Boys with originally good instincts are beguiled, through the allurements of dime novels and of blood-and-thunder dramas at cheap theaters, into the company of thieves and vagabonds; and the petty theft which soon consigns them to a reformatory institution, while it may perhaps be the occasion of checking a vicious career, stamps a brand of crime upon the character, destined in future to produce deplorable results.
"Cruelty to Children" The North American Review 137(320): 70 [1883]
We do not speak of dime novels, nor all that fetid spawn of the lower press which bears the same relation to literature that a city sewer does to a sparkling mountain brook.
"Current Literature" The Galaxy 13(3): 428 [1872]
A week later, I was thunderstruck at reading of the arrest of my sympathetic friend's son for train-wrecking up the state. The fellow was of the same age as Mike. It appeared that he was supposed to be attending school, but had been reading dime novels instead, until he arrived at the point where he had to kill some one before the end of the month.
Jacob A. Riis "The Genesis of the Gang" The Atlantic Monthly 84(503): 303 [1899]
Teach [your boys] that dime novels and similar readings are an invention of Satan.
"What to Teach Our Boys" Ohio Farmer 49(13): 203 [1876]
A Young Lady of Kentucky has been reading the dime novel of the period more than is good for her. She dresses herself in boy's clothes, and, arming herself with pistols and dagger, took the steamboat intending to lead a life of romance. On the boat some deck hands were moving freight, and a big rat ran out in the direction of our hero. She jumped on a bale of tobacco and screamed. They carried her to the ladies' cabin, where she remained during the round trip, and is now at home, with no desire for further adventures.
Christian Union 19(18): 419 [1879]
The story in The Times of the luncheon in celebration of the detective story centenary renews an irritation of years. Not one of the worthies supporting this class of fiction has ever, to my knowledge, deigned to admit the influence of the dime novel detective yarn. It escaped even so meticulous an analyst as Howard Haycraft, who ignored the dime novel sleuth in his otherwise excellent book, "Murder for Pleasure."
"Sleuth," in passing, was copyrighted by Norman L. Munro, the dime novel publisher of the Old Sleuth stories, and he sued right and left to protect his rights when rival publishers infringed, which they did immediately and probably with legal impunity, for Webster ascribes its origin as old Norse.
Until Dr. Albert Johannsen, professor emeritus of petrology in the University of Chicago, publishes his definitive bibliography of the dime novel, a 1,500-pagE manuscript, we shall not know the precise extent of the detective dime novel stories. But Charles Bragin, indefatigable collector and student of this lurid mass fiction, estimates fully 5,000 dim* novel detective stories were published since Munro's Old Sleuth in 1872 to thE death of the dime novel in 1929 when the Pluck and Luck Library -- which were not detective stories -- ceased.
Old Cap Collier, Old and Young King Brady, Nick Carter, Old and Young Broadbrim and the New York Detective Library are still cherished by nostalgic oldsters if not read. No sober student can effectively support a dEnial that their tremendous circulation maintained an interest the "between boards" writers now enjoy.
New York, Sept. 25, 1941.
GRAFTON, Mass., Nov. 1. -- Ralph Franklin Cummings of Saundersville, this town, who is 38 and calls himself "Reckless Ralph," has a collection of old "dime novels" totaling more than 8,000 and is constantly adding to this library, which is believed to be the largest in the country.
One room in the farmhouse in which he lives is practically filled with dime novels of all the different cycles of the dime novel era.
Mr. Cummings publishes a monthly eight-page paper under the title "Reckless Ralph's Dime Novel Round-Up."
He is also the founder and chief ranger off the "Happy Hours Brotherhood" to which belong more than 100 dime novel "fans" living in all parts of the United States as well as in Great Britain, Ireland and France. At a recent meeting in the Saundersvilie headquarters nearly a score of dime-novel collectors from Lawrence, Melrose, Lexington, Boston, New York and Philadelphia had dinner and inspected the Cummings collection.
"The dime novel existed in series beginning, as few are aware, as early as 1860 with the 'Yellow Book' collection," said Mr. Cummings.
"Then came the 'Black and White' covered dime novel in 1875 and, finally, from about 1896 to 1915 the colored covered dime novel.
"I would rather have a dime novel to read than one of the present-day magazines. In the dime novel the language was circumspect, smut was absent, the hero if he killed did it in a heroic cause, murder as such was not glorified and the murderer was not made a martyr.
"Boys did not copy the villains in the old dime novel. If we could get such a class of writing back again I believe it would decrease the modern of boys to ape the No.1 killers of the country and would thin out the juvenile jail population now on the increase."
Mr. Cummings insisted that boys and girls learned from the old-time hair-raiser to be brave and humane and chivalrous.
Ralph started life as the driver of one of his father's milk wagons and acquired his first taste of dime novel reading while the boiler was getting up steam in the milk sterilization building.
"I saw the other boys reading," he said, "and I picked up one of the 'Young Wild West' series and began reading it. I was thrilled. I got them all as they came out week after week, 627 in all."
Mr. Cummings is a farmer, builder and cement-layer when he isn't chasing dime novels.
When the hobby section of the New York World's Fair opens in 1939 the original dime novels of the Eighteen Sixties, which have been rescued from old attics and dusty trunks by collectors of Americana, will be displayed as part of an exhibit of rare books by American publishers. For these salmon-colored booklets, which told with a broad fictional touch of this country's development from the landing of the Pilgrims to the death of Custer, have become valuable items to hundreds of hobbyists.
The scarcity of the novels is indicated by the fact that, although a billion volumes rolled off the presses between 1860 and the panic of '93, but 12,000 remain, and those in the hands of fanciers or behind lock and key in the rare-book rooms of public libraries and museums.
Where to find the missing millions of copies is a question which has lured collectors to search the nooks and crannies of abandoned houses, old barns and cellars. Indeed, the quest for the dime novels is a story in itself, laid in secret hideaways and often packed with the suspense and action of the much-sought-after pulp.
One hobbyist, for instance, has a number of scouts touring the country running down clues and checking up on rumors. Last year the wreck of an old Colonial mansion by a cyclonic wind brought a score of hobbyists to the scene with the purpose of rummaging through its ruins for a possible hidden "Buffalo Bill," a "Seth Jones" or a "Pluck and Luck."
In another instance Dr. Frank P. O'Brien of New York City, who is now at work on a bibliography of the Beadle series', traveled through twenty-eight States to acquire a copy of "Malaeska," the first dime novel published. For three months he led a fruitless search until one night in an old attic in Ulster County he spied a yellow speck beneath a layer of dust.
"Instinctively," relates Dr. O'Brien, "I lowered my candle. Not one dime novel, but a thousand -- and among them 'Malaeska.' I spent three days and three nights in this web-covered attic going through my find. The moment of the discovery was the greatest of my life."
To understand why collectors rely so much on attics, haylofts and trunks as dime novel depositories one need only read some of the literary abuse heaped upon these little books when they were first published by Erastus F. Beadle in 1859. One reviewer, fearful that the half-million circulation achieved by these thrillers threatened that of the more staid and scholarly publications, wrote:
"These [dime novels] enfeeble the intellect, impoverish the imagination, vulgarize the taste and, which is worst of all, waste that precious time which should be given to solid mental improvement."
By 1861 a vigorous campaign by conscientious parents to stem the rising sales culminated in numerous public burnings. But to no avail. One night in New York City after thousands of volumes went up in smoke, more than a hundred youngsters dug frantically through the smoldering embers to save the still unburned copies.
Parental restrictions caused many a youth to seek the seclusion of attic or hayloft to enjoy his dime novel. And many a grown-up would, at the sound of approaching feet, tuck the forbidden reading-matter inside an old trunk.
But whatever hopes the reformer of the period had of combating these romantic interpretations of the pioneer life were shattered by the outbreak of the Civil War. The weary soldiers in the trenches read the Beadle novels to tatters. Very often truce flags were raised while messengers crossed trench lines to exchange copies.
By 1870 the dime novel had become an accepted part of the reading material of a great part of the population. Even to men of letters this newly created form or literature was something more than mere sensational fiction. Charles Dickens, on his visit to America, read a number of these chronicles and sent an enthusiastic letter to Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, author of perhaps 200 dime novels, in which he praised her dramatic treatment of the expanding West and its heroic characters.
In 1893 the dime novel went the way of the buffalo and pony express. Historically the reason may lie in the fact that the West was no longer a wild prairie where "the deadly rifle spoke and another Injun bit the dust." The telling blow to these blood and thunder tales may definitely be traced to the panic of 1893, when the price of ten cents for reading matter became for many a sum worth saving. From then on the dime novel became prize items for the collecting hobbyist.
First to officially appraise the dime novel as a valuable historical record of an epoch was the New York Public Library, which in 1922 accepted 1,400 volumes from Dr. Frank P. O'Brien.
"This collection," it was recorded in a catalogue issued at a subsequent exhibition, "is literally saturated with the pioneer spirit of America. It portrays the struggles, exploits, trials, hardships and dangers of the early American pioneer . . . and breathes the spirit which for two and a half centuries shaped the development of the continent north of the Rio Grande. It is a literature intensely nationalistic and patriotic; obviously designed to stimulate adventure, self-reliance and achievement; to exalt the feats of the pioneer men and women who settled the country and to recite the conditions under which these early figures did their work."
The climax to a steadily rising appreciation came in 1928, when a reprint of "Malaeska" was issued in book form through the cooperation of collectors and a publisher. Typical of the laudatory comments by the press of the nation was the review in The New York Times, which read:
"The original dime novels were Beadle's and not sensational in any objectionable sense. They were honest efforts to supply good fiction at a low price. 'Malaeska' is not only as decorous as anything Cooper ever wrote but the style follows that of the 'Leatherstocking Tales.'"
CHICAGO, Nov. 6. -- Legal steps toward searching for a reported hidden hoard of gold and currency in a rambling old suburban mansion where John M. Hoffman, famous writer of dime novel thrillers, died in 1928, at 82, were taken today by relatives.
Dr. Elmer Hoffman of Sharon, Wis., brother of the author, petitioned the Probate Court for authority to conduct the fortune hunt. The author was known to carry as much as $40,000 in his pockets, the petition said. For fifteen years before his death, Hoffman lived quietly but luxuriously in the old home. The petition cited that he apparently derived a handsome income from royalties on his books, among them "Slashaway the Fearless," "The Mad Avenger" and "Gunpowder Jim," and that he disliked banks and therefore hid his money around the house.
His wife died several years before Hoffman, according to the law firm of Beverly & Klaskin, and a fortune in jewels which she possessed was not accounted for. Only about $35 was found in a perfunctory search of the house shortly after Hoffman's death.
The funeral of John Munro, who died on Sunday, will be held at 11 o'clock tomorrow morning from his home, 307 West Seventy-fourth Street. Mr. Munro, who was 64 years old, died after a long illness.
?For many years he was associated with the publishing house of his father, known as George Munro & Co. The plant was established in the late '70s and was located in Vandewater Street, where the Munro Building still stands. Six or seven years after this firm had started business the elder Munro conceived the idea of publishing various sorts of popular books at ten cents a volume. These editions were destined to become the famous paper-back series which, including only classics and standard works at first, gradually embraced works of all classes and developed into the long line of so-called "dime novels."
The younger Munro, who was graduated from Cornell University in 1888, entered the firm and began to expand its operation until the paperback books included the most popular novels of the era. One series was known as the "Fireside Library" and another was called the "Seaside Library." They attained a stupendous circulation but the most widely known of the Munro publications were the "Daredevil Dick" series which became popular all over the world.
Included among the works which the Munros popularized in the paperback editions were those of Laura Jean Libbey. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" proved to be one of their most successful paper books.
George Munro died in 1896 and his son continued in the business for about ten years. When he retired from the publishing firm John Munro became a director in the old National Nassau Bank of this city and maintained an interest in banking until about fifteen years before his death, when he retired from all business connections.
He was a member of the Englewood (N. J.) Country Club and the Englewood Club for many years before his death.
He is survived by a widow, Mrs. Mary Forrest Munro; a daughter, Mrs. Mary Munro Chaffe of Birmingham, Ala., and a sister, Mrs. George W. Schurman. Another sister, the wife of Jacob Gould Schurman, the former Ambassador to Germany, died last year. A nephew, Jacob Gould Schurman Jr., is an attorney, at present a member of the staff of Samuel Seabury.
To Currier & Ives prints, as pictures of an older America and as treasures of Americana, the dime novel has been added. Men of middle years will remember it from boyhood hours spent in the hayloft or wherever they did their surreptitious reading -- "the deadly rifle spoke and another redskin bit the dust." Most of its paper-covered volumes have gone up in the smoke their heat might have engendered. But those that remain are hoarded like ancient palimpsests; you will find those that belong to the New York Public Library not in the basement, not in the children's department, but in the rare book room.
The dime novel was distinctly, passionately American. It pictured youths who were at once the nurslings and the cradlers of liberty; it celebrated a great and democratic detective who could put even the Mikado at his ease; it recounted the adventures of pure and conquering collegians. But, most of all -- at least most memorably -- it marched the Indian across its pages, as many Indians as would bite the dust; it galloped horses mounted by gallant riders; it held up stage coaches; it rescued maidens in distress; it exalted the buckskin and the six-gun. Gaudily colored and e[x]quisitely exaggerated, it was yet eloquent of life on the American frontier, and among its heroes and heroines were some who actually fought and rode and spilled red blood.
There was, for example, Buffalo Bill -- otherwise, Colonel William F. Cody. The soberest of encyclopedias does not neglect to tell that he killed the Indian Chief Yellow Hand in single combat; or that he was one of those pony expressmen who, just before the Civil War, sped the post from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean in ten days of hard riding; or that he won his pseudonym while fulfilling his part of a contract with the Kansas Pacific Railroad, while building, to supply its workmen with buffalo meat. There was Wild Bill Hickok, christened James Butler Hickok, if christened at all, who served as scout in the army and was the greatest gunman, perhaps, in the story of the West. There was Texas Jack -- born Omohundro in Virginia -- who was cowboy, Indian fighter, soldier and even novelist. There was Deadwood Dick, who, if he was not one man -- as they will tell you in Deadwood he was -- was a host of men rolled into one gigantic figure. Out in Deadwood they will show you the grave of Richard W. Clark and they will tell you that Deadwood Dick was buried in it -- a Deadwood Dick who was Deadwood coach driver, messenger, express rider, bandit foiler and redskin slayer. And, as for heroines, they will point to where Calamity Jane lies in the earth -- the camp follower who dressed like a man, rode like a man and fought like a man; who always said, "My name was Martha Cannary, was born in Princeton, Missouri"; whose sodden and sometimes merciful life was poured through the imagination of the romancer and transformed by it.
But now let us forget fact and fiction; let us take up the dime novel; and in the moment or the years we shall glimpse therein, let us view the portraits and adventures of five who gave color to its pages.
Then come on you red devil, and have it out, shouted Buffalo Bill, and forgetting General Merritt's orders not to expose himself * * * he dashed at full speed toward the chief, who likewise with a wild yell, rode toward him."
The year is 1876 and the Monarch of Borderdom has been summoned from play-acting in the East to the theatre of war. The place is somewhere in the region of the Little Big Horn; for at Fort D.A. Russell Cody has just joined the Fifth Cavalry as chief scout. The regiment was driving the Indians before it when news came of Custer's fatal fight with Sitting Bull; and then word that a large force of warriors was moving to join the great chief.
Instantly 500 picked men of the Fifth set off by forced marches to head them off, with Buffalo Bill, of course, a couple of miles in advance. It was the scout, accordingly, who saw the Indians first. At the same moment he saw two army dispatch bearers riding down the valley in a direction that would bring them straight upon the redskins -- there in great force -- who had already seen them and had sent thirty warriors out to intercept them. Buffalo Bill rode toward the hostile band. At once and with his matchless rifle, he dropped a couple of redskins and several ponies. Then he wheeled, dashed to the top of the hill, signaled to the dispatch riders and headed at full speed toward the command.
The pursuing Indians were surprised to see the cavalry, but reckoning their own force as twice that of the unexpected enemy, they determined to fight. As two horsemen rode out in front of the warriors to reconnoiter, Buffalo Bill, who at the same time detached himself from the cavalry, became the object of their attention. They were both full chiefs. Suddenly one of them halted. He called out that he wanted the Great White Hunter to fight him.
At full speed the duelists rode toward each other. There was the crack of rifle and revolver. Two horses writhed upon the ground. There was another and another shot. A knife flashed in the sun and Cody gave a cry of triumph. Swiftly, at a warning shout, he turned to see the second chief come riding down. He shot again. Another redskin bit the dust. A wave of warriors charged him. Was he lost? The enemy was nearer than his regiment. But there it came, the gallant Fifth. They met the enemy in savage fight, and drove them from the field in wild confusion.
He was the Mustang King -- the Conqueror of Cayuses without rival. Horses came to him on the end of a lariat, and when he chose the wrong one in the dark he could not coax it to go home. He was a Knight in Silvered Sombrero, defender of women, subduer of bullies. In Texas Jack's recorded life that day was counted lost which did not see him put a bullet through some heart that was black or some skin that was red. He fought Comanches by the tribe -- and put them to death or flight. He led cavalry to the rescue of wagon trains. He saved officers' ladies from prairie fires. He became the prisoner of defeated Indians and found among them, ruling as a chief, a human derelict whom, as a tramp, he had befriended with more than kind words. He had a skull so thick that neither leaden bullets nor the wine bottle with which he was christened Texas Jack could break it, and a heart so soft that it never failed the innocent and the friendless.
While he was still in school in Virginia, in the days before the Civil War, he shot his teacher as it was his duty to do, the teacher being a villain if ever there was one; and while on his way to Texas, still in his 'teens, he was compelled to put a bullet in the brain of the assassin who tried to rob him in a hotel room. The landlord was probably in league with the assassin, and haste seemed prudent -- whence an error concerning a horse. The adventure was not ended, for a villain still pursued him, whom he had to kill. Thus delayed, he arrived in Texas in the nick of time, for a gang of jayhawkers. seven in number, were going to kidnap a very attractive Mrs. Sophie Elgin. Jack's rifle attended to them when they tried to open the door with a ram. Mr. Elgin, who was away at the time was very grateful to him when he returned, and around the Elgin ranch Jack became a cowboy.
Then he became a mighty hunter and, what with pelts bringing a good price, he began to grow rich. He attired himself in buckskin leggings, fringed and beaded and stuck into cavalry boots mounted with gold spurs; in a silk shirt with a black scarf under the wide collar; in velvet jacket and a gray sombrero, turned up at one side with a gold star, the rim-worked with silver thread. By this time he was hunter-in-ordinary to the cavalry post, where he realized his ambition to have a fight with Indians and to become a scout. That ultimately led to his capture. Shortly after his escape, which he owed largely to providence and his previous good deed, he went into New Mexico with a gold-seekers' train, killed in a fair fight the bully who christened him, got a six-gun blow on the head in a haunted hacienda and lived to triumph over the treacherous and very human ghost.
Texas Jack's heroic deeds "would have gained for him greater fame" than they did, had it not been that suddenly the breath of war swept over the land. "The gallant soldiers with whom Jack had often served went northward with the Stars and Stripes, while he, giving up his ranch, upheld the Stars and Bars." That is a story in itself. But let it suffice to say that afterward, and side by side with Buffalo Bill, "he won a name that will live long in frontier history."
And the desperado drew his revolver; but it was the last act of his life, as square in the forehead went the youth's bullet, and the bully of the Red Legs was a dead man."
This was not the beginning, nor was it the end, of the career of Wild Bill Hickok -- for the hero of the encounter was no other. Wild Bill had begun to shoot at the age of 8; in his tender childhood years he had set himself to possess, in the words of his novelist, "a pony, rifle, pistol and knife * * * those necessary * * * properties to a boy's comfort and education."
Just entering his 'teens he had a hand-to-claw encounter with a cinnamon bear trying to walk off with a neighbor's child in Far West Illinois. At 15 he killed a couple of canal-boat buccaneers; then, as canal-boat buccaneers were scarce, he gave up the inland-waterways captaincy that came to him as a reward for his sure-shot services and sought to join in the Missouri-Kansas border warfare under whatever banner was carried by the Red Legs anti-slavery command. He proved his mettle by outshooting the bully of the outfit and succeeded to the bully's name of Shanghai Bill. This he considered picturesque enough to serve him through his days as a stage driver and Indian fighter. When he became a Pony Express rider, however, he proceeded to win the sobriquet by which the world remembers him.
It was in the famous McCandless fight at Rock Creek, a lonely relay station in Western Kansas. The four McCandless boys, who lived on a ranch near by, passed the station one morning with the neighborhood parson, a rope about his neck. James Butler Hickok ordered them to release him -- an order to which they responded that they would attend to him later. Bill went back into the cabin and took stock of his weapons. He was barricaded there when, in the afternoon, the quartet returned, accompanied by six other men, and with a great log smashed in the door.
