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Show Putting on Pressure By THOMAS ARKLE CLAR.C Dean of Men, University of Illinois y OU can move Anything If .von Jt apply snlle!ent pressure h'ng enough," Wilson was saying to me. He was In reality thinking of a big freight train stalled In n heavy grade, for Wilson had been n railroad man all his life, and then Ids thoughts turned to less physical objects and lie told me this story to illustrate his theory : "I was division superintendent at tho time," he explained, "and I had got In to the little way station one night long after midnight. A young boy was In charge of the station at night to receive and send such messages mes-sages as might come or go over the wire, but his main duty was to keep awake. "When I looked In at the window of his dimly lighted ofnee lie was lying on the floor and two men were bending bend-ing over him swearing and demanding that he open the oftlce safe which contained at times considerable money. The boy's feet had been thrust through a heavy letter press which the ofllce contained, and an ax handle was being used as a lever to turn the screw. They were torturing the boy In an attempt to force him to open the safe. '"Open it, d n you,'" the husky burglar would say, and then he would give the screw another turn upon the boy's feet. "'I will not,'" the boy would an swer, but the pain was becoming more and more Intense and would soon have been beyond endurance. I gave a loud yell and crashed my lantern through the window, as the frightened and surprised sur-prised burglars fled. "The boy was near fainting when 1 had released him." "'What would you have done?' I asked him. "'If they had given the screw another an-other turn I should have told. The pressure was getting to be more than I could stand. I'm honest, but '" "You see, in time," Wilson explains "we oil yield to pressure." That's what I said to Sherwin Sherwin Is well bred and Is a boy ol good principles, but lately he has been running around with fellows who are careless and at times drunken and with girls whose reputations are bad If not their characters. "You don't need to worry about me," Sherwin assures me. "I know how to take care of myself, and I'm quite safe. They aren't going to gel me into trouble. I'm just Interested In their point of view." But the boy has physical desires as other boys have, and like other boys he wants to be thought a good sports man. Some day he will have a bottle shoved at him or quite unexpectedly a girl with a pretty face and an appeal Ing body will take a final turn of the ax handle and Sherwin will yield to the pressure and he will come home not quite so sober, not quite so clean as he was before. The only thing for him to do is to get out from under the pressure. "I'm sure I never could pe persuaded per-suaded to do this or that," Got don says. You never know until the pressure in applied. (, 1927. Western .Newspaper Union.) |