Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/503

 THE SMOKY PILGRIMS 489

of a vile nature. The lack of variety in life, the little time to be devoted to books and papers, and the destruction of all taste for the same bring the mind to a low status. Their spare time on the farm and when out of employment is spent in telling obscene stories, in which perpetual lying is necessary to keep up a variety in the conversation, and the use of vile language is habitual. All this tends to weakness of mind and the decline of bodily vigor and health. The youth who is so unfortunate as to listen to all this, and to be associated with such characters, is in danger of having his imagination polluted and his standard of life degraded. The crowd that gathers at the corner grocery may be of a different type from the city hoodlum, and less dangerous in some ways, but as a type of social degeneration it is little above imbecilitv itself. Its weakness and wickedness are evident. With ideals of life destroved or of a verv low

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grade, with the imagination polluted, with nothing elevating or moral for consideration, social degeneration may proceed as rapidly in the small town as in a large city where the ceaseless activity of life at least sharpens the wits of individuals and keeps them from stagnation. When boys come under these evil influences in the country their minds are vitiated by the contact, and their whole lives become modified thereby. These evidences show that the country has its dangers as well as the city.

Further consideration of these conditions is reserved for another paper. The present article is concerned with a single family group, that of a pauper familv which has fastened itself upon a small town. The family, or tribe, though much smaller, resembles somewhat that of "The jukes" or the "Tribe of Ishmael. It may be an extreme case, but is similar to a group of families found in nearlv every town and village. It is charac-

d and classified as the family ot decided pauper character- istics and weak criminal tendencies. It gives the same lessons in sot i.i ration which are enforced l>v the lar-ei tamilk-s

alluded to above. It has been thought best to follow in detail the life and character <>t this group, rather than to attempt wider generalization of the subject of rural pauperism and criminalitv.