Bill had stepped to the back of the dugout, with a table before him, upon which lay his revolvers and bowie knife, while in his hand he held a Mississippi yager ready to fire. The elder McCandless, leader of the party, sprang into the cabin first, a revolver in his hand, and fell dead on the threshold -- Bill attended to that. Dropping the yager, Bill seized his revolvers and before his assailants could reach him laid three more of them dead. The remaining six now rushed en masse upon him and instantly there began what is described as the fiercest fight ever waged by a single man against overwhelming numbers. "Bill fired with a revolver in one hand and cut and slashed with his bowie knife in the other." He was able to kill because there were so many to be killed. But once they had him down. One of the McCantdless boys sprang upon him -- he got a bullet in his brain and Bill was on his feet once more, doing work with his terrible knife.
"Four men of the ten now remained, and two of these being badly wounded, they beat a hasty retreat from before the fearful being they had roused in fury, and he, tottering from loss of blood, but game to the bitter end, followed them, shot one as he mounted his horse and with a rifle wrested from Doc Miller (the station master) who just then came up, gave another a death wound, for he died after reaching the hamlet of Manhattan, some miles distant."
But who can crowd upon a brief page all the exploits that go to fill a novel? For his love an Indian maiden was to die. He was to "duel" simultaneously with four men -- to the death of all. He was to be condemned as a Union spy and miraculously to escape.
Wild Bill, who lived by the gun, was to die by it. He cleaned up Abilene and saw life in Cheyenne. Then one day, after gold mining had called him to the Black Hills, he found death in a Deadwood saloon. A man with whom he had gambled shot him in the back.
For Deadwood Dick -- that outlaw who was the hero of the dime novel -- description must suffice. He was glamour, he was romance, he was adventure. When he first appeared upon the scene, he was "of an age somewhere between 16 and 20, trim and compactly built with a preponderance of muscular development and animal spirits; broad and deep of chest, with square, iron-cast shoulders; limbs small yet like bars of steel, and with a grace of position in the saddle rarely equaled; he made a fine picture for an artist's brush or a poet's pen.
"Only one thing marred the captivating beauty of the picture.
"His form was clothed in a tight-fitting habit of buckskin, which was colored a jetty black and presented a striking contrast to anything one sees as a garment in the wild Far West. And this was not all, either. A broad black hat was slouched down over his eyes; he wore a thick black veil over the upper portion of his face, through the eyeholes of which gleamed a pair of orbs of piercing intensity, and his hands, large and knotted, were hidden in a pair of kid gloves of a light color. The 'Black Rider' he might have been justly termed, for his thoroughbred steed was as black as coal."
Grim and uncommunicative, at the head of his band of road-riders, he roamed through the country of gold that was the Black Hills, and won for himself not only the respect of his enemies, but the title of Prince of the Road.
There were three flashes of light in the darkness, followed by as many pistol shots. * * * Then the dare-devil rode down the man at the bits and dashed away down the canyon, with a yell of laughter that echoed and re-echoed up and down the canyon walls."
And yet she was a beautiful girl, this heroine of Whoop-Up, who was heroine, also, of the plains. A female of no given age, possessor of a form both graceful and womanly and a face that was peculiarly handsome and attractive, her years might have been between 17 and 23. Upon the face were lines drawn by the unmistakable hand of dissipation. Her dress was buckskin trousers, met at the knees by fancifully beaded leggings, with slippers of dainty pattern upon the feet; a velvet vest and, one of those luxuries of the mines, a boiled shirt, open at the throat, partially revealing a breast of alabaster purity; a short velvet jacket, and Spanish broad-brimmed hat, slouched upon one side of a regally beautiful head.
There were diamond rings upon her hands, there was a diamond pin in her shirt-bosom; a massive gold chain across her vest front. For she had riches, this girl; and none knew better how to find them in the auriferous earth or at the gaming table of Deadwood. A belt around her waist contained a solitary revolver; and this, along with a rifle strapped to her back, comprised her outfit, "except we mention the fiery little Mexican black she rode, and the accompanying trappings, which were richly decorated and bespangled." The glow of her cigar it was that made her a target for the four men waiting in the gulch, and perhaps the cigar was unmaidenly. But, "Unmaidenly!" muttered Calamity Jane one day. "Charley Davis, when you left me with a betrothal kiss clinging to my lips. I was * * * as modest as they make 'em. But terrible changes have come since then. I am now a world's daredevil, people say."
And daredevil she was. She shot it out with men in canyons. She remarked coolly, "Reckon at least a couple of 'em bit ther dust, or not more"; she galloped down dark defiles; she formed the habit of sleeping with one eye open; she learned to hear bad men mutter, "Curse you, you shall die for this." She learned to disguise herself and to appear unexpectedly before her friends and enemies. Witness the bearded man so palpably a fraud that a crowd of miners, believing him to be Deadwook Dick, were gathered around for what they picturesquely called a "road-agent raisin'." Threatened with having his whiskers pulled off, the old man "stepped back a pace, touched a spring in his clothing, and his ragged garb fell to the ground, revealing a well-fitting buckskin suit beneath. Off came the wig and the false beard, and there, before the astonished crowd, stood -- not Deadwood Dick, but the daredevil Calamity Jane."
Such were the heroes and heroines of the dime novel. Its authors are varied. Buffalo Bill was one of them, and Texas Jack was another. Edward L. Wheeler, who wrote some of the most exciting, was, it is rumored among his critics and detractors, never west of Jersey City. But no inky-fingered milksop was Prentiss Ingraham, perhaps the most prolific of them all, who, says Edmund Pearson in his book about the dime novel, "probably wrote most of the stories that Buffalo Bill signed." He fought for the Confederacy, and when that struggle was over did battle under Juarez in Mexico, under the Austrian banner against Prussia, under Cretan skies against the Turk. He carried a rebel flag in Cuba. Then he came back to America and went West. The result, we are told, was the publication of more than 600 novels, plays and short stories. Among many others whose knowledge of the West was embodied in thrilling tales were Major Sam Hall, known as Buckskin Sam, and Captain Jack Crawford, the Poet Scout.
And the publishers? One was Erastus Beadle. He was an earnest man. He made a trip across the plains to study life at first hand, and he took care to get writers who could interpret it. On the Beadle staff were explorers, Indian fighters, guides and plainsmen. "As a matter of fact," we are told in a bulletin of the New York Public Library, "the Beadle books present a more accurate and vivid picture of the appearance, manner, speech, habits and methods of the pioneer Western characters than do many formal historians." Certainly, on the new frontier of a lusty nation the deadly rifle often spoke, and many a redskin bit the dust.
For access to volumes quoted above, the author of the foregoing is indebted to Dr. Frank P. O'Brien, who presented the New York Public Library with its Beadle collection and who, retaining a large collection of his own, is now engaged upon a complete bibliography of the Beadle books, which will contain 5,000 items. The description of Deadwood Dick is from a quotation in Mr. Pearson's book.
DIME NOVELS. By Edmund Pearson. 272 pp. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
MALAESKA: The Indian Wife of the White Hunter. By Mrs. Ann Stephens. 254 pp. New York: The John Day Company. $2.50.
By CHARLES WILLIS THOMPSON
Unless you are over 60 years old you probably don't remember the dime novel, and to have known it well you must be 70 or 80. The first one came out in June 1860, and for twenty years they covered the land like the Egyptian locusts. Then they began to give way before the flashier nickel libraries, which had a briefer sway and then fell before the increase of cheap, sensational fiction at every turn, and before the movies.
The original dime novels were Beadle's, and they were not "sensational" in any objectionable sense. They were honest efforts to supply good fiction at a low price, and they were not primarily intended for boys. "The writers of the early dime novel," says Mr. Pearson in his book under review, "were reverently following the lead of Cooper and Scott, and had not the slightest intention of composing 'sensational' fiction."
This assertion is proved to the hilt by a reprint of the first dime novel, coming out at the same time with Mr. Pearson's book. This book, "Malaeska," is reprinted from the collection of Dr. Frank P. O'Brien, who has spent thirty years in gathering specimens of them. It is not only as decorous as anything Cooper ever wrote, but the style follows that of the Leatherstocking Tales -- not with any conscious imitation, but because of that subtle influence which any powerful literary fashion always has on writers not great enough to escape it.
The author. Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, was one of the most celebrated writers of her time, and wrote a great deal, though she is remembered now only by a poem, "The Polish Boy," which used to be as popular for declamatory purposes as "Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight." She was a magazine editor and well known as a novelist, and had the "first salon in New York." When she went abroad in 1850 she "received," says Mr. Pearson, "marked attentions from members of royal and noble families, as well as from Thackeray. Dickens. Humboldt and others eminent in literature and science." In writing the first dime novel she had no idea of lowering her dignity, and she did not; "Malaeska" is written in a high and sober style. Contrary to what would have been the case if she had had any notion of writing for little boys, it is a tragedy; and in the preface, putting this book forth as the first of the series, Beadle & Co. explain that they aim "to reach all classes, old and young, male and female," and not only to answer "the popular demand for romance, but also to instil a pure and elevating sentiment in the hearts and minds of the people."
Erastus Flavel Beadle, who was publishing a magazine in Buffalo, struck this rich vein of gold almost by accident. His Brother, Irwin P. Beadle, had been selling songs printed on single pages. Erastus collected a number of Irwin's ballads and published them in a pamphlet called "The Dime Song Book." Its instant and roaring success made the Beadles think, and in 1858 they moved to New York to make a business of dime books. Two years later, after publishing joke books, housewives' manuals and various miscellany, Erastus Beadle conceived the idea of issuing original novels of 25,000 to 35,000 words each for ten cents apiece.
A year later the Civil War came along, and the new novels were a godsend to the soldiers, who got them by the million.
The little books [says Mr. Pearson] were sent to the camps in bales, like firewood. They were shipped on freight cars, wagons and canal boats. When bundles of them arrived in camp, the sutler had to distribute them quickly or else they would be torn from him. Among the commodities which the Union and Confederate pickets exchanged between the lines the Beadle novels were in great demand. Pathetic stories are told of blood-stained copies of dime novels found on dead men on the battlefield and of great numbers of soldiers who were buried with the novels in their pockets.
Another big hit was made by the Beadles in that same summer of 1860. It was "Seth Jones; or, The Captives of the Frontier," and was written by a 19-year-old boy named Edward S. Ellis. He became a celebrated author, writing histories, biographies and about 150 juvenile stories which appeared in cloth covers and in "series" form, but he kept on writing dime novels, too. He did not stop writing until his death in 1916.
In 1884 Orville J. Victor, the editor of the Beadle books, told a Boston Transcript correspondent that he would not touch a story that was not worth $50, and it ought to bring $75 to $100. The average, he said, was $200, and they paid up to $250. To Captain Mayne Reid they never paid less than $600. "I remember," Mr. Victor said, "he brought his 'White Squaw' down here one morning and said he must have $700 for it, and we gave him a check without reading the manuscript."
The Beadle firm sold 5,000,000 copies in the first four years, and of course imitators immediately sprang up; there was no patent on the dime novel idea. One day Mr. Beadle pointed out to Mr. Ellis a man who was tying up bundles of novels for shipment. "I pay him $16 a week," he said: "he is perfectly content with that, he will never wish to change his situation or try to improve it. If he were an American [he was a Nova Scotian] he would speedily demand higher pay. As it is. he will be satisfied to grow old and serve us for the rest of his life."
About a year after this conversation, the contented Nova Scotian left Beadle's employ and started a competition which compelled Beadle to cheapen the tone of his own books and show a leaning toward blood and thunder. The man was George Munro. When he died he was worth $10,000,000; Beadle left two or three millions. It was Munro who published "Old Sleuth" among his many famous dime novels.
For some incomprehensible reason dime novels speedily got a bad name and it became a sin for boys to read them. Of course they read them all the more; they read them in school, hidden in the geographies they were pretending to study, they swapped them with each other, they hid them in cellars and woodsheds. They were generally believed, by people who never read them, to be demoralising, to be the sure step to the downward path. Never was there a more extraordinary delusion. They were of a sanctimonious morality, and during their heyday they were not even sensational.
In the 1880s they did become sensational, owing to the constantly cheapening competition, and the pictures on the covers grew lurid. Even then, however, they maintained their impeccable morality. Nor was this the reason for the general anathema, for it had begun while the novels were still Cooperesque and Scottish. As early as 1874 when the boy Jesse Pomeroy was tried for his sadistic murders in Boston, it was suggested -- sadism being then a thing virtually unknown, though it existed -- that he had been incited by reading dime novels. It turned out, however, that he had never read any.
Ellis was a Methodist, and when he conceived the idea of writing a dime novel he went to his minister aud asked if it would be wrong for him to do so. Mr. Victor regretted the necessity of sensationalizing the series, but took it philosophically. The Transcript interviewer asked him what happened when the yellow competition began to cut into the Beadle circulation. "Oh," be replied, "we had to kill a few more Indians than we used to; we held our own against them."
Among the dime novelists were Eben E. Rexford, once noted as a poet; Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, a soldier of fortune who had fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy, for Juarez in Mexico, for Austria against Prussia, against the Turks, for Cuban independence and in Africa and perhaps Asia; Major Sam S. Hall, "Buckskin Sam" a frontiersman with a giddy style; "Ned Buntline" (Colonel E.Z.C. Judson), and T.C. Harbaugh, who when he died in 1924 was called "the Dime Novel King," and who in addition to his dime novels published thirty-seven volumes of fiction, poetry and local history.
Mr. Pearson devotes a chapter to the first of the Old Cap Collier series of detective stories, which was founded on the murder of Jennie Cramer at New Haven in 1881. This was written by W.I. James, who also wrote a number of the succeeding Cap Colliers: but Mr. Pearson holds that, like the Nick Carter stories, they were written by a group of authors. The originator of "Old Sleuth" was Harlan P. Halsey, and it first appeared in The Fireside Companion in 1872. "The Old Sleuth Library" followed. It was the fame of these books that made "sleuth" a synonym for "detective."
John Russell Coryell is said to have suggested Nick Carter and to have written a few of the early books in that series. Hundreds of Nick Carters followed, written by many hands, but chiefly by Frederick van Rensselaer Dey and Eugene T. Sawyer.
The first Beadle series came to an end in the '70s, but they were revived, only to perish in the '80s "of too much sensationalism." They have recently sprung up in a new form -- the detective weekly Wild Western weeklies, and so on at 10 and 15 cents. But nobody minds them any more. The popular need for a goat has substituted the movies for them, and blames that institution for the misleading of youth in about the same language as it used to blame the work, first sedate and later sensational, of Beadle and his many imitators.
Special to The New York Times
AUBURN, N. Y., Sept. 13. -- George Charles Jenks, 79, creator of the Diamond Dick stories, reporter and .playwright, died early this morning at his home at Owasco Lake. His funeral will be held on Sunday afternoon at Owasco. He is survived, by his widow, Katherine Baird Jenks, and, two sons, Frank H. of Colorado Springs and Charles J. of Detroit.
Mr. Jenks originated the Diamond Dick stories in New York City. He was a member of the Bethel Lodge of Masons and the Correspondents Club of New York.
He abandoned his New York studio, where he produced reams of thrillers eighteen years ago, to live in the little hamlet between Owasco and Skaneateles Lakes just south of Auburn. He was active in the Owasco Dutch Reformed Church.
In 1872 he came to America and ten years later he began newspaper work at Pittsburgh, Pa., first as proofreader and later as editorial writer for The Pittsburgh Press. In 1895 he came to New York, where he wrote a number of short stories, dramatic criticisms, book reviews and special articles. Among his works was "The Official History of the Johnstown Flood" and several novels and plays, including "The Climax" (1910), "The Deserters" (1911), "Stop Thief"' (1913). "In the Name of the Czar," "The Desperate Game" and "The United States Mail."
His main work, however, was in light fiction of the thriller type. He worked on his Nick Carter and Diamond Dick novels at his home at Owasco Lake, N. Y., and between 1903 and 1907 he wrote hundreds of novels with the two characters as the popular characters. The stories were generally short, about 25,000 words, but brimful of action and adventure.
His energies were not confined to writing alone, but also to lecturing and directing small theatres. In the last few years he had contributed short stories to some of the popular magazines and until his recent illness he was actively at work.
Mr. Jenks was married three times. His first, wife was Sarah Jane Lambert of Detroit, who died in 1895; his second wife was Elizabeth J. Aylward of Pittsburgh, who died in 1897, and his third wife was Kate Baird of Latrobe, Pa.The creator of Old Cap Collier auctioned off the last of his odds and ends of treasures the other days [sic] in the little Ohio town where he has lived for 72 of his 74 years. He wanted a thousand dollars -- and it took a deal of scraping and sacrifice to get it -- that he might enter the county poorhouse as a paying guest.
"And what is Old Cap Collier?" asks the generation of today.
When all Casstown turned out to see its most famous citizen sell his little treasures a period was written to the history of the dime novel, in its day perhaps America's most distinctive contribution to the forms of literature. Thomas Chalmers Harbaugh was not only the original writer of the "Cap Collier" series, which middle-aged men recall to this day when they want to think of thrills, but before Cap Collier was invented he was a big figure in the most popular field of writing -- that of the dime and the half-dime novel. And one of the most prolific. He is probably the last of his school.
Harbaugh, when his things went under the hammer, sacrificed letters from Mark Twain. Lincoln, Roosevelt -- a host of notables. Yet had he kept a file of the penny dreadfuls which for years he wrote at the rate of two a month, flamboyant tales of the Wild West no less than detective stories, he would have had his poorhouse money. For today the dime novels are sought by museums and collectors; they are dead, but they are also quaint. A single copy of "Grizzly Adams," by Dr. Frank Powell, colleague of Harbaugh's has fetched $61. There was another; 450.000 copies of it were sold and it was translated into seven languages, but when you find it today it is in a glass specimen case.
There are many factors that account for the passing of the dime thriller. The collector, the publisher, the bookseller -- each has a suggestion at the autopsy. Yet take a broader look, considering all the special reasons that are advanced, and the basic answer seems to be that the youngsters of today have another outlook than their fathers had as boys.
Hark back thirty or forty years. There was some wildness still in the West. Indian wars were more than a memory. The frontier was alive. And the youngster, always wishing he were already a man, gets his romance from reality -- reality as it appears to him. To the boy of yesterday the redskin lurked around the corner. But to the boy of today the redskin is dead. He belongs with Tut-ankh-Amen. Even in novels and films of Wild West life the Indian has faded and the stencilled bad man takes his place as the enemy. But the boy of today does not care; he has found his romance in the automobile, the bicycle, the airplane and radio. He dreams of flying, not of potting bad redskins. The machine is his doorway to manhood. He has made Jules Verne the rule rather than the exception, and time has made the Verne sort of thing real.
If the boy wants a nexus with reality, his father, immersed in adult responsibilities, turns rather away from fact. He gets enough of reality in the day's grind. What he wants is release, to escape from life in his moment's leisure, not to enter it anew. So it is he who cherishes the picture of the Indian, and not his son. Last year there was an exhibit of dime novels in the New York Public Library. The fame of it brought fond letters from Senators and judges. The tributes came from all over the country, from Australia, from South America. But there was none from curious boys.
Perhaps this is the answer, but it is not the whole answer. The dime novel was a literary form, related to the novelette, yet with distinguishing points of its own. "A thrill to every other paragraph," was the formula of one writer. Literary forms live their lives and die. The dime novel has gone the way of blank verse and the epic and the chap book. It did not die of senility, however. Its period was covered by the life of Beadle & Adams, the firm of Erastus Beadle, who developed it. Beadle started in 1859. His firm wound up in 1897, three years after his death.
"A boy's life today," he says, "is more ordered for him. He wants reading matter of a different kind than the dime novel, and it is supplied profusely. Mechanical matters absorb him. The old dime novels were wholesome enough, but along came a whole magazine for the same price, with variety and pictures; and meanwhile the dime novel had acquired a bad name. In those days most boys were forbidden to play on Sunday; a good deal more of their leisure time now goes into play. And better educational standards are being developed."
Economic factors had a part in killing the thriller. The panic of 1893 crippled Beadle: at his death his partner, it is said, could not cope with conditions. There were other firms in the trade, however; Robert De Witt, Sinclair Tousey and still others had imitated him early. It was for N.L. Munro that Harbaugh wrote the first of Cap Collier's detective exploits, in 1883, according to Dr. Frank P. O'Brien of New York, who has collected the old tales for twenty years. Dr. O'Brien gave to the public library the 1,400 dime novels exhibited there last year, and his collection has been drawn on by H.E. Huntington, who has a fondness for the Beadle Library as well as for Gainsboroughs.
More serious than the '93 panic was a post office ruling of the same period. The Beadle Library and the others, most of them weeklies, had appeared as periodicals and as such got the second-class mail rate. The post office decided that as each number was a separate story, these libraries were not periodicals, and the rate was raised. Dimes and nickels could not cover the excess at a profit.
For a time the Frank Merriwell series and its like held on, but the transition to magazine and radios was already well advanced.
You get the story in the bare bones of Thomas Harbaugh's biography. It is setdown with statistical brevity in "Who's Who in America,"" and the story of the man himself lies between the lines. There is no mention here of Old Cap Collier; in the list of thirty-eight books whose authorship is admitted there are no titles such as "The Ten Pards; or, the Terror of Take-Notice," and "Dodger Dick's Best Dodge." "Wolf Cap" is as nearly forgotten as Captain Charles Howard and Captain Hamilton Holmes -- profuse writers in their day and both of them Harbaugh himself.
