406 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



Boys, if you want to be pure, if you wish to be 

 loved by a pure mother, an innocent sister, and when 

 you are grown to manhood to be worthy of the confi- 

 dence of a pure, virtuous wife, keep your lips pure; 

 never let a vile word or an indecent allusion pass 

 them. Never, under any circumstances, give utter- 

 ance to language that you would blush to have your 

 mother overhear. If you find yourself in the com- 

 pany of persons whose language will not bear this 

 test, escape as soon as possible, for you are in dan- 

 ger; your sense of what is right and proper in speech 

 is being vitiated; you are being damaged in many 

 ways. 



Bad Books.— A bad book is as bad as an evil com- 

 panion. In some respects it is even worse than a living 

 teacher of vice, since it may cling to an individual at 

 all times. It may follow him to the secrecy of his 

 bed-chamber, and there poison his mind with the venom 

 of evil. The influence of bad books in making bad 

 boys and men is little appreciated. Few are aware 

 how much evil seed is being sown among the young 

 everywhere through the medium of vile books. It is 

 not only the wretched volumes of obscenity, of which so 

 many thousands have been seized and destroyed by 

 Mr. Comstock, that are included under the head of bad 

 books, and which corrupt the morals of the young, and 

 lead them to enter the road to infamy; but the evil 

 literature which is sold in "dime and nickel novels," 

 and which constitutes the principal part of the con- 

 tents of such papers as the Police Gazette, the Police 

 Neivs, and a large proportion of the sensational story 

 books which flood the land, and too many of which find 

 their way into town and circulating libraries, and even 

 Sunday-school libraries, which are rarely selected with 



