she is allowing her great 
 enemy to dig the trench under the citadel of her 
 life, called character, a little longer and deeper. 
 
 Perhaps some little boys and girls may read this 
 chapter. In order to make this matter very plain 
 even to them, let me change the figure. Some- 
 times, when I am calling on your fathers and moth- 
 ers, I see a harmless-looking little insect, with 
 white wings, flying about the room. Nothing 
 could look more innocent and unoffending than 
 that little white-winged miller. But I notice that 
 all the family are very anxious to kill it. Your 
 mother tries to capture it, and if she fails then 
 youv father claps his hands at it, and then uncle 
 John takes his turn, and then you try for it your- 
 
186 
 
 DANGER SIGNAL?. 
 
 m 
 
 self, until, perhaps, every one in the room has 
 taken his turn. If that little, fluttering moth 
 was a mad dog you could n't seem much more 
 anxious to put it out of the way, for you know 
 that, though it looks so harmless, yet, if it gets 
 into the carpets and woolen clothes, it will riddle 
 them all through with tiny holes, and spoil them 
 for next winter's use. Now this sin of selfishness 
 of which I am warning you is very much like 
 those moth millers. It is flying around in all our 
 homes. It lights here and there and everywhere, 
 sometimes upon the father and mother, sometimes 
 upon the older brother and sister, sometimes even 
 upon' the baby's cradle. It makes no noise. It 
 flits about as silently as the moth-miller and 
 often looks just as innocent, but it does a thousand 
 times more harm. It would be better for you to 
 find all your winter clothes in the fall full of moth- 
 holes than to find your characters when you grow 
 up, full of the holes of selfishness. 
 
 Whenever you see one of these sins fluttering 
 about your hearts kill it, kill it, give it no quarter. 
 After all though there are so many selfish people 
 in the world and the air is so thick with these 
 
'' i|tWiW ' -^ ' tt ' Jn.,!«l ' WM»jt' ' liUftWVWii.WlW^ ^ 
 
 room has 
 ring moth 
 luch more 
 you know 
 , if it gets 
 will riddle 
 spoil them 
 
 selfishness 
 much like 
 [ in all our 
 verywhere, 
 
 sometimes 
 itiraes even 
 
 noise. It 
 miller and 
 
 a thousand 
 
 for you to 
 ill of moth- 
 n you grow 
 
 s fluttering 
 no quarter. 
 
 Ifish people 
 with these 
 
 THE ENEMIES OF YOUTH. 
 
 187 
 
 miserable moths, it is the generous, unselfish peo- 
 ple whom the world honors. We never think of 
 honoring selfish Emperor Nero or Caligula or.King 
 Henry the Eighth, though they did occupy such 
 high places ia the world and though they have made 
 so much history, but it is some humble, unknown 
 man whom we delight to honor. It is that pilot 
 on Lake Erie, for instance, who stuck to the 
 wheel of the burning steamer until the parched 
 skin peeled off his arms, rather than turn away 
 from his post of duty, or it is Flo. once Nightin- 
 gale who went into the fever-stricken hospitals of 
 the Crimea t^ make the soldiers' lot a little easier, 
 or Ida Lewis who, in the dark and stormy night, 
 rowed out upon the wild billows to save the ship- 
 wrecked sailors. These are the ones whom we 
 love to think of and to honor. They were not 
 great in intellect or wealth or position but they 
 had unselfish hearts, they had not allowed the 
 jnoths of self-indulgence to honeycomb their souls. 
 We need not go so far away from home to find 
 an heroic example of unselfishness. A few days 
 ago a Boston boy of nineteen was going across the 
 Broadway bridge, when he saw a younger boy fall 
 
 '^i 
 
188 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 out of a boat into the water. It was a startling 
 leap of forty feet from the bridge to the water, 
 but, without waiting a moment, he plunged in, 
 and battled with the swift tide and caught the 
 drowning boy, and at a terrible risk to his own 
 life he saved him. How the moths of selfishness 
 must have flitted before his eyes, irhen he made 
 that leap as he thought of the risk he ran I But 
 I think he must have killed a great many others 
 in his life-time, for he brushed them all aside and 
 took the risk and saved the life. All honor, I say, 
 to that Boston bo}', Thomas Canfield. 
 
 I shall mention only one more sapper of charac- 
 ter. His name is Dishonesty. Not glaring dis- 
 honesty, at first, which would lead you to pick a 
 man's pocket or take a dollar from your employ- 
 er's till. This sapper never begins his work in 
 this way. He ends it there often, but he begins 
 with the little lie, the half truth that is often worse 
 than a lie, the endeavor to keep up appearances 
 when there is no substance behind the appearance. 
 I cannot begin to give you all the warnings which 
 have come to you on this score from your friends. 
 But I will record one which I hope you will take 
 
 i i i i l i 1 ili tf i> M.i *< ! »l t 
 
M w >l i;« _ 
 
 ■I . ' . ' >.-JIJWJH>- i! i.illl IJl i ljJW i - JH-Ui".l W ".# ' . ' ^"l i ,'|iH '! *.Ui)flM ' .^ 
 
 n 
 
 THE ENEMIES OP YOUTH. 
 