Instead of these there were titles which today not even collectors remember. Volumes of verse such as was written in the '80s, about the boys in blue and the boys in gray. Volumes of local history, valued now in Casstown. Six books in a single year, besides the thrillers. And then, in 1896, "The White Squadron" -- hackwork: a novel built from a melodrama of the day. More novels, but you can see prosperity slipping. Another try at the old game, in 1913, with "Kit Carson's Chum." Silence for a time, and then once more, when the war was under way: "The Czar's Spy." And at last the poorhouse.
Yet Harbaugh made big money in his time. In all he wrote 650 dime and half-dime novels, and Beadle paid him $250 for the longer and $150 for the shorter. The dime novels ran 60,000 words in length. That would be more than seven solid pages of The Times. Harbaugh ground it out, in long hand, at the rate of two stories a month. He could double his speed if necessary.
It was in 1867 that Harbaugh started writing, in Casstown; a little man, thickset, quiet, with a voice as soft as a woman's. He had his garden looking out on the buckeyes and the willows by the stream. His parents had brought him to Casstown from Middletown, Md., where he was born in 1840, and when he grew up he became Secretary of the Maryland Society of Ohio. He delved in local history, pottered over his poems, and when money came he bought old books. Almost all his life he lived in Casstown, never marry [sic] over his poems, and when money came the processions of warriors red and white, the plainsmen, the forerunners or Sherlock Holmes, raising the hair on the heads of a whole generation of lads.
Not every age produces a Shakespeare, a Dante, a Kipling, or a man destined to have his name written high in large thirty-two candle power incandescents. Every so often comes an apparent literary famine, and women who wear thick glasses and large cameo breastpins and little bearded moles arise at Friday Afternoon Literary Clubs to express wonderment about what the country's coming to anyhow. Why is it, they inquire, that we're not producing any more real mahstahs off literachuah?
There's going to be equal consternation one of these days in an entirely different circle when it is learned that we're going to stand vis à vis with a famine in another brand of literature. I refer to the five and ten cent literature known as "nickel libraries" and "dime novels." Unless there appear new men of inventive genius to give birth to an "Old Sleuth" or a "Nick Carter" adventure each week, then the people who read that sort of fiction must get their taste educated down, or up, to something else -- either that or do without.
The present supply of men who can turn out a 50,000-word thriller a week isn't going to last always. As it is there are less than fifteen men in the country who can be depended on for this type of marrow-chilling reading matter. Some of the star performers among these are men advanced in years. One or two are already in poor health. They cannot stand the nervous strain of their stupendous weekly tasks many years more. It is inevitable that they must retire from the field and permit younger men to think up exploits for "Nick Carter," "Old Sleuth," and the rest of the "world-famous detectives," as the heroes are invariably referred to in the chronicles.
And if there be no new recruits equal to the task -- what then? Ah, then will come the critical period when we must look elsewhere for our thrills. News stand reading matter will become as inocuous, as temperate as a none-genuine-without-this-signature breakfast food advertisement. Villains we meet in literature will have little to fear beyond a fire of smart epigrams hurled by lorgnetted women, or by heroes who wear Van Dyke beards.
By that time, too, Al Woods and Theodore Kremer may have ceased melodrama for problem plays or society dramas, and duels, gun play, and the like will take place behind the scenes, if at all. More than likely the hero will merely lean against a grand piano and tell the villain that he may "live to regret them words," after which he'll saunter off the stage without so much as even fingering a revolver. Those of us who like a little action as we go along will be in a pretty fix indeed.
Don't get the impression either that the only people cast into gloom when the day arrives that five-cent "libraries" are no more will be the A.D.T. messenger boys and boys who read thrilling adventure behind their geographies during school hours supposed to be devoted to study. As a matter of fact, if I may rely on the word of one of the leading publishers, less than 25 per cent of the renders of five-cent thrillers are boys.
The idea of the messenger boy as the ultimate consumer has long been fostered by the puckandjudge funnyists, but the news stand dealers will tell you that the bulk of their "adventure" sales are to grown men -- brakemen, plumbers' assistants, and others, who like something light and diverting after a hard day's work, men who would find George McCutcheon or Harold McGrath a bore, and would declare John Henry more clever than O. Henry.
Furthermore, there are real "highbrows" numbered among the consumers of the literature of thrilling killings. The late Senator Hoar used to be an omnivorous reader of the yellow-backs. He would read them by the hour, and then send a Senate page out after a second helping. Another man who confesses to finding enjoyment in this line of reading is George B. McClellan, former Mayor or New York City. Then there is a high official of the Standard Oil Company and a highly respected Kentucky Judge -- oh, and lots of others who can talk Atlantic-Monthly English, and yet who like thrills of the elemental sort. You may have a quiet, sleek locking next door neighbor, with white chin whiskers, who has the "libraries" mailed to him each week in a plain wrapper, and sits up reading them while others sleep.
Nearly all the producers of the nickel thriller literature are former newspaper men -- men who have "done police" and stored away enough adventures from real life that have come under their observation to last them for years and years and years.
One of the most ingenious as well as the most diligent of the inventors of hair-raising plots is Frederic Marmaduke Van Rensselaer Dey -- the same being his sure enough name -- who has been concocting the Nick Carter weeklies for a great many years. Two or three times in recent years he has been obliged to take a rest cure. And no wonder! The Nick Carter stories run about 30,000 words apiece, and Dey has been writing one a week year in and year out! Furthermore, he has been known to write three stories in a single week to provide a precautionary supply ahead, that the followers of the career of Nick' Carter may not seek their weekly adventure in vain if the creator should fall ill or go on a vacation.
This means that Dey can turn out, if need be, 15,000 words a day of thrilling adventure, or an equivalent of about fifteen newspaper columns. When one pauses to think that for a newspaper reporter, working twelve or fourteen hours a day, as many reporters are obliged to do, 2,500 words is considered a good day's work -- in fact, above the average -- and that Winston Churchill considers a 50,000-word novel a year all that a novelist should be expected to do well, and that more things happen in a Nick Carter story than in the average novel -- when you consider all these things, it should be apparent to all that the creator of Nick Carter is not a person to fritter away his time.
Dey was born near Watkins Glen, N. Y.. went to Cornell, and was admitted to the bar in New Hampshire. He also became a Colonel on the staff of the Governor of New Hampshire. Then he worked into the newspaper business and got to be known as an expert in the invention of Sunday "feature" stories.
In his quest for material Dey reads all the police news in the New York papers, pastes many clippings in his "suggestion book," runs through all the new detective stories as rapidly as they come from the press, and knows Gaboriau by heart. Then he has a way of engaging people in conversation and "shaking them down" for good stories without them knowing it. Many of these stories are framed up and worked into "Nick Carter."
It is said that there are one or two episodes in Dey's own life that he has utilized for blood-chilling material. Some years ago, it is said. Dey. who was in Colorado Springs, incurred the displeasure of a man who had an irascible temperament and toted a gun.. The story is that Dey dodged behind a hotel pillar after shots had been exchanged between the two, but not in time to save himself a wound in the thigh.
When he writes, Dey uses a typewriter, but in recent years he has dropped into the habit of dictating his stuff to a relay of stenographers. He'll dictate to one while another is transcribing.
Nick Carter has been rounding up malefactors for about twenty-five years. Not quite all of this long series, however, has been produced by Dey himself. A few of the stories have been done by occasional contributors, and a great many of the earlier exploits were the inventions of John D. Coryell, who lives near New York City.
Coryell, however, has another claim to a three-sheet poster in the hall of fame. He is supposed to be the man who writes the Bertha M. Clay books! Consider the versatility of a man who can write thrillers that will make young men fear to go to bed at night, and at the same time be the favorite authoress of countless thousan[d]s of gum-chewing young women.
Bertha Clay isn't, and never was. The Bertha M. Clay books were written originally by an Englishwoman, Charlotte M. Braeme. The American publishers used that name for a number of years, and then substituted the name Bertha M. Clay, though the books were still written by Charlotte Braeme. Later on -- so the story goes -- when the American publishing house no longer had the rights to the British woman's material, they had a name just as permanent as the name of a soap, and the series has continued without interruption, backed by the imaginative genius of a capable male heart throbbist.
Then there is the series of adventures by "Old Sleuth," compeer of "Nick Carter," who defies death weekly in the pursuit of desperate evildoers for a rival publishing house.
The original "Old Sleuth" was Harlan Page Halsey, who prior to his death, a few years ago, was, by Mayor Low's appointment, a member of the Brooklyn Board of Education. At the time of a crusade against the yellowback novel Halsey once defended his work thus:
"There is not a single word in any story that I have written that could be objected to by the most rigid moralist. All my stories have had a good moral precept to teach, and I will venture to say, out of the mass of matter that I have turned out, a thick volume of 'moral suasion' could be extracted. The trouble lies in the fact that a few bad writers have come into the ranks of cheap literature and because of their misleading work a blanket judgment is thrown over us all. The objections are always made by those who have not read the works but who get their ideas from the comic papers."
Two "Old Sleuths" have tracked erring humans since Halsey's death. The man who has been "Old Sleuth" most of the time since then also writes boys' books for a conservative Eastern publishing house. They are the sort or books that Sunday school teachers give out as prizes to those earnest young pupils who know the golden text thirty consecutive Sundays. And the conservative Eastern publisher would be considerably astonished if he knew that the mild-looking man who does these books for him has a dual personality to the extent of writing the "Old Sleuth" stories.
Another leading writer of marrow-congealing literature is J. B. Hopkins of New York, formerly on one of the Hearst papers. Hopkins got into his present line through an odd impulse. He was working as one of the editors of a paper down in Memphis, Tenn., at the time Edward W. Carmack, editor of The Nashville Tennessean, was shot and killed in the midst of a political feud. It was a ticklish time to be editor of a paper in Tennessee. Any editor who took sides in the feud too strongly ran the risk of having some radical member of the opposite faction come in and muss up the office with editorial life blood. So Hopkins reasoned it out like this:
"Why engage in such risky and sanguinary occupation as newspaper work? Henceforth I shall do all my adventuring on paper. I'll retire to a comfortable flat and write of killings and intrigues, but that is as near to actual excit[e]ment as I shall venture, in future."
He resigned his place on the paper that day before the impulse should leave him, went to New York, and has been writing what the publishers call their "Adventure Series" ever since. These run 50,000 words each and Hopkins has been producing them weekly. He is said to work almost constantly for about four days until his weekly task is completed, and then has the rest of the week on his hands with nothing to do but eat, play, and make up his sleep.
Hopkins's works are more pretentious looking than the "Old Sleuth" or "Nick Carter" Series. They come in regular book size and sell for 15 cents. Many of his stories are based on personal experience. One is founded on facts about Chinese tongs that he learned when Tom Lee, a respected Chinese leader in New York was suing a newspaper publisher for libel. Hopkins did some scouting about among the Chinese for the publisher and heard many weird facts about a Chinese villain who made a business of killing folks for anybody that wanted a given person out of the way and was willing to pay for the service. This villain -- now serving a life sentence in the penitentiary at Charlestown. Mass. -- is the central figure of one of Hopkins's stories.
Another author of the blood-and-thunder school is George Rathborne, who passes on all manuscripts for one of the two leading publishers of this class of literature, and also writes Indian adventures. Rathborne is 66 years old but knows exactly what sort of adventure will please a reader of only one-fourth his years.
Certain well-defined rules govern the writing of nickel thrillers. In the first place, every story must point a moral. The detective must overtake the villain in the end and the latter must face speedy retribution. Then each chapter must start with a thrill and end with a thrill. For example, an ordinary novel writer might start off with the statement that:
"It was May, and an unvaried pall of fleecy cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. Petals or sweet-scented apple blossoms fell like snowflakes along the winding roadway that led from village out to the home of the kind-faced old curate."
But the producer of five-cent thrills must begin his chapter something like this:
"'My God!' she cried, as she arose from her couch and stared at the window with a look of horror. 'There is that face again. It is he. Oh, will no one save me?'"
The same chapter might end in this fashion:
"'And who are you?' demanded the real murderer, starting back in amazement.
"'I am known as Old Sleuth, the detective,'' replied our hero, in a calm, even tone. (speaking in italics.) And the man sank back with a gasp of despair."
The chapters must be short, too, in order to keep up a constant procession of sensations throughout the narrative. Most of the writers of the thriller school have their typewriting machines supplied with a little device such as telegraph operators use, which records the exact number of words. Then whenever the writer finds that he has written 600 words or more of a chapter he knows that it is time to speed up for the final spurt, like an autoist about to take a grade.
This word indicator also serves to notify the writer when the story itself must be brought to a close. The manuscripts must not vary more than 200 or 300 words, as the publishers arrange for the same number of pages each week. Hence, when the writer finds himself within a thousand. words or so of his limit, as indicated by the little dial, he wots well that it is high time to round up every outlying villain, not already brought to justice and work up to the culminating thrill of the whole adventure.
As an additional mechanical aid some nickel novel writers keep a card index of thrills. Let us suppose the writer thinks of using the appearance of a bandit from behind a boulder as the closing sensation, of Chapter XII. He looks at his card index and finds that the bandit-from-behind-rock thrill was used in a story he wrote only six weeks previous. So he runs through the cards and finds a thrill that he has noted down, but which has never been used -- the discovery of a dying man in the roadway with the missing papers in his inside coat pocket. He considers also another thrill or two that he hasn't used for more than a year, and, finally selects the one that seems to dovetail most neatly into his immediate needs.
The most difficult thing the writers say, is the selection of a title -- the sort of title that will make people stop at the newsstands with a keen desire to know further particulars. Not infrequently the title will be the last thing supplied to the story.
In order to produce 20,000 to 30,000 words a week the author cannot take time for revision of manuscript. Yet the original typewritten manuscript of a blood and thunder narrative, just as the writer ground it it out, page by page, is usually as good copy as a printer could desire. Probably not more than one word to the page has been changed.
And for all the demonstration of genuis and physical endurance necessary to produce from 20,000 to 30,000 words of excitement a week the writers recieve from $125 to $150 for each story. That is all.
But. regardless of the price paid, publishers of sanguinary literature know that they face a famine. Only a genius could turn out so much reading matter week after week, and the supply of this brand of genius appears to be on a rapid decrease. Nothing short of a renaissance can provide nickel thrillers for our children and for our children's children.
Sixteen-year-old Peter Grubb shot himself in the back in front of the hat-rack mirror in his home at 424 East Seventy-seventh Street last night, and after he had been removed to Bellevue Hospital, where it is said he will recover, his mother said dime novels were responsible for his attempt at suicide.
She says her son had been reading detective and wild west stories for three years, and of late had often terrorized his four younger sisters and brother by impersonating the character of some dime novel he[r]o. He had lost place after place because he neglected his work, and persisted in absorbing the lurid tales of blood and robbery, she declared.
The boy is overgrown for his age, standing nearly 6 feet. While the family were at supper last night Peter Grubb sud[d]enly sprang from his chair and announced that he intended ending his life.
"Good-bye," he shouted with a theatrical wave of his right arm.
His sister and parents laughed, believing the boy was merely play-acting. They paid no attention when he ran from the room, and not until the report of a revolver was heard did they believe he had made good his threat. The father and mother ran into the hallway, followed by the other children. Peter was found lying on his back in front of the hall rack.
"Where are you shot?" cried the mother in a frenzy of fright. The wounded boy at first refused to answer, although he was conscious. Finally he said: "Find out for yourselves."
It was the father who discovered the wound in the back when he lifted his son. One of the children called Policeman McCutcheon of the East Sixty-seventh Street Station. He called an ambulance from the Presbyterian Hospital.
While the wounded lad was being prepared for removal to the hospital his revolver was found behind the hall rack. The youth must have twisted his right arm around and behind his back in order to shoot himself as he did, for the wound was just below the right shoulder blade. He undoubtedly threw the weapon behind the hall rack after pulling the trigger. The revolver was one owned by the boy's father, and was kept in a bureau drawer in his bedroom. As soon as it was found the father carried it to the East River and threw it into the water.
The boy had often threatened to take his own life, Mrs. Grubb told the police.
To the Editor of The New York Times
As Mrs. Cecil Burleigh has, in last Sunday's TIMES, corrected some errors regarding the writers and writing of "Penny Dreadfuls" perhaps you will allow me to supplement her letter with another fact. Although men have always been credited (or discredited) with the writing of these "thrillers," there is one woman who has contributed to at least seven of the five-cent libraries. Old King Brady being among the number. This writer has received considerable mention in Ridpath's Library of Universal Literature, as her stories and poems have graced the pages of high-class magazines and newspapers for many years. The writer of this letter is in a position to know that the income derived from her "Buffalo Bill," "Jesse James," and other "Wild West" stories ran for several years well into the thousands, and in one year alone her published work amounted to over a million words. Two 30,000-word stories have been turned out by her in one week, written in long hand and copied. This woman is still employed by one or more publishers of boys' stories of adventure, doing all of her work in her own library, whose bookshelves are stocked with the works of the greatest philosophers, poets, litterateurs, occultists, and scientists of every age and nation. As her name is often seen in the poet's corner of THE TIMES I will not mention it. This communication is only, as stated at the start, to elaborate what the niece of Harlan P. Halsey (Old Sleuth) has already written.
New York, April 28, 1908.
To the Editor of The New York Times
With respect to the story published in to-day's TIMES concerning the writers of "Penny Dreadfuls," I would correct some of the statements made therein. Being the niece of Harlan P. Halsey, and the wife of one of the writers of the so-called "Weekly Thrillers," I think I may speak with some authority.
Mr. Halsey, far from being an illiterate person, was a gentleman of considerable culture, and showed such marked ability as a speaker when a boy that Mr. G. G. Sickles, the father of Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, and one of the foremost lawyers of his day, wanted to take the lad and have him educated for the bar, and as to the statement that his "total amount of book education would not have carried him into a grammar school," he was regarded with pride by the Principal of the grammar school which he attended in Brooklyn, and of which he was one of the show pupils.
At the age of sixteen he published his first novel, called "Annie Wallace; or, The Exile of the Isle of Penang." He wrote several campaign songs during the civil war, which brought him into some prominence, and, having married at an extremely early age, he was obliged to keep the pot boiling by writing for weekly papers that brought him more money than fame. His first success, "The Bay Ridge Mystery," a story suggested by the Charlie Ross case, was published in the early 70's, when he took the name of Old Sleuth, (having written under the nom de plume of Tony Pastor before that,) long before the publication in New York of any translation of Du Boisgobey's "Crime of the Opera House."
Regarding his ever being in the chicken and butcher business, that statement is as accurate as some of the others, having a small measure of truth. His father-in-law, Henry Halsey, was an old New York merchant, and for a time kept a butter and eggs stand in Washington Market, and took his young son-in-law and nephew into his employ. The business was not congenial to the young writer, who never supported himself other than by his pen, except for that short period, though in the beginning that support was somewhat uncertain and precarious.
It is true that he dictated his matter, as he was never used to manual work, though in later years he did much of his writing himself. As to the amount of his earnings, the sum of $12,000 a year is rather underrating than overestimating, for he made and spent a large amount of money.
He was capable of a higher, though less lucrative, class of work, but having taken on himself the responsibilities of married life at the age of sixteen, he wrote for a living rather than for a reputation, though be it said to his credit that all of his work was clean, and that he always exalted virtue and punished vice.
Not only was he a man of literary ability, but also did he have an organizing power that has made his name known and respected by men high in financial circles, who would keenly resent the light in which the story in The TIMES represents him.
I would like also to say a word about Old King Brady and the originator of that character. The gentleman who has written the majority of the "Secret Service Library" never went to college, never dictated to a stenographer, nor even to a typewriter, doing all his work by hand, nor have there ever been more than three or four men who have written this library. Neither do these five-centers, rather than dime novels, exceed thirty thousand words in length, nor are the old writers pushed aside by young college men, few of whom would be equal to the work. The gray-haired men who have been cut down to $25 for a forty-thousand-word story must belong to the same class as those who dictate to a stenographer, so few that they simply prove the rule by its exceptions.
The writing of sixty thousand words in ten days in long hand has been done by more than one man, and is done when the necessity of the office requires it, for there is a strong esprit du corps among the writers of these five-centers, who believe that they are encouraging the habit of reading in a large class of boys, whose morals are not contaminated nor their ideals lowered by the reading of these so-called "thrillers."
Brooklyn, N. Y., April 19, 1908.
The Harvard man who is devoting himself to the composition of the cheapest melodramas is not the only college man who makes his living writing "thrillers." According to the statement of the largest publishers of the "dime novel," the mantle of Nick Carter and "Old King" Brady has fallen on a young and active staff made up entirely of college graduates, who turn out penny dreadfuls quite as lurid as thoes of the original "Old Sleuth" himself.
The demands made upon the writers have gone up. Literary finish has never been required, but speed is essential. The best of the college men are now expected to compose 60,000 words a week, providing a new plot every seven days. This is a rate of forty newspaper columns in each weekly installment, making a daily allowance of nearly seven columns, which is more than a newspaper page.
"Compose" is the proper word for this sort of work, for the tremendous rate of speed makes it impossible for any man to actually write with his own hand that amount of copy. The "writer" dictates to a stenographer, on whose rapidity depends the success of the purveyor of dime novels to the people.
