Daily Yellowstone Journal

Come with The Crowd.

See here, my boy! The bells have rung the old year out and the new one in, and a new watch has come on desk.

If you think you are going right along in the same old grooves, while the rest are making changes, you are up a tree.

You've got to toe the mark with the remainder of the world.

Now, then: you are beginning life. You are from 16 to 21 years old. You think you know all about it, but the fact is you aren't more than half-baked yet. What you don't know would cover all Lake Erie, while your worldly wisdom wouldn't knock an owl off his perch. Suppose you make a resolve to begin by not knowing more than half as much as Plato, Diogenes and other wise gone. If you should condescend to add that you didn't even know more than your own father, it wouldn't greatly alter your general standing with the old folks.

Perhaps you smoke and chew. What for? What is the use of paying out $100 a year to insure bad breath, headache and sore eyes, decayed teeth and nervous debility, when you can secure a broken leg, which is far nicer, by a tumble down stairs? Chewing is a vicious, dirty habit. Smoking affects the brain and nerves and stomach. We admit that a young chap of your age looks like a great statesman when he comes down the avenue pulling away at a 5-cent cigar, but suppose you didn't look to anybody but yourself?

Maybe you drink a little; very probably you do. A young man of your age is apt to think it's smart to guzzle down lager and tipple wine, but there's where he is lame. Even old drunkards would caution you against the practice. Drink not only wastes money, but it severs friendship, breeds anger, brings about quarrels, and there is no end to the train of wretchedness it entails. Yes, great lawyers, statesmen, poets and philosophers drink, but they lose respect by it. Men have a contempt for their weakness, and the world reads their epitaphs with sneers. Don't make a pariah of yourself because someone else has.

Played poker or faro yet? If no, we hope you got such a skinning as will last you your lifetime. Let gambling alone. Fight as shy of gambling rooms as you would of a mad dog. People tell you about luck. That's all bosh. The gambler has you by the throat the moment you enter his door. You can't make any money out of him, but he will rob it that you add to his capital.

Control your personal traits. You but keep it in check. The world will come naturally by your ego in general looks upon it as a disease.

Even if you know all you think you know the rest of us won't admit it. Men hate boasters and braggarts.

Bluntness is a good thing sometimes; sometimes it isn't. Civility and conscientious regard for other people's feelings are trump cards in the game of life. Be charitable without encouraging vice; be honest in your opinions, but don't imagine that it is your duty to break up a family or start a church scandal; in your dealings be square.

You may lose by it for a time, but when the public comes to understand that you are a just and upright man you'll make money and keep friends as well.

In fact, young man, suppose you square up with your tailor, pay the balance at your boot-makers, part your hair on the side and fall into procession with the rest of us. We don't claim to be pretty, and we don't own all the farms in the country, but we can teach you several things that may come in use to you in future years, and we guarantee to prove that horse sense and square dealing are certain to pay a semi-annual dividend.