 189 
 
 BtartHng 
 e water, 
 nged in, 
 ight the 
 his own 
 ilfishness 
 he made 
 in I But 
 ly others 
 iside and 
 or, I say, 
 
 )f charac- 
 aring dis- 
 to pick a 
 r employ- 
 i work in 
 le begins 
 ten worse 
 pearances 
 ipearance. 
 igs which 
 ir friends, 
 will take 
 
 
 to heart: *'My observation of men has shown 
 me that one of the most prolific roots of evil and 
 one of the hardest to eradicate is the desire to 
 gjt something for nothing. From this spring all 
 forms of dishonesty and financial rascality, all 
 cheating in trade, all gambling devices, and it 
 enters largely into the composition of all shams. 
 If we can bring a youth to the point of refusing 
 to receive anything of value without giving a fair 
 equivalent much has been gained. I would teach 
 a boy that by withholding his car fare when he is 
 overlooked by the conductor he violates a contract 
 which should be held all the more binding because 
 unwritten, and the act injures him more than it 
 does the railway company, because he thereby 
 impairs his own integrity — the last thing he can 
 afford to do." 
 
 Our daily papers are sad commentaries on this 
 terrible evil. Hardly ever do I take one up with- 
 out seeing something about the last forgery or 
 defalcation or embezzlement. It is not a solitary 
 explosion here and there, at long intervals, but our 
 ears are deafened and our hearts are made sick by 
 the explosion of these mines, where character, 
 
ll 
 
 I 
 
 f 
 
 100 
 
 DANGER SIGNALS. 
 
 good name, fair fame, bright prospects, all, all are 
 ruined. And j'et, in every case, the sapper began 
 his work years ago. The sly glance at the open 
 book on examination day, the interlinear trans- 
 lation, the attempt to make one dollar buy two 
 dollars worth of goods, the effort to live on ten 
 ddlara a week and appear to have twenty, the 
 false shame of honest poverty; by all these 
 methods the wiley sapper is slowly eating into the 
 character, until the reckless speculation, the mis- 
 appropriation of funds, the flight to Canada or 
 the outlook from btbind- prison bars reveals how 
 rotten and hopeless is the character. There is no 
 reproach resting upon the American name today 
 that compares with the reproach of financial dis- 
 honesty. Are we getting to be a nation of sharp- 
 ers and swindlers? Our defaulted state bonds, 
 and repudiated debts, our Readjusters and Scalers 
 in politics look like it. Is " American " to become 
 a synonym for sharp practice and financial crook- 
 edness ? Young men, you have something to do 
 with the answer to that question. If you and 
 those whom you represent are not on your guard 
 the sappers and miners of dishonesty will not only 
 
THE ENE>ilE8 OF YOUTH. 
 
 191 
 
 blo v up the fortress of individual integrity, but 
 the fortress of nationiil honor as well. There is 
 a useful and honorable career for every boy in 
 America of unstained, transparent honesty. I do 
 not refer now to ordinary, commercial honesty, 
 which will not steal any more than it can steal 
 safely, which makes up its mind to be just honest 
 enough to keep out of jail, as honest as the rest of 
 the world, but to integrity of that high standard 
 which makes a religion of honesty, the honesty 
 which would not overcharge or deceive a customer 
 any more than it would pick his pocket, wliich 
 would not take the slightest advantage of another, 
 even when it would never be found out, which 
 could not be surprised into a lie o\ frightened into 
 an untruth. The times are waiting for such young 
 men, watching eagerly for their development, hold- 
 ing out hands full of honors to them. 
 
 Who are the two men, who, in all the one hun- 
 dred and nine years of our national life, are the 
 most honored and loved by the American people ? 
 Honest George Washington and honest Abraham 
 Lincoln. Some people say that Washington was 
 a commonplace man iu intellect and attainments. 
 
 •^ 
 
192 
 
 DANOEB SIGKALS. 
 
 
 that there have been many greater generals and 
 statesmen, but no one says that there was ever a 
 more honest man or a ruler of greater integrity. 
 You have read, perhaps, the recent story of honest 
 Abraham Lincoln ; how, when a rising young law- 
 yer he was employed on a case which he became 
 convinced was an unjust prosecution of an inno- 
 cent man, he persuaded his client to relinquish it, 
 and announced in open court his mistake and his 
 abandonment of the caso. That incident is only 
 an index of his life. His honesty, perhaps, did 
 not make him president, but his honesty has made 
 his name revered by fifty millions of people, and 
 will perpetuate it as long as America lives. 
 
 Do you desire to be in good company? Un- 
 known on earth though your name may be, do 
 you wish to be ranked in God's sight with the 
 good and pure and true ? Let me whisper in your 
 eiws, boys and girls, as I end my talks with you, 
 you never will thus be ranked in heaven or on 
 earth unless you shun these sappers and miners of 
 character ; unless you kill these silently working 
 character moths; unless you look out for "the 
 little foxes which spoil the vines." 
 

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