It is this tremendous speed which is knocking out the older men and causing the authors of the "nickel shockers" to be recruited from the ranks of the younger college men, and the most energetic of these can stand the strain only about five years. This is a change from the days of the "Old Sleuth" who kept at the work for twenty years.
"Old Sleuth" was the nom de plume of Harlan P. Halsey, the first man to introduce the detective story as the main element of the dime novel. This was so successful that the term dime novel has become almost synonymous with some "Sherlock Holmes" mystery story.
The dime novel began as far back as 1860, under the guidance of H. H. Beadle and was a story of lurid adventure, either on the Western plains or built around some incident of Colonial life. On the covers of these weekly publications was the woodcut of a dime, hence the name for this class of literature. But the credit of making the sleuth the centre of the dime novel belongs entirely to Harlan P. Halsey, who received his literary training as a chicken seller and butcher in Washington Market, and his total amount of book education would not have carried him into the grammar school.
Even after he had ":broken into": the writing business he always dictated and never handled the pen himself, from a few fundamental lacks in the line of grammar and spelling. Despite this slight drawback for literary achievement, Halsey became an author for one of the weeklies then abounding, of which The Ledger and The Fireside Companion were the leaders.
Halsey's first genuine hit was "The Fastest Boy in New York." This title was adapted from Oliver Dyer's one success, "The Wickedest Man in New York," a tale of John Allen's dance-hall. The plot, however, was Halsey's own. After this ten-strike he branched out into the detective story, as a result of reading a translation of DuBoisgobey's "The Crime of the Opera House."
An odd point about the entrance of the detective into American literature is the fact that an American took him to France, and the French writers sent him back to the land of his birth. Poe's immortal mystery tales made almost no impression on his own countrymen, but they were received with applause in France, and under the influence of Poe's "Purloined Letter" Gaborlau wrote his "Le 13me Hussards." This first of the French detective stories did not reach America, but it was the book of Gaboriau's follower, Du Boisgobey, which was the literary parent of the "Old Sleuth" tales.
An interesting story is told of DuBoisgobey's beginning as an author. Alexandre Dumas, the younger, after writing "Camille," was at the height of his fame, but his profits, or rather his publishers had been, sadly out into by the Gaboriau "thrillers."
The publisher suggested to Dumas that he repair the damage by writing a detectlve story himself. To this Dumas responded that any old fool could write that sort of yarn, and if the publisher wanted one, why not apply to one of the young clerks in the office.
The publisher took the advice literally and applied to DuBoisgobey, then clerking in the office. The result was "The Crime of the Opera. House," which set all Paris agog and started the cheap-detective story in America.
On reading this story, Halsey took unto himself the name of "Old Sleuth" and started his famous series. His success was instantaneous, and immediately another publisher copyrighted the signature "Nick Carter" and this was soon followed by "Old Cap Collier" and "King Brady."
Under these names some hundred writers have at various times contributed to the world's supply of blood and thunder. One of the best known was Col. Ingraham, who began as a writer of Indian stories for H. H. Beadle, but drifted with the tide into the detective field and kept it up until his death a few years ago.
These older writers turned out forty thousand words of gore weekly. Even then the strain was rather heavy. One man who was Nick Carter for some time explained that he worked it by thinking up his plot on Sunday. Then on Monday he started and wrote 8,000 words daily finishing the tale on Friday night. Saturday was devoted to such revision as the story might get, and the manuscript was mailed on Saturday night. The following Sunday was spent in planning another dime novel.
This, of course, was all done with a typewriter, to whom the story was dictated. This same man probably holds the record for speed in longhand composition. He wrote a sixty-thousand-word novel under contract in ten days, actually penning every one of the words.
About the highest salary for this kind of work was that received by the "Old Sleuth" himself, who was known to draw $12,000 yearly for his compositions. The usual salary was $100 a week, and publishers would frequently offer $150 to get the man they wanted. At present there is a dispute as to what the rate is.
The publishers say they are paying their staff of college men more than the old regulation prices, while the men who have grown gray in the business say that they are being cut down to as low as $25 for a forty-thousand-word story.
Just who are writ[i]ng -- or probably more accurately speaking, who are producing Nick Carter stories to-day the publishers are not willing to tell. As they explain, they have competitors in the business, and men who can turn out a sixty-thousand word novel weekly and keep it up year in and year out are rather scarce.
As for the men themselves, they don't seem inclined to boast about it either. You can find several men who have been Nick Carter at various stages of the game, but it isn't so easy to discover who he is this year. The same can be said for "Old King Brady" and "Young King Brady" and all of their clan.
The publishers frantically deny that the dime novel is dying out. They insist that the demand is just as great as it ever was; but when one inquired why the publisher who copyrighted "Nick Carter" had taken unto himself three magazines, the answer was that although there was just as much demand for the dime novel as there ever was before, it didn't pay as well as it used to. The statement was made even that the historic dime novel firm wasn't very proud of this line of work, which is a sad change from the days when "Nick Carter's" publishers took Nick Carter seriously.
To the Editor of The New York Times
In your issue of to-day I notice with interest a communication from a ":Writer of Dime Novels,": who questions whether the recent suicide of a youth was caused by the reading of dime novels or of a United States history. As a writer only of magazine stories, who has not yet risen to the height of dime novel composition, (which I understand is a somewhat difficult art, granted by the muses only to a favored few,) I may be considered fairly unprejudiced. It seems to me that the raising of this question should emphasize that the great and popular class of dime literature has been much and long maligned.
As a boy I read dime novels, and I fail to remember one that was immoral. The more delicate social questions were never discussed, and when it came to the plain question of right and wrong, the triumph of the good and the downfall of the villain always occurred punctually on Page 32. But the quick action of the dime novel, the impatience of circumlocution, the tendency toward ":something doing": in every paragraph, in short, the general ":strenuousness": may have had a stronger influence than we realize in forming the character of the present generation of Americans. The are certainly displaying all these tendencies in our National life and work.
From a literary standpoint I must admit that the dime novel has its defects, but even here it may be only a trifle more advanced than our other literature in its tendency toward the use of English as she is employed by the man in the street. And if it had not been for the discriminating literary taste formed in our great population by youthful perusal of dime novels, how many of our ":best sellers": of the last few years would ever have been known as such ?
As to United States histories, there is more than one which raises in the reader a desire to hang even the historian!
New York, April 24. 1907
MEMPHIS, Tenn., Aug. 14, -- Sensational literature and a desire for realism were moving causes in the wrecking of the east-bound Hot Springs Special on the Rock Island Railroad by a small boy today.
The boy threw open a switch and the train split on it, the forward cars running upon a siding and the rear coaches following the main track. A Pullman sleeper was badly damaged.
The train was pulling out of a station at the time, and had not attained a high rate of speed. None of the passengers or train crew was seriously injured.
The boy explained his act by saying that he had read about train wrecking, and wished to see whether it was anything like the ones the books described.
The arrest last week of a young bank messenger who disappeared with $85,000 in drafts and was traced from this city to a ranch in Texas; the recent edict of the municipal authorities of Berlin, Germany, against the sale of American dime novels, and the continued publication of stories of dime-novel perversions among boys, should make the industry of creating and circulating such literature an interesting subject at this time.
Many evils have been charged against the makers of dime novels, among them, and principally, the abnormal stimulation of the boyish imagination, with the result that mediaeval knight errantry is attempted in an age that is humorously lacking in facilities.
A few weeks ago the public press told of two boys, carried away by the brilliant example of Jack Harkaway and his contemporaries, holding up a respectable old gentleman in a Berlin boulevard. At about the same time the public was amused, perhaps, by the disillusion of two boys who arrived in Texas, armed to the teeth, only to find that there were no Indians to slay.
A paragraph in a Texas newspaper lying before me is headed: "Our Aborigines Narrowly Escaped Massacre." Another paragraph relating to the actions of the bank messenger and a youthful comrade reads:
"They registered at Hotel Worth, June 11, as 'Ed' and 'Dan' Martin. A few days after arriving they bought two horses, a pack mule, high boots, broad-brim hats, bowie knives, pistols, a complete camping outfit, and started west. When arrested they had just been out on a wolf hunt with a company of cowboys.
Looking through a stack of clippings relating to boys and dime-novel perversions in the last three years, I find as many as five police cases of the kind in one day in the Borough of Brooklyn, while hundreds of other news clippings tell of similar stories in every part of this country, Great Britain and Germany.
One dime-novel factory can turn out a million copies of miscellaneous "thriller libraries" each week; new "libraries" are beginning each month, and the circulation of these is ever growing. These facts should convince every sane person that the situation is worthy of serious attention.
This, however, is not intended as a moral dis-. course. It might be entitled "The Confessions of a Dime Novel Writer" -- of one who wrote twenty or thirty nickel horrors before he saw the light and did not need the money. It is not intended, either, as a general condemnation of dime novels; in fact, I believe that some boys -- one in a thousand -- gain much that is beneficial from the perusal of such works -- the awakening of a dormant imagination, for instance, and -- where there is a degree of common sense -- the sharpening of perception regarding the little romance that there is in life.
But in the greater number of cases -- speaking from experience as a creator and consumer of dime novels -- such literature tends to the destruction of the finer senses in thought and diction. Boys who spend their days in absorption of such rubbish and their nights in mental digestion become in time as abnormal in thought, speech, and action as the characters who live in the thirty-two pages that may be bought for 5 cents. As Andrew Carnegie said, in effect:
"A man's character develops according to the company he keeps on his book shelves.""
In New York there are half a dozen dime novel factories; in London there is an equal number. Much of the time of these publishers is occupied in cutting the titles off their rivals' productions and pasting new ones on after a few names and situations have been changed. After a certain number of years, youth having outgrown itself -- and a new reading generation arisen -- the old novels are picked up, rehashed, and reproduced with new illustrations. It would be utterly impossible, of course, to turn out original matter year after year at the rate of one million copies (representing ten to twenty libraries) per factory per week.
It is necessary, however, to invent every month or two a new series of thrillers, which, combining the three best productions of a rival factory, perhaps, may pass among boys as something comparatively novel. As the manager of one of the country's biggest nickel-horror factories once said to me:
"The public can be fooled most of the time, but the small boy? -- Not all of the time."
This brings me to the men who direct this system, of mutual piracy and co-operative humbug. Before I became a dime-novel writer, I had conceived such men as something long-haired, unshaven, and breathing of ambrosia. To my surprise I found that the directors of the dime-novel industry were shrewd, business men, who regarded their calling with a gravity that provoked the mirth of those who had come in from the fresh air.
The novice, however, soon falls under the spell -- that mystic influence which sends boys to the Rockies armed to the teeth and gravely cocking their pistols at every turn of the road. Author, publisher, and boy reader -- all live in a world that is a distorted creation.
Here is an example of this almost ludicrous gravity on the part of the publishers and writers of dime novels. We have heard too much about the boys. Two weeks after I had been hired as "the author of 'Slick Parker,'" "Old Wide Brim" "Dauntless Dan," and other weekly productions, I was called into conference with the manager of the thriller department and the head of the firm.
It was a solemn meeting. "Old Wide Brim" had fallen off in circulation. From 50,000 per week it had dropped to 16,OOO. "Slick Parker" was not too good, either. They both needed originality. The brains that had produced them for fifty-two weeks each year wanted oiling. In fact, a New Brain was needed. The old one, worn out, would be discarded. I was the proposed new victim of the factory mills.
"We'll take the two great detectives," said the head of the firm gloomily, "and put them into one library for a bit. We'll kill the 'Wide-Brim 'library, but we can't kill the hero right away. Put Slick Parker and Old Wide Brim on the same case, and -- and -- well, what have you to suggest?"
The manager of the thriller department and the New Brain looked at one another dizzily. Then the wheels began to work. Yes -- that was the idea! Splendid! We would have the title made right away: "Slick Parker's Ally; or, Two Great Sleuths on the Same Case." Good! And for a front illustration. Ha! (It was the perspiring manager who ejaculated:)
"They get on the same trail, not knowing about each other -- meet at climax in dark room -- possibly trapdoor or sewer. They grapple -- fight to the death. Dead-lock. Then a light or a familiar ejaculation. 'You here -- Slick Parker!' 'Old Wide Brim, by all that's holy!'"
"Mmm, very good," said the head of the firm, thoughtfully, "But don't you think 'You here' is a little worked out? You might have the villains who trapped them enjoy the joke of their not knowing each other, and laugh when they hear the two great detectives fighting one another. Mmm! But you must be careful not to make fun of your heroes. They must win, you know -- they must win."
"You -- you might have the villains," I ventured, "believe the detectives have killed each other. Then the villains go away, after which the detectives escape."
"The villains wouldn't do anything so careless unless they saw the corpses!" snapped the manager.
"Tut! tut!" said the head of the firm. "The young man is right. It is -- ahem! -- upon the small errors of life that the great events -- ahem! -- are based."
Something gave way in my throat. Next minute I was conscious of having giggled, and that I presented an embarrassed face to two aggrieved ones.
"What's the matter" asked the manager severely, while the head of the firm stared disapproval.
"It's -- it's rather f-funny -- in -- in a way," I stammered.
"Y-yes," said the manager doubtfully, "It has a humorous side -- if you look at it in that way. But you must -- you will learn to take it seriously."
"Of course -- of course," murmured the man who had made millions out of the small boy. "You can get to work on the combined library. You have an order for three in advance. You can invent the other two titles and central ideas for illustration before you go. And please, Mr. Manager, write to Mr. Q. a reprimand. I noticed in last week's issue of 'Prairie Pete' that he made his Indians bite the dust. I have repeatedly told you that I object to Indians biting the dust. Let them fall with a scream, but I will NOT have them bite the dust!"
The men who write dime novels and nickel horrors are very often newspaper men. But the ranks change every month. Like soldiers on the battlefield, the writers succumb to various causes. Some refuse to be serious; some are too serious; some have not the requisite inventive ability, and some fall by the wayside. For this latter reason a verbal contract is often made with the author for three novels at once. This keeps him working steadily for two weeks (!) that he may get his money; otherwise, and not improbably, he may take a holiday after one novel is written and a check received.
There are a few veterans who survive the ordeal of continued production, but even they break down at intervals. Then a New Brain is introduced and worked out, while the veteran lies fallow. When the New Brain is used up he is "suspended" for some triviality -- such as a grammatical error! Then the veteran is sent for. He is given a check in part payment for three novels to be delivered before the balance shall be forthcoming. He works on for a time, then breaks down again, and either another New Brain is discovered or an old one has to be patched up.
There are exceptions to this rule, however. I personally know men who make a substantial income out of the business of writing dime novels, and one or two who, after years, do not show the strain which such work must entail. Theirs, however, is the mechanical genius, which moves as regularly as a clock ticks and wears as long.
For each novel a writer is paid $40. For each borrowing, stealing, or manipulation of "another man's work half price is paid. When a "library's " circulation goes up -- as often happens when a New Brain is captured -- the writer may have his pay raised to $50 per novel.
I know one remarkable veteran who is coaxed out of the Bowery in an emergency with the inducement of $100 a novel. He is the only man who can turn out a certain brand of detective fiction and keep that "library's" circulation steady. His work never varies a degree from his own standard, with the result that he goes on like Tennyson's brook. He wrote these detective stories for our fathers; he may write them for our sons.
The writer, poorly paid as he is for each 20,000-word novel, has methods of his own for beating the factory. Personally I confess that I never wrote more than 16,000 words to a novel, but my sentences and paragraphs were broken in a way that defied count. I give an example here of the system which was employed by myself and others to beat the thirty-two pages of the nickel novel.
A novice, full of a clear conscience and a desire to give his employers a bookful, if nothing else, would record an event in this manner:
"We are pursued by Broncho Bill," Red Dave suddenly gasped.
"Broncho Bill!" hissed Shang Martin. "I'll get squar' with that man yet."
Still fleeing for their lives, they suddenly came upon a strange hut, through the door of which they unceremoniously burst. Inside a strange sight awaited them.
This, trashy as it is, would break the heart of a veteran. What a shameful ignorance of the elasticity of words! What a disgraceful saving of valuable space! This is how the veteran would write the same thing:
"Curses!" gasped Red Dave suddenly.
"What is it?" Shang Martin asked quickly.
"We are pursued."
"What! Pursued?"
"Yes; curse the luck!"
"Who is it?"
"I know him."
"You do?"
"Yes. Broncho Bill!"
"Broncho Bill!" Shang Martin almost shrieked.
His face turned pale, even beneath the tanned skin.
"Ay, curse him!" hissed Red Dave, with mighty oath. "But I'll squar' him yet."
Suddenly there burst upon their view a low log cabin, built in an open glade, under a cliff covered with furze brush and pines.
"What is that?" Shang asked quickly.
"A hut," answered Red Dave.
"Whose is it?"
"I do not know, but there is no time to lose."
"What shall we do?"
"We must go in. Broncho Bill is closing in on us. We must make a stand in yon hut and fight till the last drop."
Without stopping to inquire if any one lived in the hut Red Dave and his companion burst open the door with the stocks of their rifles.
Red Dave stepped inside.
Suddenly he started bark with a hoarse cry of horror.
"What is it?" asked Shang Martin.
Inside the hut a horrible sight awaited their gaze.
Now and then the manager or the head of the firm will send a letter of protest when the paragraphing and tautology are outrageous. And the wail of the letter is invariably:
"You do not take this business seriously enough. Show a little interest in what you are doing. You make your characters talk as no human beings ever did!"
All of which is probably correct. The head of the firm, by the way, sometimes gets what the underlings call a "purity streak." He will then reject half a dozen ordered novels, compelling the authors to write them over again or get no pay. On these rare occasions he is likely to issue an edict to this effect:
To Mr. ----- [the Manager:]
You will please instruct your voting men that everything they write in our libraries must be highly probable. I desire that, if possible, the writers base their stories upon history. They might read some of our earlier numbers and Mr. ----- might study our publication "Life of Apache Bill." I feel that the youth of the country require a higher class of literature than you have been giving them.
Tell K----- I think his work is crude. I notice all his stories begin with somebody who "MIGHT HAVE BEEN SEEN" walking, or riding, as the case may be. I do not like this. To say that a person MIGHT have seen implies a doubt as to the veracity of the story. He must be more careful.
Here is a copy of a letter from a brother sufferer during a "purity streak":
You needn't think you're the only one who got it in the neck. He killed my first three novels of the new Blank and Blank Series, all because I called my hero "Dashing Vivian." He wanted me to call him "Fearless Phil." Then he got sore and said the whole idea of the series was crude.
Tell you what, old man. this will pass. He gets it every month. Put away the Slick Parkers he killed, and about two months from now change the titles, give him new picture ideas, and sell the stories back to him. That's the only way to get them off.
But, after all, the joy comes of seeing one's thrillers on the newsstands and one's self as "the author of 'Slick Parker.'" And, too, there is the joy of seeing the messenger boy with his nose glued to the work of your tired brain. And, greatest of all joys, is to read in the newspapers how your latest novel brought about the robbery of a bank, the disappearance from home of numerous small boys and the breaking of many parental hearts. When one is disgusted there is an unholy pleasure in being bitter.
Detective O'Conor of the Adams Street Station, Brooklyn, told me a short time ago that much of his work lay in the handling of boys who had become wayward through the reading of dime novels and nickel horrors. The records of Brooklyn Police Headquarters show that O'Conor made no less than a dozen arrests in four such cases within twenty-four hours.
In the first case a boy in Hudson Street, who had been reading library trash, fancied he was in love with a little girl named Jemima. His fatlier had an iron-bound box full of family heirlooms. The boy seized this box. He tucked it under his arm, sought out the girl, and besought her to "fly" with him to the West. The children were about to elope when O'Conor came on the scene.
Magistrate Dooley, in trying this matter in the Children's Court, remarked upon the prevalence of dime novel cases. That morning O'Conor had been in court with three others. In one of them a boy who was leader of a gang of youthful "outlaws" had stolen $800 and a gold watch from a safe. When the "boy chief" and his companions were arrested they were busy dividing the "swag" in a vacant lot in Atlantic Avenue.
Another lad, who had been surprised in the act of burglary, had been summoned to "stop" when chased by the watchman. This happened near the Gowanus Canal. The boy ran to a pier, struck an attitude, and with a ridiculous sense of the gravity of his situation, shouted:
"Never!"
He jumped into the canal. When rescued from drowning and placed under arrest, four nickel novels were found in his pockets.
A fourth boy arraigned on the same day had been arrested in a lady's boudoir in a fashionable apartment in Brooklyn. He had his pockets full of jewelry. Investigation, brought out that his parents attributed his behavior to the literature which attracted him more than school books ever did. Three of these boys were held for Special Sessions, and, I believe, later sent to a reformatory.
The most remarkable feature about the production of nickel and dime thrillers of wild West, travel, and detective types, is that the men employed to write them are not required to know anything about the conditions they try to picture.
I, myself, am the author of over a dozen Wild West novels, which purport to be authentic incidents in the life of a famous scout. I have never met this scout in my life; I never read his life story; I am not an American, and I have never been west of Walton-on-the-Delaware. I also wrote numerous detective stories, treating of the "crook" life in New York, long before I knew where 300 Mulberry Street was. With the sea I am slightly familiar, but I know a dozen dime novelists who have made pen-pictures for the youthful mind of foreign countries which they knew little about, never saw, and never expected to visit.
