Lies and The Liars

1895

THE WORST OF ALL EVILS AND MOST DIFFICULT TO CONTROL.

Growth of the Habit Due In Great Measure to Self Deception — The Causes an Interesting Study — Liars Should Be Shut Up In Asylums as the Insane Are.

There is nothing in the power of the human being so bad as a lie. There is nothing that smirches character so bad as a lie. There is nothing that turns one so against himself as a lie. There is nothing that so destroys the confidence of our friends as a lie. There is no compensation possible for the evil of a lie. It eats back corrosively into yourself, and you cannot get back your soundness. It rarely ever even temporarily makes a profit, and I think in the end never.

The puzzle of puzzles is why some people lie so easily. They rarely undertake to be exact and yet do not recognize themselves as liars. It is their first impulse to avoid straightforwardness, and they plunge ahead in conversation, simply trying to get around point after point. It is a mistake and a misfortune to form such a habit. It grows on the victim, and it increases its power. In nine cases out of ten the simple facts would be easily told, and the telling more advantageous than either concealment or a falsehood, but the habit has been encouraged to misrepresent or conceal, and the whole mental nature exhausts its fertility in a purpose not to be open and honest. When this appears in a person of good ability, mild disposition and industry, it is lamentable.

The power of lying as a habit to grow is amazing. The reason probably is that the liar lies to himself as badly as he does to others — that is, he tries to believe he is truthful until he believes what he says is true, or at least is uncertain about it. I know one or two persons with whom you may say lying is a chronic disease. They talk on at entire random. Their whole life becomes a romance. They may occasionally touch bottom on a fact, but they do it by accident. They do not know it. It is simply because facts are so many as to get in their way. "What an unconscionable liar that creature is," said a friend. "She cannot tell the truth." I am not sure but we should have a new name for this sort of people. The fact is they have lost all sense of the true and the false, as they have of right and wrong. Louis Stevenson's novels are no more a piece of intellectual manufacture than are their everyday conversations. This is true not only of some of the lower class, but of an occasional person in the highest ranks of society. I know an eminent litterateur who is so snarled up among the creatures of his imagination that he cannot tell the real from the fictional. It is dangerous to be his friend, for he is liable to get you woven into a great web of his fancies, and then with all his might he believes you are guilty of absurdities or worse that were enacted only in his brain. he will swear to these "facts" with all sincerity. His life can never be restored to a basis of realities.

There should be hospitals for liars, or retreats, such as we provide for the insane when their cases become chronic and dangerous. They become dangerous to the community, quite as dangerous as forgers and shoplifters, and far worse for our own peace and happiness. If by accident you get one of these people into your household, you never will get the confusion rectified. East becomes west. Love is perverted into evil intent. Even facts fail to tell the truth. Everything is wrong end foremost. Half the suicides come from liars' tongues. The worst cases should be treated as insanity and mild cases sent to a hospital.

It would be an interesting study for an analytic mind to study the causes of lying and liars. It is in some cases no doubt a matter almost wholly of heredity. Mothers and fathers hand down moral traits more easily than they do intellectual. A mother should make it a law of her life to be sincere and undeviating. If not, she is sure to reap a sore punishment in and from her children. Practice a habit of living very open hearted. I do not mean prattling facts all the while, but with no chests locked against your beloved ones. An open heart is better than an open mouth.

I pity a really honest person who has tumbled herself hastily into a lie. The temptation came on suddenly, and before she was able to be quite self masterful she prevaricated. Now, to back out of a lie is like backing out of a slough of mud. You get out with mire on you. But is it any better to stay in the slough and wallow about? There is nothing gained, my friend, by sticking to a falsehood simply because you are ashamed to back out. Be as frank as your better nature suggests and get as quickly as possible on the line of absolute honor.

