This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 edition. Excerpt: ...only one person worse than the whisperer, and that is the man or the woman who listens without protest. The trouble is, you hold the sack while they fill it. The receiver of stolen goods is just as bad as the thief. An ancient writer declares that a slanderer and a man who receives the slander ought both to be hung--the one by the tongue and the other by the ear. And I agree with him. When you hear something bad about your neighbors, do not go all over and ask about it, whether it is true, and scatter it and spread it. You might as well go to a small-pox hospital and take a patient and carry him all through the community, asking people if they really think it is a case of small-pox. That would be very bad for the patient and for all the neighbors. Do not retail slanders and whisperings. Do hot make yourself the inspector of warts, and the supervisor of carbuncles, and the commissioner for street gutters, and the holder of stakes for a dog fight. Can it be that you, an immortal man, that you. an immortal woman, can find no better business than to become a gutter inspector? Besides that, at your family table allow no detraction. Teach your children to speak well of others. Show them the difference between a bee and a wasp--the one gathering honey, the other thrusting a sting. I read of a family where they kept what they called a slander book, and when any slanderous words "were uttered in the house about anybody, or detraction uttered, it was all put down in this book. The Book was kept carefully. For the first few weeks there were a great many entries, but after a while there were no entries at all. Detraction stopped in that household. It would be a good thing to have a slander book in all households. Are any of you given to this...