Hence the small boy's distorted conception of sailor life, cowboy sport, foreign lands, his own country, and true manliness.
ALBANY, Feb. 6. -- "I have no doubt that Christopher Smyth was telling the exact truth when he said he was influenced to the career of a robber by witnessing the exploits of Raffles, as portrayed on the stage."
That was the statement made to-night by Assemblyman Charles L. Carrier of Chenango County, father of the bill now before the Assembly to suppress so-called "dime novel" literature when his attention was called to the statement of Smyth confessing that he was responsible for the hold-up in the home of Ernest G. Woerz in New York City and others.
"It was because I was firmly convinced from information which had come to me," continued Mr. Carrier, "that many youths were led to adopt a career of crime by reading cheap detective literature that I drew up the bill. I do not believe the extent to which the youth of our State and of the country are being corrupted by cheap detective literature is even imagined by the people generally. I know of two boys in my own town who were addicted to the dime novel reading habit, with the result that both of them turned out horse thieves.
"In Binghamton the other day four boys were arraigned for various felonies, and it developed that in committing crimes, they were seeking to emulate the heroes of some of the detective stories they had been reading. I have been informed that one day since the introduction of my bill, there was a round-up of the inmates of the Elmira Reformatory by the managers of the institution for the purpose of ascertaining what part cheap detective literature had played in their downfall. The result was that several hundred acknowledged that they received their first suggestion of a career of crime from reading dime novels.
"The great difficulty about drawing up a bill which would suppress the five and ten cent novels is to find some way of discriminating between the detective story which makes its appeal to boys who are likely to fall easy victims to its influence, and standard detective fiction.
"A bill which provides for the suppression of the novels of Conan Doyle and other well-known writers of the higher class of detective fiction would hardly receive the indorsement of the Legislature. Yet it is very hard in a bill to draw a line between detective fiction of that kind and the kind which is devoured by the youth of the country with such direful results.
"I am now considering an amendment to my bill which would make it apply to the so-called five-cent or dime novels or such literature as is usually found in the hands of schoolboys and street gamins. My idea is that such an amendment would leave it discretional with the Judge as to whether or not the literature was of the kind which would justify fine or imprisonment. I am convinced that some remedial legislation along the lines I have suggested is called for to protect the youth of our State, and I am open to any suggestions that any one may have upon the subject."
"Johnnie" -- for his own protection his last name must be omitted -- is a messenger boy attached to the main office at Broadway and Dey Street. For two hours yesterday "Johnnie" went on a strike, and he considered his grievance even greater than the coal miners'. From the way the messenger boy thinks, it perhaps was.
Johnnie is a diminutive messenger boy. He was sent with a message to the editorial rooms of a Park Row newspaper, which is located on the eleventh floor of a high building. He left his office happy, whistling "In the Good Old Summer Time," and eventually reached his destination only to be told by the elevator man that the cars were not running as they were undergoing repairs. They might be operating, he said, in a few hours. He was informed that he would have to walk up the long eleven flights of stairs in order to deliver his message. This information almost took the breath away from "Johnnie" and he leaned against the wall, shut his eyes to regain it, while he gave vent to a heartrending sigh.
"Watch yer givin us!" he asked.
"That's right," repeated the elevator man. "If you want to get to the eleventh floor you'll have to walk." "Say," replied "Johnnie." "I'd like to have a large size bill poster of me climin' dose stairs. De job ain't wuth it. It's de camp fer me till that lift gets goin'. Dey can dock me for it at de office, but I'll stand it 'fore I clim."
He sat down on the marble staircase, leaned backward in a comforable reclining posture, then took from his pocket some classic literature on the yellow cover of which could be read:
"Deadwood Dick's Perilous Climb; or, the Hero of Pike's Peak," and soon he was deeply absorbed in its interesting pages.
Occasionally he looked up from his paper and asked:
"Say, is dat lift ever goin' to go up?"
At last he finished the book, placed it back in his pocket, and slowly and with a sigh began the ascent up the staircase.
"So you guess you'll walk up?" asked the elevator man.
"Well, if Deadwood Dick climbed de Peak den I guess I can clim' dese stairs," and slowly he was lost to view in the winding heights of the staircase.
The elevator man turned to a reporter and remarked:
"Guess that dime novel must have done that kid good."
The dime novel, after yeare of struggle, has at last gotten into good society. Slowly he has worked his way up from the slums, through the intermediate grades, and now rejoices in handsome clothes, good manners, a home up town, and frequent Summer excursions to the mountains or the seashore. A generation ago his home was the Bowery, and his friends the unregenerate, cigar-stump-smoking street boy and the grocery clerk. He wore cheap clothes of yellow and scarlet paper and fine print, and his language was shocking. Manners he had none. Slowly he has learned to use good English, to be less loud in dress, and to seek friends among the less ignorant classes. He was diligent and regardless of snubs.
And now he is polite to the extreme, with a wide range of conversation, irreproachably dressed, in large, clear print, good paper, and tasteful covers of buckram! His English is the best, and he disports himself in a Pullman car and lounges carelessly on the piazzas of best Summer hotels and in the boudoirs of elegant villas. He patronizes the best steamer lines when he goes abroad, and the days of his bourgeoise past he apparently has entirely forgotten.
Shall we allude to his friend Dead-Shot Dick, the Terror of Bloody Gulch? Shall we discuss those rough days when the stage coaches were held up by his pals and when he captured, single-handed, the fierce redskin in the midst of his warriors? We may, but we will not. Those vulgar exploits are best forgotten, together with the sleuths and ranchmen and cowboys and buckskin-clad heroines of his cruder years.
The dime novel of to-day is nothing if not elegant. He is still breathlessly entertaining of speech and full of swing and dash, but he talks of Colonial gentlemen wooing white-kerchiefed maids in the face of angry, Loyalist fathers and arrogant British officers. He discusses French cavaliers in velvets and ruffles, fighting irregular campaigns under the Cardinal or roystering Spanish pirates, who loot and plunder with all the savagery of the Greaser and the train robber, but with a saving grace of picturesqueness and the "historical" touch!
The dime novel is, after all, the dime novel, sensational to the core, unthinking, unreasoning, and unprofitable, but, bless you! he would never allow you to call him by his old name. He has been accepted by the uptown publishers and introduced by them into society which would scorn him under any less euphonious name than the historical or the Colonial novel. He has worked hard and won his way step by step, and now that he is at last "polite," well dressed, and wealthy, he thinks that bygones should be bygones. And. in this democratic country, why should he not be awarded praise for his energy and push, even if those who have accepted him and taken him so unreservedly into their hearts cannot be similarly congratulated? 'Tis a strange world we live in.
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y., Oct. 18. -- A sixteen-year-old boy, who gave his name as Henry Starr, was arrested here to-day for car riding. He was on his way to his brother's ranch in Colorado, and told Officer McGown that it was lucky for him that they were not out in the Wild West, for then he would "plug" him.
The boy had a new hunter's outfit, consisting of a thirty-eight calibre revolver and a bowie knife, with belt and a box of cartridges, and was otherwise prepared to slaughter Indians and bears. In his pocket was a dime novel styled "The Boy Scout of the Susquehanna."
The boy said that his father is Captain of a Brazilian warship, and that his guardian is M.F. Bensenham of 436 Lexington Avenue, corner of Forty-fourth Street, New York.
DANBURY, Conn., July 23. -- By his own confession, twelve-year-old Charlie Kelley of Lee, Mass., is the worst boy who ever fell into the hands of the Danbury police. For over two weeks Danbury has been alarmed by a series of bold daylight burglaries, and the police have been keeping a sharp look-out for the burglar, but when a big policeman appeared in the police station this morning leading a little tow-headed boy who wore a shirt waist, knee trousers, and cap, it did not seem possible he could be the one who had committed all the burglaries that had baffled the police.
He broke into a house on Union Street yesterday, and a girl who saw him was able to give his description to the police. He was arrested early this morning and went to the police station without resistance. When brought before the officer at the desk, he admitted having committed ten burglaries. The method he followed was to watch for an opportunity when the occupants of a house were out, when he entered by the most convenient means and ransacked the house at his leisure. The young burglar was too shrewd to take anything that could be identified. For this reason the police came to the conclusion that the burglar was an old, experienced hand.
When the boy was arrested he had a considerable amount of money in his pockets, besides the usual juvenile collection of jackknives. nails, chewing gum, and dime novels. This latter feature of the collection caused a general smile in the police station. He said that he left his home in Lee. Mass., on the Fourth of July. His father is employed in a paper mill there, and the youngster said that he staid [sic] out until late on the night of the Fourth, having gone to Great Barrington to watch the fireworks. Fearing he would receive a whipping on his return home, he made up his mind to run away and see what the world was like.
He had no money, but the heroes of his favorite novels did not mind so small a thing as that, so why should he? He walked from Great Barrington to Danbury, seventy miles, catching an occasional ride on a farmer's wagon.
He did not think of committing any burglaries, he said, until he became hungry. After selecting a house which appeared deserted for the time being, he walked on to the piazza and knocked on the door to make sure no one was in. If the knock was answered, he asked for a drink of water and departed for more favorable fields. In this way he carried on his work in Danbury for two weeks. His case will come before the city court in the morning.
CHICAGO, Dec. 12. -- A gang of alleged boy burglars was arrested last evening in lavishly furnished apartments in a barn in the rear of 4,341 Wentworth Avenue. Five boys compose the gang, and their ages range from eleven to seventeen years.
The furnishings of the "robbers' den" astonished the police. The walls were hung with costly tapestries, rugs, valuable paintings, and musical instruments, while on the floor and on boxes was enough bric-a-brac to handsomely decorate a residence. To complete the artistic effect of the rendezvous of the gang, a varied collection of antique guns, swords, and pistols were fastened to one end of the room, with a soldier's uniform coat as the centrepiece The boys had gained an idea from one of the paintings, for over an improvised dais, covered with Persian rugs, hung "The Reading from Homer," and in the chief's chair was a pile of dime novels. When the police entered the chairs were in a semi-circle as if the Captain of the gang had just finished reading.
Franklin P. Hope, eighteen years old, who has been known as Edward Clover and "Farmer Ed," was convicted of highway robbery in Judge Aspinall's court, in Brooklyn, yesterday. He was arrested for the robbery of Arthur Williams in Flatbush in October. Frederick Diamond and Thomas Howard, two of his companions in the affair, are now in Sing Sing under sentences of ten years.
Hope told his story on the stand. He said he worked on his father's truck farm near Philadelphia and sold produce in the city, but last Summer voracious reading of dime novels made him desirous of becoming a great criminal, and he ran away to Philadelphia. There he fell in with Paul Clover, whose father is a wealthy linen dealer.
He induced the boy to follow him to this city. Young Clover sold his new bicycle for $5 and gave the money to Hope. He bought a pint of whisky to bribe the trainmen, and the boys came North. On the way they fell in with Diamond and Howard. They made an attack on a peddler and took some money and a razor. Hope armed himself with the razor. In New York their money soon gave out, and Diamond proposal a "hold-up" in the outskirts of Brooklyn.
They selected a lonely place in Flatbush and Williams happened to come along. Hope objected to Diamond's plan to kill Williams. Williams had a ring. He said: "Oh, say, fellows, don't take that. My mother gave it to me."
"Then," said Hope in telling his story, "I said to the fellers: 'He's treated us square, and we'll let him have it.' So we did. Well, he seemed a decent fellow all around, and when we let him go we shook hands and said 'Good night.'"
Young Clover was in court. He was sent back to Philadelphia. Emil Ebert, who had also traveled with the gang, but who was evidently innocent, was sent to his home in St. Louis.
The two boys, Pate and Stiers, who were hanged for murder in Danville, Ill., on the 8th inst., both attributed their crime to reading trashy literature of the Jesse James and Deadwood Dick type. Since the execution of the unfortunate boys, Messrs. T. J. Elliott, Prof. S.A. Harry, and others of Danville have been making efforts to put a stop to the sale of five and ten cent library editions in that city, and T.J. Elliot, Guy McDowell, Charles Smith, and Joseph Knell, the four Danville newsdealers, have agreed to sell no more cheap sensational novels.
Troy, N.Y., Nov. 26. -- Three boys aged twelve years, Willie McMoth. George Lowe, and Homer DeSilva, mentally inflamed by literature of the dime-novel sort, planned to secure funds with which to go to the World's Fair. One of the boys stole $10 from a money box on his father's delivery-wagon, and with this three revolvers were bought.
One night recently a rig passed them in which was riding W.A. Thomas and wife. The hoys shouted: "Hold up!" The wagon stopped, and inquiry made as to what was wanted. "We want your money," was the reply. The team was whipped up, and the boys are at home, despoiled of their revolvers and money.
Newark, March 23. -- Robert Alden Fales, the boy who was convicted of the murder of Thomas Hayden and is under sentence of death, has written his will, which shows that he is either trying to play a sharp trick or is crazy.
At his trial some experts testified that his mind was diseased by the continued reading of dime novels and others that he was mentally sound. The will is addressed to his counsel Frank McDermitt and reads as follows:
Dear Frank: I have drawn up my will, and you are to have one-half of my property and you may have my torpedo boat, (the Dandy.) I will let Tom (Judge Henry) have my steam yacht and the other half of my property. I will take about $10,000 now and leave the rest until I come home.
Now I want you to open up a bill of credit with, a furniture house, a florist, and a clothier, and any place you think I need anything from, so I can have all necessary supplies. I am going to send the other key to you, and now I will tell you how to use it.
Go to the mansion and go down stairs in the cellar, and then so to the northeast corner, where the big box stands, and take this key that I send in this letter. Look near the corner, about half way between the floor and the ceiling, and you will find a slot in the wall. Then when you find it put the key in the slot and press hard and a little door will spring open.
Then put your hand in the niche and get the book and big key that you will find there, but be very careful for there is a poisoned dagger in there, too.
When you get the book, if you will take notice you will find that the covering is made of wood, and by taking the brass tacks out of the corner you can split it in half, and when that is done you will find inside a paper. It is wrote in cipher. I will give you a copy of it here so that you will know it when you see it.
I want to tell yon something I have told Tom already; you know the Naronic is lost at sea. Well, if you will, take the Dandy and go try to find her. I think you can do it. When you find her, plant a cartridge under her and blow her up and get all you can out of it.
Here is that copy:
"4707015 plus 34020015 plus 55200805 plus 32013010210140200102014 plus 2903010120120504 plus 4501601204 plus 3501901012029 plus 740101908 plus 65015014 plus 720200805 plus 9801401501802008 plus 38019090405 plus 45025015081 plus 7302309012012 plus 3706901404 plus 7601 plus 3104015015018."
You know where the big key is. It belongs with the letter, so I will close. I remain faithfully yours,
ROBERT ALLEN FALES.
Crazed by Cigarettes
Plea of the Defense in the Trial of Fales
Testimony of the Prisoner's Mother -- His Collection of Dime Novels -- The Case to Go To the Jury To-day.
Newark, N.J., June 2. -- In the trial of Alden Fales, the sixteen-year-old murderer of Thomas Haydon. the first witness to-day was Joseph Bailer of 88 Garside Street, a boy companion of Fales.
He talked with Fales after the Saturday papers had made public the story of the murder of Haydon, and asked him if he had heard of the tragedy. Fales said he had and that he had expected it, because Haydon was very careless with his money. On Sunday when they went to church together Fales said nothing to him about the murder.
Mrs. Harriet Fales, mother of the young prisoner, testified that when her son was three years old he fell off a stoop and injured the back of his head on a flagstone. She noticed no serious results. When he was fourteen he was hit on the temple with a brick.
At breakfast on the Saturday of the murder, she testified, he behaved in no way unusual. Shortly after 11 o'clock he returned to the house, and gave her a revolver, with two ten-dollar bills wrapped around it, saying it was a birthday present for her.
When she asked where he had got the money he answered that he had earned it. After dinner he went off with his brother to complete a piece of sodding. At evening she asked him if he had heard that Haydon had been killed. His brother Joseph, he answered, had read it to him from a paper. There was nothing unusual then in his conduct.
Referring to the dime novels the boy had read, Mrs. Fales said that a trunk would not hold them all. Her husband, she said, was not an intemperate man, but he acted strangely and at times objected to being left alone. Alden, the boy, went to school till he was thirteen years of age; then, because he would go no longer, she sent him to his uncle's in Vermont.
Dr. Henry Drayton, sworn by the defense to sustain the theory that the boy is insane, testified that he had visited Alden in jail last month and detected cerebral and physiological defects in him. He noticed an unhealthy nervous condition. His bodily vigor, he said, is not sufficient to meet the demands of his mental faculties. He manifested an indifference that was very unusual for a boy. He would be incapable of self-restraint when controlled by a strong emotion or desire. He was mentally unbalanced.
Cigarette smoking, to which the boy was addicted, was conducive, in the witness's opinion, to insanity.
The doctor had learned that Fales had a strong acquisitive faculty and had been addicted to petty thieving. He had an utter disregard of consequences. A man who manifests no apprehension of results gives evidence of mental unsoundness. When he examined him physically he discovered an absence of the reflex action of the knee joint, usually produced by tapping the tendon below the knee. This peculiarity was frequently associated with mental disorders.
The doctor said, too, that he regarded all children as partially insane, as they were not maturely developed. Fales was devoid of judgment when controlled by a dominant idea.
"As I understand it," Assistant Prosecutor Hood asked on cross-examination, "you think because the prisoner's mind is not fully matured his mind is not sound?"
"Largely so," was the witness's reply.
"Would not this unsoundness disappear as the mind matured?"" Mr. Hood pursued.
The doctor thought not.
Dr. William Titus, who also examined the boy, did not consider him exactly sound. He was not a boy of good judgment. He had emotional insanity, which is the state of mind when a person has lost control of his will and acts without judgment. It would be hard to give a name to the form of insanity Fales manifests. He has not a developed brain.
Mrs. Fales. when recalled, testified that her son complained to her frequently of bad headaches. The defense then rested.
The State called several witnesses in rebuttal. John J. Carter, a butter dealer who had once employed Fales, testified that his capacity for business was exceptionally good. Toward the end of his term of employment, Fales took money that did not belong to him.
County Physician Wrightson testified that the boy is of sound mind, and was, in his opinion, on the day of the murder.
Dr. Hinckley, the Superintendent of the County Lunatic Asylum, had examined the boy and found him suffering from physical depression due to confinement. There was nothing the matter with his mind. He had examined the reflex action of the knees and found it normal. He considered the boy capable of making a choice and that he acted from a motive in the commission of his crime. He was sure that the boy could distinguish right from wrong.
Contrary to Dr. Draper, he found no indifference in the boy. He was accurately observant of everything going on in the courtroom. In the jail he seemed to feel keenly his position, and lamented the murder.
Several witnesses testified to Fales's business sharpness, and the case was closed on both sides.
Counsel will sum up and the case be given to the jury to-morrow.
A Victim of Dime Novels
Kansas City, Mo., April 17. -- The criminal career of John Bishop, aged sixteen years, was terminated last night by his arrest. Young Bishop has made a remarkable record for a boy during the past few months, having "held up" six or eight men and two street cars during that time. From nearly all of his victims he scoured money or valuables. Dime novel literature gave Bishop his thirst for money and criminal fame.
Little Dime-Novel Heroes
Toronto, Sept. 8. -- A peculiar case resulting from the operation of cheap novels on the juvenile mind occurred here yesterday afternoon. Little Gertie, the two-year-old daughter of Joseph W. Cornes, was taken to the lake, in the west end of the city, by two boys and a girl about ten years of age. and was undressed and placed under the water. The children kept her underneath by piling a couple of large stones on her chest, and they would probably have drowned her had not a lady passing noticed the little one struggling to release herself and gone to her rescue. One of the boys, the leader of the little party, had been reading cheap ovels, which prompted him to the action.
Dime-Novels Did It
Elizabeth, May 16. -- The Union County Court was packed this morning when the band of youthful burglars of this city, who committed over a dozen robberies, were arraigned for punishment. Judge McCormick, in passing sentence, said that reading dime novels was at the bottom of the lads' offenses. Their crimes were such as would, if they were men, entitle them to ten years in State prison. In view of the widespread interest taken in their cases and the appeals of clergymen, their teachers, and prominent citizens for clemency, the court would impose a very light punishment, in hope that the offenders would reform. William Gallowby, age fourteen; Walter Williams, seventeen; William Palmer, sixteen, and Theodora Luster, fourteen, were each sentenced to thirty days in the county jail, and Isaac Opio and Edward Swain, each thirteen, were fined $10.
Another Dime-Novel Victim
New Brunswick, N. J., Nov. 8.—William Britton, a sixteen-year-old boy, employed at Janeway & Co.'a factory, crawled unobserved behind a pile of paper this evening, and was found half an hour later hanging from a beam. He had climbed on a chair and then kicked it from under him, breaking his neck. The boy was an inveterate reader of dime novels.
That Lone Highwayman
The Terror of Northern Wisconsin Trapped
Career of a German Youth Who Was Induced by Dime Novel Reading to Become a Robber.
