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Show , , i HOWE AEQUT i ' ! " I By ED HOWE :.r.t "y T Ml: Syndicate, inc.) A centleuuiD in Connecticut writes j me that -'everyone, up to the present i moment. In" done I. to very hest he could. Puuishmeut does not cause gooJ behavior. When you punish you place yourself on the same level with the criminal." ... I print this as a curiosity in what men cull "thinking"; "think-ing"; as a mater of fact, punishment Is the surest means of enforcing order. or-der. . . . If It is true that occasionally occa-sionally there is a man who assaults every woman he meets, and this Is the very best he can do, then the very best the people can do Is to exterminate extermi-nate that man. Ever since learning to read, I have regularly encountered the name of Charles Lamb. I do not like anything he has written, or any incident in his history ; probably my dislike of the man is a result of seeing him exploited exploit-ed so much. . . . I do not recall hearing anyone mention Charles Lamb in conversation ; newspaper writers usually let him alone, but the magazines maga-zines are forever exhibiting him. Boston is as famous for Charles Lamb as it is for baked beans; both bad dishes. Every morning and evenli g, when I pick up a newspaper, I read of bad men and women, but rarely hear of them otherwise. Where I live, ninety-five out of every hundred behave very well. A really bad action is almost al-most as unusual as a death by lightning. light-ning. There are many dull, tiresome people, but year after year 1 see them going to work, and hear of their performing per-forming pretty well during the day; no shooting, no runaways, no great scandals, except in the papers. So many good men are lately being shot by bandits that I rather rejoiced on hearing that a watchman killed two 1 thieves who attempted to rob the con cern in his care. . . . The watchman watch-man was sixty-eight years old. . . . The old men are of some use, after all, it seems. Probably you have observed that yon tire of the gossip of your town. Where I live we have gossip five and ten years old, and I have become so tired of it that I almost scream when the subject comes up. Probably women wom-en are more Interested in it than men, and better satisfied with its trifling details. I was lately sitting on a porch with four women, and their prattle was more tiresome than silence si-lence would have been. |