EFFECTS OF CRIMINAL AND GHOST STORIES ON THE MINDS OF CHILDREN.
By J. F. Tolson
To ILLUSTRATE clearly the terrible effects of criminal and ghost stories on the minds of children, I can do no better than to relate my own childhood experience, and will do so, hoping that a knowledge of my experience may prove a blessing to others. But, first of all, I would like to have it understood that I am a semi-mute, and have been one since early childhood. Very early in my teens my stepmother often related to me dreadful criminal and ghost stories of every description, making such a strong impression of dread and fear on my childish mind that I began to suspect even my friends, and spent many a sleepless night. When I was fourteen years old, my beloved father died. Our property was sold to pay the family debt, and we—my brothers and sisters and myself—were scattered, as it were, to the four winds. Timidly and with trembling footsteps I set out to make my way as best I could in this wide world—very wide indeed for my undeveloped childish mind. At length a benevolent woman, seeing my condition, took me to herself, and gave me employment in her hotel. She gave me a snug little room in one wing of the hotel, the hall of which opened on the outside. The first night I could not sleep at all. Stories of dreadful murders and thefts which my stepmother had so often recited to me came vividly before my mind, filling me with superstitious dread and fear. I was still more frightened to find the door lock broken. I fastened the door as best I could, and then sat down to wait the result, expecting every moment to see some bloodthirsty fiend push the door open, and enter; but no such thing happened. The next morning I told the landlady I would leave at once unless she gave me a room in the center of the building. She very kindly consented, and gave me a room next to her own. But, though I found a good lock on the door, I did not feel safe even there. Sometimes I would peep through the keyhole of the doors about me to assure myself that there were no instruments of murder in the rooms occupied by others. I would often get up in the night and look out of the window to see if there was not some one trying to get into my room by climbing up that way, and I often fancied I saw some one, causing my hair to stand on end. Afterwards, while traveling, I put up for the night in a hotel in another town. Here the same old fear took possession of my superstitious mind. I examined every nook and corner of the room they assigned to me, to ascertain if there was any floor trap. Finding nothing wrong, I lay down, and tried to go to sleep, but frightful pictures passing before my mind drove sleep from my eyes, and I was in a raving condition several hours. Soon I could bear it no longer, and arose, and, while dressing, shouted downstairs, “I am coming,” doubtless startling the sleepers in the adjoining rooms. I then went down, and was glad to find that the landlord had not yet retired. I paid my bill, and then went to another hotel, where I spent a sleepless night.11 O, that all parents, aye, and all who associate with children, could comprehend the terrible evils of frightful stories on children’s minds! I do not doubt but that a large share of insanity in the world is the direct result of such training. As I look back upon it now, I can not but thank an overruling Providence for interposing, and preventing actual insanity. Since then I have learned to trust our all-wise heavenly Father’s care, and do not fear anything now. To him be all the praise.