Republic, Mich., Aug. 31. -- Reimund Holzhay, the "Lone Highwayman," who has terrorized Northern Wisconsin for five months past, robbing trains, waylaying stages, and "holding up" pedestrians, is in custody. He was captured here this morning by City Marshal Glode and Justice of the Peace E.F. Weiser, and will be taken to Bessemer to answer for the killing of Fleischbein, at Gogebic, on Monday of this week. Holzhay confesses to all the stage and train robberies.
At 7 o'clock this morning Marshal Glode and Justice Weiser were walking down the street from their homes. When near the railroad station they met a man dressed roughly and apparently anxious to escape attention. The Marshal was struck by his close likeness to the description of the Gogebic stage robber, and immediately stepped in front of the man, saying, "I want you."
The stranger whipped his hand to his hip pocket, but before he could draw a pistol was felled by Marshal Glode's billy, which stunned him. He was taken to the village jail, recovering consciousness on the way. At the jail he was searched, and three revolvers, three gold watches, four pocketbooks, and other articles were found on his person. One pocketbook bore the name of Reimund Holzthay, the robber's name. He broke down under examination and acknowledged committing the robbery of the Milwaukee and Northern train at Ellis Junction last May and the robbery at Lake Gogebic on Monday last.
Holzhay came here last evening and put up at the Republic House. The police officers in all the towns up here had been furnished with a description of the robber, and when he entered the Republic he was at once placed under surveillance on suspicion that he was the man wanted for the murder and robbery. The Bessemer authorities were telegraphed to for further information, but up to an early hour this morning no response was received from them. Marshal Glode resolved not to wait word from them and to make the arrest, being fearful that if he delayed longer the man might escape.
Among the pocketbooks found on him was the one that he took from Fleischbein, the man whom he killed and robbed when he held up the stage at Gogebic, and which contained letters and papers bearing Fleischbein's name. Another pocketbook, evidently belong[ing] to W.G. Decelle, 408 Sibley street, St. Paul, was recovered. There was also a fourteen-carat hunting-case, stem-winding gold watch, the case of which was made by the American Watch Company, the movement being a Wheeler and numbered 991,934. The chain is a small curb without bar The man admits that he took the watch from Fleishbein. Another of the watches is a low carat gold bunting-case and stem-winder, case No. 1,293 and Raymond movement, No. 282,661, made by the Illinois Watch Company. The other watch is an eighteen carat gold watch, hunting-case and stem-winder, nickel movement made by Robert Monnot Loche, evidently a Swiss article. The chain is a double link with small cube charm.
It was some time before Holzhay would admit his identity, but finally, when confronted by the evidence of his own pocketbook, he acknowledged it. He stubbornly refused to say that he had committed other robberies than those at Ellis Junction and at Gogebic, but, after much cross-examination, said: "It is generally supposed that one man has done them all and I think that is so." He then entered into a detailed statement of his various crimes. The crime for which the highwayman is under arrest was an exceedingly bold one. A stagecoach plies between the Gogebic station on the Milwaukee Lake Shore and Western Road and a Summer resort hotel on Gogebic Lake, three miles distant. On Monday last the stage left the hotel with a party of four men who had been spending several weeks there. The members of the party were Donald MacArtur of Minneapolis, one of the officials of the First National Bank of that city; A. G. Fleischbein of Belleville, Ill.; Robert Rintoul of the Bank of Montreal, Chicago, and William Paddon, also of Chicago. About 11:30 o'clock A.M., as the stage was dragging lazily along over the road, its driver was startled by a command to hold in the reins and not to make a single move at the peril of his life. There in front of him was the stage robber, wearing a slouch hat and holding two revolvers, which he pointed at the driver. One of the passengers adopted a trick to throw the robber off his guard. He had a considerable amount of money on his person, and did not want it taken from him. When the highwayman extended a general invitation to 'cash in' he put his hand into his coat pocket presumably to get a pocketbook, but really to get his revolver. He drew it and commenced firing at the robber, who stood his ground and returned the fire.
The horses dashed away at a rapid rate, but the robber continued to empty his revolvers at the men in the coach. Mr. Fleischbein rose up in his seat and received a 44-calibre bullet in his hip. At the same time the coach gave a lurch and he was thrown forward in the roadway. Banker MacArthur also fell a victim to the robber's weapons. He received two bullet wounds, one in the left side of the head and another in the leg. The robber pounced upon his helpless victim in the roadway, shoved a pistol in his face, and threatened to finish him then and there. Fleischbein pleaded for his life, and the robber, after going through his pockets, got about $40 in money, a watch and chain, and a ring. He left Fleischbein lying bleeding and helpless in the road. He lay there nearly three hours before the arrival of assistance. Then he was taken to Bessemer, where he was but into the hospital, and his wounds cared for, but he had bled so much that his strength was sapped, and he died that night, having first funished a good description of the highwayman.
As soon as the news of the robbery reached Ashland Sheriff Foley and posse started in pursuit. They were soon joined by a mob under Judge Lynch. A pack of bloodhounds, with their Indian tracers, were also brought into requisition. All avenues of escape were cut off and a systematic man-hunt was begun, ending this morning as above stated.
"Black Bart, the Lone Highwayman of Wisconsin," is the cleverest woodsman in the Northwest. His proper name is Reymund Holzhey and his home is in Pulsifer, Wis. His first attempt at stage robbing was in April last, when he "held up" a stage going from Pulsifer to Simond, on the line of the Milwaukee, Lake Shore and Western Road. At that time he appeared with a red handkerchief tied over his face. He shot the horse and went through the passengers, a poor lot, and got nothing. The second attempt was more fruitful, for he scoured the mail pouch containing several hundred dollars in money and robbed two passengers of $50. One of them had $800 in currency, but the robber failed to get it. His third play was made on the stage running from Shawano to Langlade on the Menominee Indian reserve. Two passengers were robbed of $20, and a mail pouch containing some money was secured. Again Black Bart tackled, unaided, the stage on the Milwaukee and Northern Railroad line and robbed it An hour later he robbed the train.
During all this time he was holding up wayfarers passing through the woods of the Gobebic country. Following his train robbery he entered Bonduel, a village in Shawano County, and compelled Phil Cann, proprietor of a general merchandise store, to deliver the money in the store safe. This amounted to $80. He also got a gold watch and chain. He was unmasked at this time and was fully recognized by Mr. Cann. His next exploit was the robbery of the Wisconsin Central sleeper, which he rounded off by murder in robbing the stage of the Gogebic Lake line.
Black Bart is a German boy twenty-two years of age. He was born in Germany. He is polite and pleasant in his manners and is of square build. He always carries a knife and a revolver. He took to the life of a robber as the result of reading dime novels, over a hundred of which were at one time found in his room.
The rewards offered for the capture of the noted train and stage robber aggregate about $3,500. The Wisconsin Central Railway Company offered a reward of $1,000 for the capture of the man who robbed its trains near Chippewa Falls. The United States Government has a standing reward for the arrest of the Shawano mail robber. The Milwaukee, Lake Shore and Western Railway Company offered a reward of $1,000 for the Gogebic stage robber, and there are several other rewards which amount to $500. The Milwaukee and Northern Railroad, at the time one of its trains was robbed near Ellis Junction, offered a reward of $500, but withdrew it some time afterward.
A Warning to Dime Novel Readers
Des Moines, Iowa, July 31. -- The Polk County Jail contains a Des Moines youth who has been trying to do the Jesse James act. His name is Victor Nordelssen, and he comes of a good family, but he yearned to be a bandit chieftain. He purchased an outfit of firearms, false beard, &, and took to the country. He held up one or two travelers in highwayman style and proposed to rob a farmhouse, but was driven away with an axe. After several such exploits he was identified, and yesterday arrested on a charge of highway robbery and put in jail. Sensational novels inspired his ambition to rival Jesse James.
She Wants to Be a Cowboy
Stockton. Cal., Oct. 22. -- Mary Abbott, 16 years old, was captured at Trowbridge Saturday night after an exciting chase. She is the victim of dime novels, and says she wants to be a cowboy. Her father says Mary declared her intention to become a cowboy while en route to California. Two or three times she has arisen at night, saddled a pony, and with a lot of provisions, a camping outfit and pistol, started for the mountains. She has, however, each time been brought back by neighbors. Saturday Mary started out again, first going to her father's barn armed with two pistols. She remained there several hours, and when discovered, fired a shot, scattering her pursuers. A parson ventured into the barn, hoping to quiet the young girl, but she thrust a pistol into his face and he retired. Mary soon ran out of the barn and made for the river. The crowd started after her. At length a constable fired two shots over her head, which startled her, and she sprang into some bushes which stopped her progress and she was captured.
Dime Novels Blamed
Lafayette, Ind., Aug. 3. -- Ever since the murder of William Ellsworth by Burt White, the "Hoosier Kid," occurred in this city two days ago, the detectives have been engaged in scouring the country in all directions, but as yet no clue has been obtained of his whereabouts. The "Kid's" relatives say that he is only 16 and that his mind has become vicious by constant reading or dime novels. He is said to be a most expert horseman and crack shot. The funeral of his youthful victim occurred in this city to-day.
A Promising Young Rascal
Dime novels have made Samuel E. Wright, a colored boy, 14 years old, living at 654 Atlantic avenue, Brooklyn, about one of the wickedest little rascals in the city. He has committed one burglary, and has narrowly escaped being a murderer. He was a prisoner in Justice Walsh's court yesterday, charged with robbing the house of Mrs. Waite, at Fulton street and Grand avenue, and with assaulting three little boys.
Young Wright left his home on Friday morning, after reading two chapters of "Terrible Tim, the Indian Hater." He first forced an entrance to Mrs. Waile's house, and finding a purse containing $15 put it in his pocket and departed. At Flatbush avenue and State street he saw three boys playing in a vacant lot, and he confronted them in true Deadwood Dick style, drawing a 32-calibre revolver and commanding them to hold up their hands. "Face about and march 10 feet," ordered the youthful desperado, and the frightened boys obeyed. When they had reached the desired spot Wright opened fire and the boys fell to the ground yelling their loudest. Wright fired seven shots in all, none of which hit his intended victims. By that time an officer had arrived, and, Wright's revolver being emptied. he was easily captured and locked up in the Bergen street station house. As his cell door closed on him he asked for his copy of "Terrible Tim," and upon getting it said: "This will tell me how to get out of this before morning."
In court yesterday he pleaded guilty to a charge of assault, and was sent to the House of Refuge.
An Interesting Association
The police or the Eleventh (Brooklyn) Precinct succeeded yesterday in arresting six members of a gang of small boys who have been engaged in rifling the show cases in front of small stores in South Brooklyn. None of the prisoners is over 15 years old. They had organized a club known as "The Terrors." and devoted the proceeds of their thefts to the purchase of cigarettes and dime novels.
A Dime Novel Hero
Wilkesbarre, Penn., Dec. 1. -- A 12-year-old boy named John Engle created a reign of terror in the town of Nauticoke last evening. He bought several revolvers, two bowie knives, and other weapons. Some person also gave him some liquor. He stood on the street corners, and reading from a dime novel, swung his revolver in the air and threatened to shoot and scalp all the people in town. He discharged his firearms several times, and the people fled from his presence. He was finally arrested. He said he was going West to shoot Indians. It was afterward learned that, the boy had stolen $150 from his parents. This afternoon, while the young culprit was being taken to the county jail, he entered a closet and jumped out of the window while the train was moving at the rate of 40 miles an hour. The train was stopped, but the boy has not yet been found.
Youthful Train Wreckers
Eau Claire, Wis., May 16. -- James and William Murphy, respectively 13 and 15 years, have been lodged in jail here. They are accused of having derailed a Wisconsin Central passenger train about 10 weeks ago between Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls. Several trains had barely escaped being wrecked several times in succession, when the company put armed guards at the switch, since which time no accidents have happened. The Murphy boys had been reading dime novels.
Students of the Dime Novel
Elmira, March 27. -- Arthur Sheets, aged 19, brother of the Erie telegraph dispatcher at Avoca, Steuben County, and another young man named Con Chase, son of Station Agent Chase, robbed N.B. Chase, a prominent business man of Avoca, last night of $1,200 and fled. Their absence created the suspicion that they were the guilty parties, and officers started in every direction in pursuit of the fugitives. They were captured at Savonia and locked up in the county jail at Bath. Nearly all the money was found on their persons. The boys' minds were poisoned by reading dime novels, and arming themselves they determined to go West and "do up" the Indians and cowboys of the plains.
A Specimen Dime-Novel Student
Banbury, Conn., May 27. -- A runaway boy captured here a day or two ago has been identified as Edward Boughton. Jr., of No. 44 Bond street, New York City. He had been sent to a school in Wilton, and preferred to see a little of life. When the officers took him into custody he had a baseball and bat. a fishing outfit, and a bottle of skunk's oil. He took his queer outfit him when he was sent to his school late yesterday afternoon. He is regarded as a student of dime novels.
Dime Novel Heroes Captured
Chicago, Jan. 7. -- The proprietor of a lodging house in Madison street has had as guests since Monday two boys who pored over dime novels, spent money freely, and talked about buying rifles and revolvers and becoming desperate characters. Detectives took the boys to the Central station to-day and made them confess that they were fugitives. They are Charles D. Whitcomb and Edward Baker, of Livermore Falls, Maine. Two weeks ago they stole a $500 bond and $600 in cash from Mrs. M. L. Whitcomb, their aunt, and started West, stopping in Albany and in New York, where they returned the bond to their aunt, and then set out for Chicago. They had $403.50 with them when arrested. They were locked up, and in response to a telegram sent East the reply came that an officer would come for them.
Filled with Buckshot
Lemuel Collins, 15 years old, and William Sullivan, 16 years old, of New Brighton, Staten Island, have been studying dime novels and yellow-covered literature for several months, and think themselves Western ruffians. Yesterday morning as Collins was striding along the street at Dutch Pond, New Brighton, he was confronted by Sullivan, who was armed with an old musket, loaded with buckshot. Sullivan drew a bead on Collins, and shouted: "Throw up your hands, or I'll make a riddle of yer." Collins did not obey, and Sullivan pulled the trigger and filled the other with buckshot. Twelve shots were located by Dr. Theodore Waker, and several of them removed from the head and body of the unfortunate boy. Sullivan was arrested by Officer Hannon and committed by Justice Corbet for examination.
Found in the Adirondacks
Very Young Elopers From Waterbury Camping in the Woods
Troy, N. Y., Aug. 26. -- J.G. Wooster, of Waterbury, Conn., who was sent on an expedition for that purpose, has found Grace Hart, aged 15, and Fred Bronson, a lad of 16, living in a rudely constructed shanty of brush which they had erected at the foot of Blue Mountain Lake, in the Adirondacks. The couple belong to highly respectable families in Waterbury, from which place they eloped last Friday. Mr. Wooster met the young runaways at the fork of a road near the lake. They had been to North River to purchase provisions, which they were carrying to their camp, near the lake and in the woods, a half mile from the road. They cooked their own provisions, and stated that they greatly enjoyed camping out.
The couple were much startled at the appearance of Mr. Wooster, and a stormy scene followed. At first the girl declared that she would never go back to Waterbury, but upon being assured that Mr. Wooster was in possession of papers for her arrest she changed her mind and consented to return. Mr. Wooster said the parents of the young couple are deeply grieved over the affair. It had been reported that the elopers had stopped at Plainville, Conn., the day they ran away and were married, but Mr. Wooster said the report could not be confirmed. Young Bronson and his companion said they had read a "real nice story in a dime novel" about a boy and girl who ran away and lived in the woods, and they thought it would be romantic to run away and camp in the Adirondacks. The party has returned to Waterbury.
Killed by His Playmate
Hillsdale, Mich. Feb. 12. -- Two 12-year old boys, named Davidson and Parker, of Grosvenor, Lenawee County, yesterday, after reading a dime novel, prepared a sham Indian fight. Davidson had a hatchet and Parker a revolver, which was accidentally discharged, striking Davidson in the forehead, killing him instantly.
Surprised in Ambush
Marlborough, N. Y., Aug. 27. -- Reginald Harris, Albert Prince, and Charles E. Noble are the names of three boys whose parents reside in or near Poughkeepsie, and who are now in Kingston Jail, charged with committing depredations and burglaries in the town of Esopus, Ulster County. Harris is not yet 14, and the oldest of the trio is in his nineteenth year. For months past the boys have read nothing else but dime novels of blood and thunder adventures with Indians on the borders. Last week they decided to start out in search of adventures, Indians, and goldmines. Obdurate conductors on Hudson River and West Shore trains "fired them off" as soon as discovered, so they concluded to foot it to the wilds of Ulster County. In some way they succeeded in obtaining one rifie, two shotguns, a revolver, and a large amount of ammunition.By the time a locality known as Poppletown, situated near the cove where the bold pirate, Capt. Kidd, is supposed to have hidden great wealth, was reached, the adventurers were tired. They built a hut, christened their camp "The End of the Trail of the Bloody Dagger," and amused themselves shooting squirrels and groundhogs. That sort of sport soon became monotonous, so for a change they shot a sheep. "Just for fun," other sheep were killed with rifle balls, and their skins were used to make moccasins. The boys threw their boots and shoes away, and also, a portion of their clothing, and the appearance that they presented was picturesque in the extreme. They scouted around in the quiet forests, and then it was decided "to cross the Rio Grande" and levy toll on the natives. They stole everything they could carry off from many farmhouses, including a cornet, cheese, lager beer, a lantern, horse blankets, &c. They overturned beehives and made it lively generally for the "natives." They changed camp several times, and at every place they appeared they actually terrorized the farmers, so much so that many persons feared to go out of doors after nightfall. Finally the people rose up in their might, and, swooping down on the young rascals, captured them asleep. The boys said they were taken in ambush, and "the trail of the bloody dagger" will be fearfully avenged. The two oldest of these promising youths are now serving out a sentence of 30 days for committing depredations, and when their terms expire they will be held to appear before the Ulster County Grand Jury to answer to a charge of burglary. The youngest of the Indian hunters, Harris, is held at present under a charge of burglary. When the Esopus posse captured the lads they had a revolver, three guns, and a large quantity of stolen goods in their possession.
Text-Books of Crime
Among the bills now in the Governor's hands is an excellent one which was drawn by Mr. John B. Pine, attorney for the New-York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and introduced by Senator Gilbert. The Penal Code already prohibits the publication, sale, or exhibition of obscene or indecent books or pictures. This bill contains an amendment extending the prohibition to another class of publications, the multiplication and wide circulation of which have caused alarm among decent men. It inserts certain words in the existing law, in this way extending this law to obscene or indecent newspapers, story papers, and pamphlets, and adds three sections. The first of these holds any person guilty of a misdemeanor who shall sell, give, show, or offer for sale "to any minor child any book, pamphlet, magazine, newspaper, or other printed paper devoted to the publication, or principally made up of, criminal news, police reports, or accounts of criminal deeds, or pictures and stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust, or crime." The second exposes to the same punishment any person who shall exhibit any of these indecent or criminal publications or pictures "upon any street or highway, or in any other place within the view, or which may be within the view, of any minor child." The third declares that any person who hires, uses, or employs any minor child to sell, give away, or distribute the prohibited publications already described is guilty of a misdemeanor.
Fifteen or twenty years ago there were published in this country only one or two of those illustrated weekly hand-books and text-books of crime that are now shown in profusion at nearly every newsstand. News-dealers, with few exceptions, kept these papers out of sight. They were unwilling that their respectable patrons should know that they dealt in such stuff. In those days there were few cheap novels, and none prepared especially for boys. The first dime novels were clean. There has been a great and alarming change. The number of the weekly text-books of crime has increased, and the foul and demoralizing sheets are displayed at every street corner. These papers are devoted wholly to crime. Their illustrations familiarize the young with the revels and bloody deeds of brutes in human form, and open the doors to a lower world which they should neither enter nor look upon. One of these papers, published in this city, has a very large circulation and has made its owner a very wealthy man. The same owner has for some months been publishing a paper of still lower grade, devoted to licentious crime, and thousands of copies have been sold by boys. The news-dealers' counters are covered with five-cent and ten-cent stories and weekly papers written for boys. These stories and these papers glorify bandits like Jesse James and noted burglars and thieves. The heroes of these tales are criminals. Many a boy reads and forgets that murder and robbery are crimes. The debasing stuff, written and published by conscienceless scoundrels who have conspired to wreck the rising generation, leads boys and even young men to rob their parents and to form bands of thieves.
The Gilbert bill forbids the sale to a minor child, or the exhibition in any public place, of the Police Gazette and several other weekly illustrated papers of the same kind. It also forbids the sale to any minor child of hundreds of stories, published separately or in story papers, the heroes of which are sharp thieves, swindlers, burglars, murderers, or railway bandits. Probably the exhibition in any public place of such papers as the filthy one recently established by the proprietor of the Police Gazette can be prevented under this bill. After it shall have been signed, a vigorous attempt will undoubtedly be made by Mr. Pine's society to secure its enforcement. All good citizens should lend a hand, for it would be folly to allow these rascally conspirators against society to carry on their work after the lawmakers have forged a weapon which can be effectively used for their overthrow.
