Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1884 — Being Called a Liar. [ARTICLE]

Being Called a Liar.

A boy who says he is 17 years old, a clerk, with good family” connections, writes to know if a person should knock another down for calling him a liar, or what he should do. He says it seems to be customary to look upon a fellow as a coward if he allows anybody to call him a liar and does not resent it, and yet if a person takes up every such statement, he is liable to have a black eye half the time, and he asks advice about it. The most notorious liars are the most sensitive abont being called liars, and they will fight or shoot quicker for being called a liar than they would at being accused of murder. Take a man, for instance, who wants to Beil a horse that is unsound in every particular. He will tell yon that the horse is sonnd as a dollar, not a pimple on him, never sick a day, and he is good in any spot or place, any lady can drive him, and he will lie about that horse all day, and know he lies, and knows that everybody knows he is a liar. And yet, if yon were to call that man a liar to his face, his “honor” would be at stake, and he would fight at once. Though a man may have been proved in court to be a swindler, a thief, a murderer and highway robber, and while he will converse on any crime he may have committed, and rather glory in being a bad man, if he should make a statement and veu should doubt it, and call him a liar, he would be wild at once, and knock you down and walk on you. It beats all what a sensitiveness there is about being called a liar. It has been said by some great man, “all men are liars,” but it is probable that statement is overdrawn. It is doubtful if statistics would show that more than ninety-nine men out of a hundred are liars, and yet the ninetynine liars would fight at once on being called liars, while, if the truthful man should be called a liar, he would feel hurt, and would go to work to convince the person who called him such of his error, in a respectful sort of way, by argument and demonstration. While it may be a custom to fight at once on being called a liar, we would advise young men to gradually break themselves of the habit, both of lying and fighting. A man or boy is not necessarily a coward because he does not engage in a brawl at being called a liar. If a man calls you a liar, and yon are a liar, it does not help the matter for you to thump him, and be arrested for disorderly conduct. Your fight will not convince him that you are not a liar, and everybody who hears of the row will say you are a bully as well. No gentleman will call a man a liar, and, if a man is a loafer, yon can afford to ignore him, and go about your business, and you should never recognize him until he apologizes, which he will do, nine thnes in ten, when he finds he has made a fool of himself, and that you are respected more for quietly refraining from punishing him than iie is for being a bully. Those who are the most apt to call people liars are usually the worst cowards in the world. They think by using such language they can convince people that they are brave. Take one of these fellows, and he does not call you out alone, and call you a liar, as a business statement, but he gets you in a crowd where he knows he has four friends to your one, and he knows that if worse comes to worse his crowd can whip your crowd. He t-lks loud, and wants to convince people that he is brave, but generally he is a weak-minded coward. If a young man selects respectable company, treats everybody well, is kind to high and low, rich and poor, just the same, goes out of his way, if occasion offers, to do a kindness, speaks well of all, or says nothing, and never, knowingly, does an injury to any person, he can go through life and never be called a liar, and never have occasion to fight. He can so conduct himself that if a person should call him a liar he would not get time to fight, for every friend he had would know the charge to be false, and they would insist that the person making the charge should take it back and apologize, it would seem snoh a monstrous injustice to the friends. But, if a young fellow is a liar, and talks too much with his mouth, and is constantly saying things about people behind their backs that are not so, and he is selfish aud mean, and would not do a kindly act, except he could make a point by it and have everybody know it, if he is a liar, and a mean one, who cares nothing for the anguish and heartaches he may cause by his lies, he is liable to be called a liar any time, and maybe it is best for such persons to resent it and fight, for they will occasionally be mauled, and it will eventually do "them good and teach them a lesson.— Peek's Sun.