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Show LITTLE BOYS OF OGDEN. Two boys, not more thavn nine years old, crawled from under a stairway in the Standard building at 8 o'clock this morning. They were shivering, thedr clothes were torn and dirty and . their faces were grimy, "Youngsters, did you sleep there last night?" we inquired. '"Yes, sir," they answered. "What prompted you to stay away from home? Have you nomas?" "Yes, we live on Twentieth street. We went over the viadict and were so late getting back we were afraid to go home." "Afraid to go home! Well, what will your parents say now that you have been out all night? Have you each a father and a mother?" " 'The boys nodded yea, as they tried to brush off t:ie cobwebs and dust which clung to their clothes. They were not bad appearing boys and seemingly both were truthful. But as they told their story in monosyllabic answers, we wondered if they had fathers who cared or mothers who worried; . we wondered what their future shall be; we wondered how many just ouch boys, in boyish fear or as a prank, are starting life like vagabonds; we wondered what per cent of the careless, reckless, vicious, vile, criminal men of the world came from such homes where the children are allowed to grow wild as docs rank vegetation in an uncultivated field or the brutes on the mountain ranges of the west. Here w have the beginning of a wretched existence. The boys cannot see th pitfalls ahead; they are blind to the future. They are deluding themselves with the thought that to be beyond the restraint re-straint of home and to do something unusual in venturesome mischief mis-chief is an experience of which they can proudly boast. In after years, looking back, they will be able to trace these first false steps and, with regret, see the folly of boyish indifference to the proprieties. pro-prieties. For these errors the parents primarily are to blame. Fathers and mothers are obligated to control and direct their children. The community as a whole is censurable for tolerating this indifference indiffer-ence of parents. |