More Juvenile Criminals
The dime novel is steadily doing its demoralizing work. The other day seven youthful desperadoes, all of whom were under 12 years of age, were arrested in a small country town through which runs the "White River Canal. The prisoners had formed a secret society called the "Robeson Gang," and it was their habit to go on board the canal-boats laid up for the Winter near their village and to break up the decks and planking with hatchets and saws. These "repairs," as the young criminals called their destructive operations, were executed at night, and the wood thus obtained was made into kindlings and sold by the gang in the daytime. Before the existence of the gang was discovered more than half the fleet of canal-boats had been hopelessly wrecked. When arrested and questioned, the small-boys explained that they had conceived their system of canal-boat wrecking after reading in the daily papers the exploits of ex-Secretary Robeson, and that they intended, after providing themselves with a hundred dollars each by the sale of kindlings, to go to New York and secretly repair such men-of-war as they might find in the navy-yard.
Scarcely has the news of the arrest of this juvenile "Robeson Gang" been made public than it is announced that Mr. Robeson contemplates writing his autobiography. There is not an intelligent parent in the land who will not be filled with dread at this announcement. The dime biographies of such eminent persons as the James boys and the Ford boys are written by men who know little of the true history of those popular criminals; and yet the biographies in question do incalculable harm. If Mr. Robeson writes his own life, it will have the merit of more or less truthfulness, and hence will be more powerful for evil than any of the dime biographies of noted malefactors now in circulation.
It is rumored that the threatened autobiography will be entitled "Robeson, the Wild Repairer: or, The Terror of the Navy," and will be illustrated with coarse wood-cuts showing the hero in the act of repairing vessels with dynamite, and of performing other thrilling and characteristic feats. The book will, of course, achieve a tremendous popularity. Every small-boy will feel that his library is incomplete unless "Robeson, the Wild Repairer" is concealed in his school desk, and "Robeson Gangs" formed by youthful admirers of the "Terror of the Navy" will spring up in every town where there are boats or vessels of any sort to be repaired.
It is devoutly to be wished that Mr. Robeson would reconsider his alleged purpose of becoming a dime author. Rather let him follow the example of certain other eminent Americans and make an engagement to exhibit himself in a dime museum. Without doubt he could command a high salary, and his exhibition would do far less harm to the rising generation than his threatened book would do, for the reason that where one boy would visit the museum to gaze upon Robeson, the Wild Repairer, a hundred boys would read a dime biography with the same attractive title.
A Remedy Wanted
Within the last week no less than four gangs of small-boys have been broken up by either mothers or policemen. All of these gangs consisted of students of dime literature, and their object in every instance was robbery, if nothing worse. The captain of one of these gangs of infant outlaws ordered every member of his command to poison his respective mother, simply as a guarantee of good faith, and it was only because one small-boy turned mother's evidence, and betrayed his comrades, that the cheerful order of the captain was not carried out.
The evil of dime literature of the kind that stimulates boys to imitate eminent robbers and murderers must be dealt with in some way if there are to be any honest and decent men in the next generation. The difficulty is that there is at present no way in which the law can touch the scoundrels who make their living by publishing dime novels. Their publications are neither indecent nor blasphemous, within the meaning of the statute; neither do they in so many words incite to the commission of crime. It is idle to expect that the small-boy, with his natural love for whatever is exciting and blood-curdling, will refrain from reading dime novels as long as they are found on every news-stand. How to suppress this pestilent literature is a problem for which a solution must be found if civilization and decency are to be preserved.
Mr. Kelland's Murderer
A youth who has been ruined by dime novel reading
Marlborough, N. Y., Jan. 15.—It has teen discovered here that the Sheriff of Ulster County, his corps of constables, and a small army of amateur detectives have been looking for the wrong man in their search for the murderer of the Kingston saloon-keeper, Edwin Kelland. The story of how the real criminal furnished himself with an alias, coolly appropriated another youth's name as his own, and then deliberately planned and carried out a cold-blooded murder for a watch and chain, a suit of clothes, and less than $100 in money reads like a chapter from one of the dime novel detective stories of the day. The name of the murderer is William Willet, of Chicopee Falls, Mass., and he is but little more than a big boy in appearance, and one whose moral nature seems to have been wholly perverted by reading dime novels. Willet made his first appearance along the Hudson Valley on June 1, 1883, and it was in this town that he schemed and planned exploits to be carried out in the future. He came here with a gang of men on board of one of the Poughkeepsie Transportation Company's propellers as a berry picker. These boats every summer bring hundreds of boys, youths, and men here to work in the strawberry and raspberry "patches." Willet, in pickers' parlance, "struck" Marlborough June 1. He loitered around town for a day until he met Patrick Barry, who owns a small fruit farm here. Barry's berries were then far from being ripe, but, nevertheless, he hired Willet "to do chores" for his board and shelter in the barn until June 15, when the first picking began. Mr. Barry stated to-day that Willet worked steadily until July 4, when he became intoxicated and acted cross and ugly. Mr. Barry discharged him, and Willet went to New York. Every time Mr. Barry started from his farm to come to the business part of the town, he says, Willet always asked him to get three or four five-cent "blood and thunder novels." Willet would lie for hours awake in the barn, when he should have been asleep, reading the stories.
After being discharged from Barry's employ Willet remained in New York two days and then returned to Marlborough. He found employment on the farm of Eli Harcourt, who says that in the main he was a steady boy, but had a mania for reading flash literature. In four weeks' time he purchased and read 15 five-cent novels. His whole frame would be in a tremor of excitement and his eyes would glisten while holding one of the Jesse James series in his hand. In the early Fall Mr. Harcourt discharged him. Shortly before he left Mr. Harcourt's employ Willet obtained board for a short time at the house of Sidney Barnhart, at West Marlborough, who owns a small grocery store there. While there, it is evident, he concocted several plans of the Jesse James order, and he made the acquaintance of two youths named Crosby, one of whom up till yesterday was supposed to be the murderer of Saloon-keeper Kelland.
The Crosby boys are cousins, both are named Charles, both are about the same height, age, and general appearance, and both were born and brought up in the vicinity of West Marlborough. Willet made the acquaintance of William Crosby's boy Charles first, and subsequently with Charles Crosby's son Charles. He filled the heads of both lads with all sorts of nonsense that he had read or imagined, and then when he concluded to leave Marlborough for good he exchanged clothing and sachels with Crosby boy No. 1, and then proposed and did go off on a tramp in the night time with Crosby boy No. 2. Willet and Crosby No. 2 obtained work driving mules on the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and when the canal-boat on which they were employed "laid up" at Rondout, Crosby No. 2 returned to his home at West Marlborough, where Crosby No. 1 had been nearly all the time since his cousin and namesake had been gone. Willet walked up town from Rondout to Kingston, assumed the name of Charles Crosby, and finally obtained work as a general utility boy in Kelland's saloon. How he deliberately murdered his employer in cold blood has already been told in the columns of The Times. The fact that there are two Charles Crosbys in this town and that one of them exchanged clothing with Willet caused the officers to look for the wrong man for a week.
At the inquest held on Kelland last night in Kingston a number of witnesses testified that Willet, alias Crosby, was a constant reader of trashy newspapers and stories. Willet is a weaver by trade, and he has a number of brothers and sisters in Chicopee Falls and Springfield, Mass. His idea of exchanging clothes with one Crosby and then going off with another seems to have been planned in advance and was not done on the spur of the moment. When Willet was discharged by Mr. Barry he said he did not intend "to go home to Springfield until late in the Fall," and when he did Mr. Barry "could just bet his life he would have a nobby suit of clothes, a gold watch and chain, and considerable 'chink.'"
The murder of Mr. Kelland creates intense excitement throughout Ulster County. District Attorney A.T. Clearwater has been untiring in his efforts to bring the guilty party to justice.
Ruined by Dime Novels
Milwaukee, Nov. 14.— Pentz and McCullough, who were arrested for shooting car driver Grothe in the face and back when they attempted to steal his cash-box. confessed the deed to-day. The accused are boys addicted to dime novel reading. The police have evidence of their work as highwaymen in other cases. Grothe is still alive.
The Silver Skulls
A small-boy of Cleveland, Ohio, aged 14, has disappeared from a comfortable home in company with two revolvers and a packet of dime novels. It is as yet uncertain whether he will devote himself to the work of exterminating Indians or will embrace the more elegant profession of highway robbery and murder. The latter is probably his choice, for the Indian field cannot be successfully cultivated without a rifle, and as the small-boy has equipped himself solely with revolvers he probably intends to become a second Jesse James.
This able small-boy left behind him the archives of a secret society founded by himself and called the Society of the Silver Skulls -- "silver" being amore picturesque if less realistic adjective than wooden. In this society were banded together ten small-boys, aged from 11 to 15 years, and their oath of initiation was a triumph of bloodcurdling writing. The object of the society is not yet known, but we may safely assume that murder and rapine were to be the occupation of its members, and from the earnest manner in which those who took the oath were required to curse their "fathers, mothers, and sisters" they doubtless intended to take a rich harvest of revenge for any spankings which they had incurred or might be called upon to endure. The members of this society also invoked a contingent curse upon their posterity, which shows that they were thoughtful small-boys, who looked far into the future. So far it does not appear that the society has done anything in particular except to solemnly threaten a small-boy named Jason Caskey with death for the crime of refusing to become a &Quot;Silver Skull," but in the absence of the founder of the society this threat may not be carried into execution.
The conduct of the Cleveland small-boy reminds one of the nursery epic entitled the "Robber Kitten." The hero of that poem had doubtless read dime novels in the feline language, for in the opening lines we are told:
"A kitten once to his mother said,
I'll nevermore be good,
But I'll go and be a robber fierce,
And dwell in a dreary wood."This is precisely the spirit which our small-boys show who found bloodthirsty secret societies and run away to begin a glorious career of crime. They are firmly resolved nevermore to be good, but to become the very fiercest sort of robbers. The kitten epic, however, goes on to relate that the Robber Kitten soon found life in a dreary wood anything but pleasant, and so returned home in a very dilapidated condition, convinced that a life of crime was not a happy one. Such will doubtless be the experience of the Cleveland small-boy, and we may expect in the course of a week or two to find him negotiating with his parents and expressing a willingness to surrender provided the integrity of his person is respected.
Although few small-boys who run away from comfortable homes in order to become robbers persevere in their lawless intentions, there are literally thousands of children who educate themselves by reading dime novels, and thereby learn that crime is vastly nobler than honesty. The influence for good of our public schools, of which we hear so much, cannot be compared with the influence for evil exerted by dime novels. Formerly boys were taught that honesty and uprightness were praiseworthy. Now they learn that murder and robbery are heroic. What is the next generation of Americans, educated in this way, to be? Few of our boys will practice actual highway robbery, but if they retain any love for honesty, morality, and decency, it will not be the fault of the scoundrels who write dime novels and the wretches who sell them.
Another Victim of the Dime Novel
The identity of the boy who was arrested in a museum in the Bowery last week, and who gave his name as Frank S. Wisner, of St. Louis, has been discovered. After his arrest he was taken charge of by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. In one corner of his room, under the carpet, the Superintaudont yesterday found a mutilated card, bearing the name of Frank S. West, Philadelphia, which he had evidently put there. It was learned that the boy's name is Frank S. Went, and that he is the son of a Stock Exchange reporter in that city. He had been reading tales of Western life, and becoming imbued with the desire to fight Indians had started off. His parents will take him home to-day.
A Boy and a Pistol
Louis Fitzmeyer, Frank Lemaine, and Martin Kranz, boys, were standing in Hester street, Sunday night, talking of trappers' exploits among the Indians, as depicted in the ever popnlar dime novel. Fitzmeyer was telling the other boys a story he had read of "The Terror of the West," and to il[l]ustrate the way in which that hero disposed of his victims he pulled out a self-cocking 38-calibre pistol and pointed it at Frank Lemaine. Worked up to a tremendous pitch of excitement in the telling of the story, he inadvertently pulled the trigger, and the weapon, being self-cocking, was discharged, the bullet striking Lemaine in the face, just over the mouth, inflicting a most painful and, perhaps, dangerous wound. Fitzmeyer, true to the teachings of the "Trappers' Guide," immediately took to the woods, other wise vacant houses, and succeeded in escaping arrest until yesterday morning, when Officer Pierce of the Seventh Precinct, saw him in Hester street and arrested him. He was brought before Justice Kilbreth, at the Essex Market Police Court, yesterday afternoon, and several witnesses were heard, all testifying that the shooting was purely and entirely accidental, and Fitzmeyer was discharged.
The Penny Dreadful
We are all unlearned in dime novels, but they probably answer to the British "penny dreadful." Parodies of them have been written by American humorists, and from these parodies it appears that the dime heroes are usually boys of tender age who have run away from school and become chiefs among the red men or Captains of piratical schooners. We see comparatively little harm in cheap novels of this class, which are but a beautiful, unconscious protest against Mr. Howells and realism. Boys are naturally fond of reading about adventures, and, as they can scarcely hope ever to join the Apaches or to stand on the quarter deck of the Red Rover, they can only mimic their favorite heroes in play and by making believe very much. We have all fancied ourselves red Indians in youth, made arrows with stone tips, and thrown modern tomahawks at a brave of the pale faces, represented, probably, by a stone dial or a tall sunflower. We have known small boys who became possessed of a small but well-selected assortment of Australian weapons, and who certainly dissipated that ethnological collection in a rather dangerous way. The domestic poultry led lives full of peril and adventure till all the light spears had been lost "in the bush," and the cows had a hard time before the last of the boomerangs described an eccentric course into an adjacent garden and was no more found. An immense amount of amusement may be got out of a genuine boomerang, because when you throw at your enemy you never have the least idea what the boomerang will hit or where it will go. But if dime novels do nothing worse than encourage and direct the natural savage tastes of small boys they cannot be so deleterious as the cheap juvenile literature of outworn Europe. The London street-boy cannot hope to become a white chief or a privateer. He knows that even the time of highwaymen has gone by. But he can and does hope to emulate the burglarious exploits of Charles Peace, and in the meantime he joins the Black Band of Bloomsbury or the Seven Dials' Scourers, and commits petty larceny with all the chivalry of an Ivanhoe. One cannot but pity these wretched, unlucky town children, whose natural instincts, natural love of adventure and romance, are corrupted by wicked, cheap novels of crime. Their intentions are often purely platonic; they do not pick pockets or snatch things off stalls for the sake of lucre, but merely because they have never heard of any other sort of romance, and because in our endless streets there is none of the adventure which nature offers on every side to boys country-bred. The cheap literature of crime fills the jails, gives magistrates endless trouble, and provides the Home Secretary with half, or more than half, of his juvenile offenders. -- The Saturday Review.
Another Dime Novel Victim
Edward Garrett, 13 years old, having acquired as perfect a knowledge of life on the frontier as could be obtained from a study of the "dime" literature sold in his native town in the suburbs of Boston, stole $300 from his father and, having purchased a revolver, a box of cartridges, two silver watches, and a quantity of trashy novels, came to this City last Thursday and put up at a cheap hotel in Canal street. His uncle arrived in this City in sea[r]ch of the boy on Friday. Mr. Garrett visited the nooks where "Wild Bill," "Daredevil Diet," and other heroes of the plains are supposed to congregate, but he found no traces of the boy. Yesterday Officer Perozzo arrested Edward at the Merchants' Hotel, In Cortlandt street. Tho boy had spent $40 of his father's money. He was arraigned in the Tombs Police Court, where Justice White remanded him to the care of his uncle, who will return with the prodigal to Boston.
Shot by His Brother
Dime novel literature is responsible for an occurrence in Hoboken that came within an ace of being fatal. John and William Hasselbrook, one 12 and the other 15 years of age, sons of a Bloomfield street grocer, agreed to play what they called the "Jesse James act." John, armed with a huge cheese-knife, personated a Western traveler. William was Jesse James, and was armed, of course, with a pistol. At a given signal William demanded "Your money or your life" of his brother. William raised his knife in self-defense, and John pulled the trigger of his pistol, which he beli[e]ved to be unloaded. To his astonishment the weapon exploded. The ball lodged in John's side, but the wound, though painful, is not a dangerous one.
The Duel
The blowing up of the Government offices in London would have attracted a good deal of attention had it not been that the Smith-Mahon duel was nearly fought on the same day. This latter event was of such transcendant importance that it naturally occupied the public mind to the exclusion of all lesser topics.
The origin of the quarrel between young Smith and young Mahon is closely associated with two college societies known respectively as the Alpha Delta Phi and the Theta Delta Chi. Few persons belonging to the extensive class known as "grown-up folk" have any idea of the vast importance of these societies. The truth is, however; that, with the possible exception of a college boat-race, there is nothing more important than a college Greek-letter society.
The Theta Delta Chi Society is understood to be an association of youthful admirers of the heroic and the sanguinary. Its members meet together in available back bedrooms, where they read dime novels and discuss ways and means of becoming pirates and Indian-slayers. Every now and then a Theta Delta Chi sets out for the Plains with a revolver and the family carving-knife, and though he is invariably arrested and brought back to his sorrowful parents, the ardor of his fellow-members does not seem to be in the least degree cooled. The Alpha Delta Phi is a society of a less objectionable character. Its members are usually rather good boys, and its aim is said to be the collection of cast-off clothing for the benefit of the heathen in foreign lands. Parents, as a rule, look upon it with more favor than upon its rival, and the front bedroom is frequently placed at the disposal of the Alpha Delta Phis as their place of meeting.
Young Mr. Smith is an Alpha Delta Phi, and young Mr. Mahon is a Theta Delta Chi. Some time ago the former made a remark concerning the Theta Delta Chi Society which greatly exasperated young Mr. Mahon. The remark was made on the playground, and in the presence of a number of boys -- we should say young gentlemen -- and Mahon felt that he must call Smith to an account for it. The gist of the offensive remark is said to be that Mahon, on returning from a recent meeting of the Theta Delta Chi, had been severely shaken by his nurse, and put to bed without his supper on the ground that he had been smoking cigarettes with other Theta Delta Chis. Of the truth of this accusation nothing is positively known. It may be that Smith invented the whole story, for he evidently is not as good a boy as most of the Alpha Delta Phis are usually supposed to be, and in that case Mahon could not feel otherwise than indignant. It may be that it was literally true, in which case it was still more exasperating. Unquestionably Smith was in the wrong, for no gentleman ought to mention such unpleasant subjects as nurses and physical punishment in connection with other gentlemen.
Mahon, moreover, was indignant because he felt that Smith's remark was an insult to the Theta Delta Chi Society, the honor of which he was ready to defend to the death. In the opinion of every member of a Greek-letter society, it is the very worst kind of blasphemy to speak disrespectfully of such society. In the unaccountable absence of any earthquake or thunderbolt which ought to have annihilated Smith on the spot, Mahon resolved to challenge Smith to fight a duel in accordance with the code as set forth in dime novel literature. Two other boys -- that is to say, young gentlemen -- who appear to have been Cubans, or some other variety of dark and bloodthirsty foreigners, were selected as seconds, and a duel was formally arranged. With the subsequent features of the affair the public is already familiar. The duelists were arrested by the Police and held until their parents identified them and took them home for punishment. They are now, in all probability, expiating their fault in their respective bedrooms and taking their meal in a standing position. The whole affair is as sad as it is astonishing, and nothing except the assassination of President Garfield has occurred within the past few years which can be compared with it in importance.
There are several morals to this tale. One of them is the familiar moral that dime novel literature exercises a terribly pernicious influence upon the young. Had Smith and Mahon never read dime novels they would probably never have thought of taking their toy pistols and going forth to fight a duel. Another lesson taught by the affair is that nurses who neglect their charges are worse than useless. Where was Smith's nurse when he was saying impolite things to Mahon? Where was Mahon's as well as Smith's nurse when the two duelists set out for their dueling ground? And where were the nurses of the two Cubans at the same time? Beyond any doubt these various nurses were flirting with policemen instead of keeping their eyes on their charges. It is even possible that they had gone to spend the day with their friends, and allowed the boys -- or rather the young gentlemen -- to take care of themselves. For this neglect of duty they have, of course, been promptly discharged; but the public will naturally ask how many nurses are there who neglect their duty so as to render it possible for their charges to run away, either to fight duels or for less dangerous, but hardly less reprehensible, purposes.
Another Dime Novel Victim
A boy who said his name was Willie Kelly was found by a resident of Manhattan avenue, Brooklyn, Eastern District, sitting on a curbstone in that thoroughfare last Sunday morning. The boy, who was crying bitterly, said he lived in Spencer street and was lost. He was taken to a station-house, where his father appeared. His name is Delehanty and he lives in West Forty-third street, New York. He said his son had been reading the adventures of the Ford and James brothers and other outlaws, and had run away from home three times previous to his latest exploit. The boy had in his waistband a large carving knife
Two Heroes
The recent Chicago tragedy that filled Mr. Elliott with mourning and bullets and subjected Mr. Dunn to the inconvenience of a night in the station-house is full of interest to the rising generation. Elliott and Dunn are recognized by all readers and lovers of dime novels as true heroes, and there are thousands of boys who will take a keener interest in the story of Elliott's death than they would in almost any other imaginable event, except, perhaps, a fight between Sullivan and Mace.
