Littell's Living Age/Volume 129/Issue 1663/Going to the Bad
From The Liberal Review.
GOING TO THE BAD.
"Going to the bad!" This phrase, which is significant though slangy, is often applied to many of those who are moving about in our midst. Generally, however, it is used in reference to people who have already gone, rather than to persons who are going, to the "bad;" for by the time that the world begins to see that a man is travelling in a wrong direction it is invariably true that his case has become almost hopeless. He must be a very stupid person, indeed, if he cannot, in the earlier stages of his decline, hide his failings from the eyes not only of his immediate friends, who are easily hoodwinked, but also of his intimate acquaintances, who are invariably the first to detect his imperfections and perilous condition. Indeed, he may fall into a very wretched plight, and yet those who love him best may imagine that he is what he should be until, perhaps, some day he is the cause of an unpleasant revelation being made unto them. At the same time, it ought not to be a difficult matter for those with whom a man's life is spent to notice when he is placing himself in danger; and it is a pity that they often fail to read signs and nip bad habits in the bud ere they have become second nature. If they were not obtuse, and were willing to do their duty, they might, in many a case, supply what would be a successful antidote to the poison which their patients imbibe abroad. For instance, it would be an easy matter for them to nullify some of the most important evil effects which a young man who is just entering upon life receives from the mixed crowd with which he is compelled to mingle. His partiality for low pleasures and discreditable company and his indifference to the unruffled atmosphere of home are not the growth of a moment, and could be stayed by judicious treatment. But being unnoticed in their earlier stages, they are too frequently unwittingly fostered until they reach such a pitch that it is almost impossible to contend successfully with them. In illustration of all this a typical case may be cited. A is an average young man of respectable position, who is in an office, his duties not being of a particularly onerous or attractive character. Consequently he has the opportunity, as he has the inclination, to "kill time" in as agreeable a manner as may be devised. The most pleasant way of whiling away dreary hours in a business centre appears to be to haunt restaurants, drinking-bars, and smoking-saloons, which are presided over by divinities whose manners are of the free-and-easy sort, so our hero naturally finds his way to these resorts. Here he encounters kindred souls who are one stage further on the road to the "bad" than he is, and by them is induced to advance yet another step. In due course, he is taught to sneer at virtue and to think it a fine thing to indulge in excesses of various kinds. When he has reached this pointy his home—which at its best, perhaps, is a cheerless, unsympathetic sort of place, in which he can find little to interest him—becomes distasteful, and so at night-time he is persuaded to wander afield in search of excitement. During his rambles he falls a victim to the harpies and swindlers—male and female—who exist by preying upon those who have fairly supplied pockets and lax morals. By-and-by he acquires a real love for drink, and deleterious liquids which at one time he consumed out of a spirit of bravado, he takes because he likes them. It is when he has arrived at this extremity —he may have been years in doing so—that his pace accelerates, and people generally begin to see that he will get into trouble. His excesses lead him to neglect his business, and he loses caste in the commercial world, besides which his proceedings so impair his constitution and sap his energy th;at he becomes incapable of sustained exertion. Of course, his moral tone is lowered, so lowered indeed, in many instances, that he is not ashamed to sponge upon his friends and play the part of an amateur sharper. When he has sunk to this depth his parents, perchance, come to his assistance, and his father gives him another start in life, and yet another. But these only lead to further break-downs, and, consequently, he is at last either shipped off abroad or becomes a vagabond, who walks on the face of the earth, an eyesore to his friends and a torment to himself.
Now people who go to the "bad" in the manner indicated have, strictly speaking, only themselves to blame, and it may be argued that those who choose to make fools of themselves ought not to be shielded from the effects of their folly. Nevertheless, it may be pointed out that the offenders frequently wander astray at first as much through inadvertence as by virtue of their innate depravity. Putting on one side the fact that example is a potent force, which weak-natured people often find it impossible to resist, it may be safely asserted that many persons commit themselves imprudently in their desire to do something, and from the horror of sitting still with folded hands doing nothing. Thus, there is reason to believe that if homes were made more attractive, and if those who live in them were always provided with something to do, which would have the effect of exciting their interest and rousing their energies, they would not be led to seek diversions at a public billiard-room or a fast theatre. As it is, too many mothers are impatient of what disturbs the established order of things, and too many fathers are inclined to sulk and snarl if their comfort is in any way interfered with. Perhaps they ought not to be severely blamed on this account, for it is natural for elderly people to study their own comfort, and to be blind to many things which they ought to see, so long as they are not disturbed. But, then, neither should young men who are not of a literary turn of mind and there fore care not for books—by the way, we cannot all be literary—be severely censured for seeking what their nature demands in quarters where they are exposed to danger. Let it be remembered that the man whose heart is thoroughly in his work or in his pleasures, is not likely to be tempted by attractions which, if denuded of their "naughtiness," and the false atmosphere by which they are surrounded, would excite the contempt of every reasonable person. It is the excitement which people derive from playing with edged tools, rather than a love of the took themselves, which induces those who are "going to the bad" to trifle with them. The moral to be drawn from this is so obvious that we hope that the time will shortly arrive when reeking bar-parlours, the 'foetid haunts of sharpers, and highly embellished female divinities, will cease to do the amount of mischief which they now, unhappily, effect, to the discredit alike of the intelligence, morality, and taste of those who are injured by them.