But there are other causes for the liar's character besides heredity. Society is not based on honor, but very largely on pretenses. The good half of social intercourse is offset by another half of deceit and insincerity. This, of course, is stamping itself on character. People cannot live lies and not be liars. The Quakers felt this social degradation and tried to correct it. Let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil. The Quakers, however, do sometimes lie, and all the worse because they have placed so much emphasis on the yea, yea, as better than yes, yes. But they do not make a mistake in insisting on the importance of words. Social flattery and much of social manners are a cover for lies. There is no truth in it. Are you a social liar? — Mary E. Spencer in St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

A Greater Scoundrel

1895

A famous master of Trinity college, Cambridge, had been a friend in earlier days of one Jemmy Gordon, a solicitor. But Jemmy went to the bad, was struck off the rolls and lived from what he could get from old acquaintances. One day he met the master and asked for a shilling. "Gordon," thundered the master, "If you could show me a greater scoundrel than yourself, I would give you half a crown," and he stalked stiffly away to his rooms. In half an hour's time the butler announced that Mr. Pompous, the esquire beadle, wished to see the master. Now, the master had a special detestation of the beadle, who, when admitted and curtly asked what he wanted, replied:

"Mr. Gordon informed me that you desired to see me."

Said the master, "Gordon has made an ass of you!"

In ten minutes more the butler came again, grinning, and said:

"Mr. Jemmy Gordon has called and says you owe him half a crown, sir." — Newcastle Chronicle.

Comment: I like that, the guy's actual name is Mr. Pompous, or maybe not, maybe just a shorthand way of characterizing a person who should not be named. And what a great line from the master, "Gordon has made an ass of you!" Exclamation point, end of story, pay me my half crown!

A Defect In the Hands

1895

A good story is told of an English lawyer who, having succeeded in making a litigant of every farmer in his county, having grown rich at their expense, and thus established a valid claim to their consideration, consented to sit for his portrait, which was to adorn the courtroom of the county town.

The picture was duly painted by a London artist, and previously to being hung was submitted to a private view. "Most uncommonlike, to be sure," was the general verdict. But one old chap, regarding the canvas critically, dissented from the prevailing opinion as follows:

"That be somewhat like his face, but it ain't the man. This man has got his hand in his own pocket, you see. Now, I have knowed him for five and thirty years, and all that time he's had his hand in somebody else's pocket. This chap ain't him." — Green Bag.

The Congressional Reputation

1895

"I don't know exactly what the congressional reputation for temperance is away from Washington," remarked the story telling member, "but I'm afraid it is bad in some sections."

"Why?" very naturally inquired a listener.

"For instance," continued the member, "when I was paying a kind of fence repairing visit to one of the remote counties in my district I stopped for dinner at a country tavern kept by an old fellow I had never met. There was a bar attached, and thither my companion and I adjourned shortly after our arrival. We hadn't seen the old man yet, and a boy was behind the counter. We explained our wants to him, and he had just set out a bottle and a couple of the ordinary small sized whisky glasses when the old man came in. My companion knew him and at once introduced me as the member of congress from that district. We shook hands cordially, and I asked him to join us.

"'Not at all,' he responded, with a bow. 'You are to drink with me,' and turning toward the counter he noticed the little glasses.

" 'Here, Bill,' he exclaimed, shoving them to one side, 'take these thimbles away and bring out them goblets. Didn't you hear the gentleman say this was a member of congress?' " — Detroit Free Press.

What Rattled Him

1895

Detroit has among its possessions a young man around town whose reputation as a borrower who never pays back was supposed to be known to everybody. The other evening he was playing at billiards.

"By George," exclaimed the friend who was paying for the game after they had played some time, "you can't play a little bit tonight. What's the matter with you? You must be rattled."

"I am," was the reply, almost gasped out.

The other party was frightened. "What's happened?" he asked nervously.

"Why, just before we began playing I struck an acquaintance on the street for $10, and he let me have it without a word." — Detroit Free Press.


Why He Didn't Fall

A number of boys in Scotland were being rehearsed for an amateur performance, and the boy who was to impersonate the hero was told to fall on the floor at the right moment. But when the crisis was reached on the examination day he did not fall. The verse was repeated, but still he remained upright. Being accordingly asked his reason, he replied, "My mithor said I wasna to fa', for I've got on my Sunday claes." — New York Tribune.

