People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1895 — Those Strictures. [ARTICLE]

Those Strictures.

To the Editor of the People's Pilot. A self-confessed “crank” in the Pilot of Oct., 10, has some very old fashioned ideas. The idea that gambling, running a “bucket shop,"horseracing and law breaking in general should be punished is a musty old chestnut in the minds of some t There are some who do not care what they do so they gain by their deeds. * * If a man steals thousands he is “smart” if another steals a loaf of bread to satisfy his hunger he is a thief and should be jailed. much difference is there between betting on a horse race or on a game of cards, on the turn of a wheel of fortune, or a game of base base or foot ball? The horse race is about the most seductive of so called sports but it is gambling if you bet just the same. It is like the prize fight up in Minnesota. The principals did not want to fight in private. There would be no “gate receipts.” 1 am as anxious about the welfare of young men and boys as is “Crank," and would like to see the laws enforced and the evils of to day cease but there will have to be some pretty well directed efforts in an educational way before the milleunium is ushered in.

If parents do not wish their their children to be gamblers they will have to give them some pretty impressing lessons or they may become such. Grown people have spasms of goodness during protracted meetings and for show occasions. Some church methods of obtaining money are no better than those of the capper and pimp but it is in the name of religion and not christainity. I predict there will be no “civic federation" nor “league.” It is very doubts ul about the next spasm that will strike Rensselaer. It may be a good or bad one. They amount to but little. The man or woman who does well every day is the one wh© has the confidence of the community.

The merchant, banker, laborer, professional or business man needs to “ avoid the appearance of evil” if he wishes to stand well and do business in a community for any great length of time. Every man owes it to the community it which he lives to be a 3ood citizen and set a good example to his neighbors children, and in this way he will be a blessto the community in which he

lives.

W.