The Bad Boy by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 11, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 23.

The Bad Boy.

By Editor

WHEN we ride on the cars a volume is thrust into our faces, and we are invited to buy “Peck’s Bad Boy.” Walking the street, a card is handed to us with an invitation to go to the theater, to see the “Bad Boy” performed by a comedy company. We do not suppose our protest will do any good, but we do protest against this raid upon the public by “Peck’s Bad Boy.” To tell the naked truth, bad boys are no novelty in California. We do not have to read a book nor go to the theater to become acquainted with their ways. We only wish that Peck lived in San Francisco, and that he were obliged to walk a nightly round on “Tar Flat,” or the “Barbary Coast,” or “Bryant Street,” and we feel assured that he would be glad to forget that bad boys have an existence.

And we believe that it would be to the interest of juvenile morality if Peck’s bad book were entirely suppressed. There are plenty of boys, not only in San Francisco and Milwaukee, but all through the country, who think that it is funny and smart to become notorious as bad boys, and this demoralizing bad book of Peck’s is not only strengthening them in their belief, but the patronage given to the book by those who ought to know better, is leading scores of tolerably good boys to believe that they have been losing youth’s best opportunities in not developing into bad boys. In their efforts to be good they have entirely failed to become as popular as the bad boy; and most children love to be popular—they love to be admired, and what so pleasing to human nature as to be a bad boy if thereby one can be praised and admired? We hope that parents will consider well before they let copies of this pernicious book fall into the hands of their children. Religious papers ought to warn them against it. All children should be taught that “practical jokes” are both cruel and wicked.

We must be excused; we shall not buy the book, nor shall we go to the theater to see the pranks of any bad boy. We have no admiration for bad boys nor their ways. We see them on the streets only too frequently.