Daughter Can Save Mother

1915

There Are Many Little Pleasures Girl Can Give Her Parents — Don't Talk Disrespectfully

There is so much a daughter can do for her mother that it is hard to know where to begin. Remember, girls, that all your lives your mothers have been sacrificing themselves for you. Now you have a chance to reverse things.

Your shoulders are young and strong; help lift the burden a little from the tired shoulders that have borne it so long. Let mother see that you appreciate all that she has done for you. Take the heaviest part of the housework off her hands. Make her stay in bed in the morning while you get the breakfast. Send her out to enjoy herself while you look after the children.

Of course you cannot do this every day, but you can do your share of it.

If you are a business girl you cannot do much of this sort of thing, but there are many little pleasures you can give her.

Something pretty to wear will please her. She likes pretty things as well as you do. Confide in her and tell her your hopes and ambitions. She is better than all the girl friends in the world and will never tell your secrets.

The trouble about mothers is, that we get so used to them that we don't half appreciate them until we lose them. Then quickly enough we realize what all that divine care and tenderness meant. No matter how much you do, you can't begin to return all they have done for you, but do the best you can. A little love and petting is always appreciated by mothers; try it with yours and see if she does not thrive under it.

As for the girls who talk and act disrespectfully toward their mothers, for them no criticism is too harsh. If only they knew what outsiders think of it I believe they would stop it.

The prettiest girl in the world is absolutely devoid of charm if she is impertinent to her mother.

Begin today, girls, and save your mothers all the worries you can; show them all the consideration you can, and give them all the love you can. — Selected.

Dwarf Darnell Flim-Flams Little Blind Girl

Atlanta, 1902

MONROE DARNELL, MIDGET, FLIM-FLAMS BLIND GIRL

The climax of eccentricities in flim-flamming was reached yesterday, when a little dwarf was caught trying to flim-flam a blind girl out of 10 cents.

Monroe Darnell, the well-known midget, was the flim-flammer, and his victim was a little blind girl who stands at the street corners patiently waiting for good-hearted people to drop money into a tin cup which she holds in her hand.

Darnell tried to swipe a 10-cent piece which he saw in the cup, and in its stead placed a copper.

The police are constantly meeting up with flim-flam games and new ones are always coming to light. It takes novelty to make a flim-flam go, and the crooks are ever trying to invent some new scheme by which they can get hold of coin without working for it. But it took Dwarf Darnell to present the most unique flim-flam that has come before the police in many a day.

Yesterday the little blind girl was standing at the corner of Decatur and Ivy streets. Some one had dropped a 10-cent silver coin into her tin cup. Across the street Monroe Darnell, who is himself no slouch when it comes to begging money, was standing, and when he saw a coin fall into the blind girl's cup he strolled over her way and peered into the receptacle. Having ascertained that the coin was a dime, he took a 1-cent piece from his pocket, and squinting his eyes around to see if he was unobserved, he quickly swiped the dime from the cup and left the copper in its place. He might have swiped the dime and left nothing in its place, but his leaving the copper showed that his conscience was not entirely dead.

He was not unobserved, however, for a citizen saw the flim-flam and reported the matter to an officer. Darnell was caught with the dime in his hand. He admitted having exchanged a copper for it, but stoutly maintained that he did not mean to steal it.

"Now, look here," said he in his squeaky voice, "yer all knows how I like a joke. All the boys will tell yer that poor little Monroe is always full of his fun. I just meant to play a joke on the blind girl, seeing as how she couldn't see. Then I meant to teach her a lesson about being too careless with her money. I was just going to say to her: 'Baby mine, I have slipped away your dime and put a copper in its place. You mustn't leave your money in your cup so long. You must take it out as fast as you hear it drop, or some fine day a sure enough rogue will swipe your money, and he won't be as honest as poor little Monroe.' You see, I make my money by the same sort of hard licks as the blind girl, and I want her to learn how to take better care of the stuff."

The dwarf was made to restore the dime, and he generously let her also have his copper. If he had not been caught, however, the flim-flam would have been a very serious joke to the little blind girl.

–The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Nov. 23, 1902, p. 5.