St. Clair County
Remnants Of The Past

Innocent-Looking Lads

Osceola Sun
12 September 1878

Few persons are aware that one-half, at least, of the innocent-looking, bright-eyed laughing lads who play about our streets are walking ordinance departments, yes, such is the fact. If you were to take one of them and throw him down on the sidewalk you would think he was a torpedo or a can of nitro-glycerine. He would go off in about five places at once on an average, and would sound like a small skirmish on a Christmas morning. They all do it; we mean wear ‘em; that is to say, pistols, pocket pistols. If a census of the pistols were taken, including all ages, sexes and conditions, the number would correspond very accurately with the number of boys who hitch themselves on to them. Variety is the oddest feature of the little death-dealers. Single barrel, double barrel, pepper-box, Smith & Wesson, Colt and Derringer pistols, all with their little or big mouths full of death – dogs itching to jump out of their kennels at you. There is growing up a habit of carrying pistols that has anything but a healthy look for the peace of the community. A small boy and a pistol are perfectly harmless when separated, but they make a terrible, death-dealing combination. It’s just a little too late when a pistol has gone off accidentally – and they all go off that way – and killed your friend or some innocent bystander, to be grieved at the result. Officers of the law are the only persons who have the right to go about armed. The greatest danger to persons who wear arms is the constant risk they run of shooting themselves. We seldom pick up a paper that has not some terrible account of accidents of this sort. It requires very little bravery to lug about with one a weapon. It gives a man an advantage over those who are unarmed, and that is all. The very fact of having in one’s possession this contrivance for destroying life produces a disposition to rashness where it would otherwise never exist. Familiarity with the means of committing desperate deeds breeds tolerance of them. It is all wrong, and the sooner our young men, and especially our boys, disabuse their mind of the idea that it is manly to go about ready for a bloody encounter at any moment, in the heat of blood and on slight provocation, the sooner will the community have a reign of peace and good will.