The late Mr. Elliott was in every way a man deserving of the highest juvenile admiration. He was a prize-fighter, and although there are some writers of dime novels who hold that a bandit. is on the whole nobler than a prize-fighter, there can be no question that the latter is necessarily a true hero. Mr. Elliott was moreover a man of much versatility. He was eminent as a thief, a burglar, and a highway robber, and he had once murdered a policeman. There are few prominent jails in which Mr. Elliott did not, at one time or another, take up his abode, but, like other gentlemen of his class, executive clemency usually shortened his residence in prison. In short, Mr. Elliott had risen to the very front rank in his profession, and his was a career of which no boy of spirit could read without an earnest desire to follow his example.
Mr. Dunn is in his way almost as celebrated as Mr. Elliott. He is a prominent murderer, a successful thief, and a well-known professional gambler. He has never pursued prize-fighting as a profession, but he has labored in behalf of the cause by arranging prize-rights and training fighters. Like Mr. Stuart Robson, Mr. Dunn is a believer in the gospel of Col. Bob Ingersoll, and he lately conducted the funeral service of a Chicago gambler according to the rites of the new faith, and with a success at least as brilliant as that which Mr. Robson achieved when playing the part of a clergyman at the late Mr. Thorne's funeral.
When these two great men, Dunn and Elliott, quarreled, it was understood that blood would flow. Each one avowed his determination of murdering the other, it being well understood that neither had any reason to fear the gallows, that unpleasant instrument of vengeance being reserved exclusively for negroes and Italians. When they met, the ensuing battle was fought with the utmost skill. They not only shot at one another with a splendid carelessness as to how many of the spectators might be killed, but they clinched and pounded one another with magnificent energy. As is well known, Mr. Dunn escaped with his life for the reason that Mr, Elliott's bullet struck him in the forehead, which proved impracticable. Mr. Elliott was more wisely shot in the abdomen, and died gloriously upon the battle-field. His was a death which fitly crowned his noble life. Dime novels teach us that to die "with our boots on" is the only way in which a true hero should consent to leave the world. Elliott has gone without a stain upon his memory, unless it may be the fact that he never robbed a railway train; and Dunn has added to his laurels, and when acquitted by a Chicago jury -- as he undoubtedly will be -- he will more than ever deserve the admiration and emulation of the young.
Of course there are old-fashioned people who fancy that Dunn and Elliott were vulgar villains and who only regret that both of them were not killed. The day of such prejudiced and pusillanimous opinions has, however, passed away. Dunn and Elliott were precisely the sort of men of whom our boys read with delight. Dime novels have taught them that to be a prize-fighter or a murderer is infinitely more worthy of a lad of spirit than to be a clergyman, a lawyer, or an honest merchant. They do not look with prejudice upon theft, even of the most vulgar variety, for the dime novel writers maintain that it is "smart" to steal, and dishonorable only when one steals from one's fellow-thief. There is nothing in the career of either Elliott or Dunn which excites the slightest disapprobation on the part of our boys. At least such is the result which prolonged reading of dime novels ought logically to produce in the minds of juvenile readers, and that it does actually produce precisely this effect upon many of them is daily proved by the records of our Police courts. While one villain like Elliott dies by the pistol of another, the dime novel writers are daily training scores to take their place. There are at least a dozen so-called "libraries" pouring out every week fresh stories which teach the theory and practice of crime. These are read by almost every boy who knows how to read. It is idle to suppose that boys can constantly read without injury books in which thieves and murderers are held up to their admiration. The particular class of evil books upon . which the Society for the Suppression of Vice makes war never had at any time any but a secret and necessarily limited circulation, and infamous as they were, it is doubtful if they were an evil as dangerous and as wide-reaching in its effects as is the universally read dime novel literature. Years ago the probability that any boy of decent parentage would become a Dunn or an Elliott was extremely remote. To-day the strongest educating influences to which our boys are subjected tend directly to make them like the ruffians whom they learn to admire.
Victims of Dime Novels
Detective Riggs observed four boys acting in a suspicious manner yesterday afternoon on the corner of Gold street and Fulton avenue, Brooklyn. The detective arrested on suspicion one of the number, Henry Ursprung, aged 18, residing at No. 206 Flatbush avenue. Fourteen packages of cigarettes were found in Ursprung's pockets, and he finally admitted that they had been stolen. He said that Alonzo Smith, aged 17, of No. 853 Hoyt street; Robert Merritt, aged 14, of No. 270 Ninth-street, and John Dillinger, aged 16, of No. 333 Prospect avenue, in company with himself, had been in the habit, for several nights past, of sleeping in a vacant building, known as the "haunted house," on Fourth street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues. In this house Ursprung said there were several blankets, seven boxes of cigars, and other articles, which had been stolen by his companions. Detective Zundt arrested Ursprung's three companions, and they confessed their guilt, adding, however, that Ursprung had assisted in their thieving expeditions. At the "haunted house" Detective Zundt found the property described by Ursprung. The boy burglars were locked up in the First Precinct Station-house. The parents of one of the boys are respectable people, who are in comfortable circumstances. The reading of trashy novels incited the boys to commit theft.
Three Youthful Burglars
The wanton destruction of property at the Sands House -- The boys exulting in their crime.
Milton-on-the-Hudson, Feb. 20. -- Myron Stevens and John Davies, two of the boy burglars who broke open the Sands residence, (not the Stone House, as previously reported,) have been sent to the House of Refuge by Judge Woolsey. The other boy, Alva Davies, 13 years of age, has been committed to await the action of the Grand Jury. They stole over $500 worth of property, and maliciously destroyed much more. The scene in the Sands house beggars description. In addition to the damage reported in The Times of yesterday, the wall-paper in many of the rooms is besmeared with preserves. Trunks containing costly silk dresses were broken open, and the apparel deluged with canned fruits, wine, and filth. Carpets were cut and furniture was hacked. Property of every description was wantonly destroyed. When the young rascals were arraigned in court, their demeanor was impudent and defiant. Myron Stevens, although only 10 years old. appears to be as hardened as a criminal of 50. He boastingly said: "I don't care a cuss what you do with me. The only thing I'm sorry for is I didn't burn the d-----d ranch down, and half the village along with it." From the statements of the two other boys, it appears they have frequented the Sands and other residences for several weeks. They gleefully stated they became "gloriously drunk" from wine obtained in the cellars. What they could not drink was used in deluging trunks. A reporter asked the Stevens boy what his object was in maliciously destroying so much property. "D-----d if I know; but it was bully fun, I can tell you," was the reply. He refused to state whether or not other Summer residences, the owners of which are now in New York and Boston, had been broken open, but intimated there would be "high jinks" in June next. All three of the youthful criminals have been reading dime novels for some time. Their minds have become depraved, and they say they "wanted to be heroes." The height of their ambition was to become highwaymen, and as an initiatory step they commenced as burglars. One of the lads sent to the House of Refuge says he "won't be there long." Alva Davies, who is held to await the action of the Grand Jury, it is expected, will he sent to Sing Sing for a term of years. To-morrow, several New York gentlemen are expected to reach here for the purpose of examining their property.
The Evils of Dime Novel Literature
John Murtha, of No. 282 Tompkins avenue; Henry Wenrud, of No. 639 Greene avenue; Fred Prentice, of No. 418 Van Buren street, and Henry Rogers, of No. 920 Lafayette avenue, all of the City of Brooklyn, and all lads under 16 years of age, disappeared from their homes Sunday night. Acting under a plan previously agreed upon, the boys were to rendezvous at midnight on Sunday on the comer of Greene and Tompkins avenues, from which point they were to start for the far West in pursuit of fame and fortune. All four of the young adventurers arrived at the point agreed upon long before the hour set for departure. At the last moment, Master Murtha, who was in command, remembered that he had forgotten the photograph of a young girl to whom he was attached. He went home for the picture, instructing his companions to await his return. After securing the photograph, young Murtha stole down stairs, out into the garden, and was in the act of clambering over the fence, when he was seized from behind by his father. The latter had been awakened by the footsteps of his son, and, thinking a burglar had just left the house, rushed out in pursuit, with the result above stated. Mr. Murtha at once marched his son to the station-house, where he was locked up for the night. It was not until yesterday morning that young Murtha consented to tell the reason of his attempt to leave his father's house at night. His three companions have not been heard from either by the Police or their parents. The boys had furnished themselves for their Western expedition with four revolvers, aud three saddles to place on the backs of wild mustangs, aud four army blankets. Young Murtha had but 10 cents and a pistol in his possession when arrested. All the boys are respectably connected and were public school students. Their freak is attributed by the Police to a too close perusal of dime novel literature.
A Runaway Youth in Prison
John Shaw robs his father in Covington, KY., and spends his money in bad company.
The latest victim of dime-novel reading is a youth named John Shaw, aged 16, a native of Covington, Ky. Shaw left his home in Covington on Saturday, Aug, 3, with $1,900 in his pocket, and though only 10 days have since elapsed, his expenditures have been so large that his pocket-book how only contains $1,450. The money was a part of the hard-earned savings of his father, and young Shaw took advantage of his father's absence to rob him. Shortly after 5 o'clock yesterday morning, Officer Michael Hogan, of the Fourteenth Precinct, saw two young women and a boy coming out of a restaurant in the basement of No. 30 Bowery. The boy was silently intoxicated, and the officer, thinking this strange, entered the restaurant and inquired what the party had been doing. He was told that they had had breakfast. The waiter said that, after having breakfast, the young fellow offered to pay, and "chucked" a $50 bill on the counter. One of the girls took up the bill and said: "Say, Johnny, never mind; we'll pay for the breakast and we can take it out of the $50 bill by and by. The waiter took the girls' money, and then the party went out. Acting upon this information, Officer Hogan started in pursuit. The stranger and his new-found friends were nowhere to be seen and the policeman was about giving up the search for them when he met a gentleman who told him that he had just seen a party of three answering the officer's description, get on a Fourth avenue car. Officer Hogan hastened onward and succeeded in capturing the adventurous youth with his female friends at the corner of Grand and Elm streets. Hogan ordered the trio off the car, and then, asking the girls if they had any of the boy's money, one of them replied in the affirmative, and handed the officer a $50 bill from her pocket-book. The policeman made prisoners of the party, and took them to the station-house, where the girls gave their names as Jane Lewis and Pauline Reilly, of No. 27 Chrystie street, and the boy as John Shaw, of Covington, Ky. Shaw was searched, and $1,450 was found in his possession. The prisoners were arraigned before Justice Morgan, in the Tombs Police Court, where Shaw related a most singular story in regard to himself and his visit to this City. He said his father's name was William Shaw, and that he resided in Seventh-street, between Willard and Greer streets, in Covington, Ky. John said possibly on account of his bad conduct that his father had ordered him to leave the house, offering him $100, with which he might begin business. John liked the proposition well enough, but the smallness of the sum disgusted him. "I know I had to get out," said the boy, "so when I got a chance I went up stairs to a bureau where I knew my father kept some money, and took all that was there, amounting to $1,900. I took the train and went to Cincinnati, and stayed there a day or two. Then I came on to New York. It was my intention to go to Liverpool and from there to Belfast, where I have relatives."
Jane Lewis and Pauline Rellly were discharged and Shaw was remanded until his father can be heard from. The youth is tall for his age, is of slender build, and is much sun-burned. He arrived in this City a week ago yesterday, and took up his quarters at the International Hotel, in Chatham street. He has spent his money freely since and has lived a rather fast life. On Monday night $150 was taken from him in a Chatham-street saloon. He heard some music, and seeing a lot of pictures went down a few steps toward the basement. A big fellow seized him, saying: "If you want to see the show, go in," at the same time shoving him in headlong. He was surrounded by about 20 girls, and they ordered bottle after bottle of wine. It cost Shaw $150. The wine cost $5 a bottle. Shaw said he hardly drank anything; that the women drank it nearly all themselves, Shaw said he tried to get out of the place several times, but the women shoved him back and would not let him out. He says he does not remember the number of the den in Chatham street where he met Jane Lewis and Pauline Reilly, but he thinks he would be able to find it in the night-time, as he remembers the way in which it was lighted up. Officer Hogan was complimented by Justice Morgan for the intelligence and foresight which he exercised in connection with the arrests.
Youthful Highwaymen
What Came of Dime-Novel Reading
Boys who wanted to imitate "Deadwood Dick" and other heroes -- The mystery of the attack on Mr. Thomas Lynn cleared up -- A singular story of crime.
Three arrests made by the Police of the Thirty-second Precinct on Wednesday night have had the effect of clearing up the mystery attending the attempted murder and robbery of Thomas Lynn, near the corner of Central-avenue and One Hundred and Seventy-first street, on Sunday, the 19th last., and the story, as disclosed by one of the participants in the crime, is certainly a most singular and dramatic one. The manner in which the arrests were made is also somewhat strange. A policeman crossing MacComb's Dam Bridge, toward Seventh-avenue, on Wednesday evening saw two lads who acted rather suspiciously. One of them, named Adolph Baldsmeeder, who is 16 years old, carried a large bundle. His companion was Ferdinand Frey, who is two years older, and who resides at No. 17 Orchard-street. The officer asked them where they were going with the bundle. Baldsmeeder said a farmer had paid them to carry it to a neighbor. The Policeman took the bundle and perceived that it contained boy's clothes which smelled musty. Seeing a small bundle-under Frey's vest, the officer took it out and found it contained an undershirt which also had a musty smell. The lads were confused and were unable to answer any inquiries. This induced the policeman to continue his search, and he was rewarded by finding a heavy policeman's club and a loaded seven-barreled revolver concealed about Frey's person, and another club about the person of Baldsmeeder. "I guess I'll have to take you in, boys," said he, and seizing them with a firm grasp, he began to march them toward the station-house. On the way Baldsmeeder broke out with: "Oh, ---- it! I've got to swing sometime, anyhow, and I might as well squeal now as ever. Cop, I'm the fellow that shot Lynn; that's who I am. You didn't know who you had grabbed. You feel all-fired big now, don't you?" Upon arriving at the station, he said he had another companion named Fritz Wagner, of Melrose avenue and One Hundred and Fifty-sixth-street. Wagner, who is 10 years old, was sent for and was arrested while in bed. The three lads were brought before Justice Murray, at the Jefferson Market Police Court, yesterday. They were identified by Mr. Lynn as his assailants. Baldsmeeder was committed for trial in default of $1,000 bail, on a charge of felonious assault and battery. His companions were committed to the House of Detention.
Baldsmeeder after his commitment made a full confession of his crime to a TIMES reporter. He attributed the whole thing to the influence exerted on him by the reading of dime novels, for which he had a passion. His father, Frederick Baldsmeeder, who died three years ago, was a very good man, and had been very kind to him. His mother shortly afterward married one Gustav Mott, of No. 332 West Thirty-ninth-street. The boy disliked his step-father and left the house, going to live with his aunt at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street and Third avenue. About a year ago he formed the habit of reading "dime novels," and the habit soon grew into a passion. He spent his entire time in poring over such stories as Deadwood Dick, Five Hundred Dollars Reward for the Capture of Deadwood Dick, The Red Right Hand, Double Daggers, and similar trash and his mind became inflamed with a thirst for bloody adventures. Fighting for glory was not to his taste. He wanted to fight for money. He wouldn't kill an Indian unless he had gold on him; he wouldn't shoot a white man unless to rob him of something worth while. His desire was to make a fortune on the road, after the manner of the dime-novel heroes, and Texas, he thought, was the place to do it. So he left his aunt's house four months ago in order to earn money enough to pay his way to Texas. He first obtained employment in Henry Scitz's restaurant, at Broad and Beaver streets. The wages of $8 per month was too small, however, and he left. He then found work in Henry Peters' milk store and grocery, at No. 651 Washington street. By two months' work there he obtained &36;10. He determined to give up work, becoming convinced that if he depended on his earnings to go to Texas he would he an old man before he got there. Frey and Wagner were taken by him into his confidence. When he told all his plans, and he pressed them to join with him. He pictured the life of a highwayman in glowing colors.
They were captivated by his descriptions, and all three swore an awful oath to be highwaymen, to be true to one another, never to betray one another in trouble, nor cross one another in love affairs, and each to suffer death at the hands of the others upon violation of any of their sworn vows. They swore to thw vow with bare heads in Fleetwood Park one day, each one holding in his uplifted hand a keen-edged dagger made of a fine steel file. They selected Baldsmeeder as their leader, and he agreed to give them a lesson in their new life by attacking and robbing the first person they came across who was likely to have enough money with him to pay their expenses to Texas. Baldsmeeder then went to the pawnshops looking for a good gun and pistol. He found both, the latter being a seven-chambered, self-cocking French revolver. He bought an enormous quantity of powder, caps, and cartridges, and one night took his arms, ammunition, and all the clothes he had out to Fleetwood Park, and hid the clothes under the "big rocks" in the woods near Farmer Wise's house. He remained in the neighborhood of Fleetwood Park several days reconnoitring, and finally concluded that the best place to give his companions the promised "lesson" was on O'Brien's lane, which runs from Central avenue in the neighborhood of One Hundred and Seventy-first-street, and which is well sheltered by trees. He went down town to see Ferdinand and Fritz several times, and finally succeeded in inducing them to go with him to get the lesson. They went out into some woods, where Baldsmeeder showed his revolver and ammunition, and said he wanted them to stand by him and see how he would "tackle" the first "good victim" he met. Then they saw he was in earnest, they insisted that he should convince them of his skill in shooting before he attacked any one with his revolver, as if he could not shoot well, he might miss his intended victim and get the whole party in trouble. Adolph willinglv complied with the request. He put a mark on a fence, and by shooting several times at it convinced his companions that he could shoot straight. Then they wanted to know if the bullet would penetrate far enough to kill. To prove that it would Adolph fired a bullet at an inch board, and it went through. Ferdinand and Fritz thought that a man's skull or breast-bone might be harder to pierce than an inch pine board. Adolph then placed two such boards together and showed that his pistol could send a ball through both. That satisfied the other two that the pistol was effective. But still they thought that it might be easy enough to shoot accurately at "a thing that wasn't alive" and quite another thing to shoot straight at a "live man." While they were talking on this point a good-sized dog approached. Adolph said: "If I can kill that dog the first pop will you be satisfied?" They said they would, and he fired at the dog. The bullet struck the brute in a vital part, and he staggered and fell dead.
Ferdinand and Fritz then told Adolph they were satisfied, and would follow him anywhere. He led them across the intervening fields into the lane, and they sat down under some bushes directly opposite O'Brien's gate. Three persons passed, one at a time. Adolph scrutinized each one carefully and pronounced them all "N.G." Finally, he saw Mr. Lynn coming down the hill from O'Brien's house. "I saw that follow put a big wallet in his inside vest pocket," said Adolph to his companions, "and if he pans out when he gets here, we'll go for Texas at once." Lynn came out of the gate. Adolph saw that he wore a heavy gold watch chain. He went up to him and asked him what time it was, and when Mr. Lynn told him, he quickly drew his revolver, and pointing it at Lynn's breast demanded his money. Then followed the scene described in THE TIMES on the 19th inst.. Baldsmeeder firing three shots, one of the bullets lodging in a heavy memorandum-book carried by Lynn, the second forcing a heavy suspender buckle against which it struck, and the third passing through the fleshy part of the left leg under the knee. O'Brien, who heard the shooting, and Lynn's cries for help, then came running along, and the assailant and his companions fled.
Soon after the flight, Adolph, Ferdinand, and Fritz met and went away together. Adolph took lodging for the next two nights in a lodging-house at Delancey street and the Bowery. He cautiously observed things, and, finding that his name had not been mentioned in connection with the shooting, became bold and walked about freely. Running out of money and being hungry, one night he passed a cellar bakery in Ludlow street, kept by a man named Zabinski. He could not resist the smell of the hot cakes, and dropped down into the cellar to get some. Being observed, he called out, "Hallo, Boss, don't you want to hire a boy?" Zabinski did, and asked how much wages he wanted. Adolph said $12 a month; the baker offered $8, and the bargain was made. Adolph remained there one week, took his wages, and left. He met Ferdinand; was told that the Police had never "tumbled to who did the shooting," and resolved to go at once on the road again. Ferdinand agreed to accompany him. They armed themselves with two clubs, which Ferdinand furnished from his own home -- his father having once been on the Police force -- and they went after Fritz. They could not find him, and then went to the Big Rocks, where Adolph found his clothes all right. He took the bundle and made Ferdinand carry the revolver. They had a great curiosity to revisit the scene of their recent adventure, it drew them there by some power, they said, and while passing over Macomb's Dam Bridge, on their way home, were arrested as above stated.
While telling the above story Baldsmeeder was as cool and collected as could be. He said: "I've got the devil in me. I would like to have had time to search that Lynn, I tell you I'd ha' made things howl down in Texas. They can't take my head off but once. Give me some tobacco." Baldsmeeder is a tall wiry, freckle-faced, red-headed bov, with gray eyes, cold, fine cut features, and a dare-devil demeanor that puts one ill at ease while he is rolling off his story in his cool, blunt way.
Effects of Reading Dime Novels
On Monday last Officer Meagher, of the Twentieth Precinct, was informed by a gentleman that one of two boys whom he pointed out had just been trying to pawn a valuable diamond ring. The officer arrested the boys aand took them to the station-house, where they gave their names as Charles Lemeke, of No. 147 East Fiftieth street, and William Francisco, of No. 153 East Fiftieth street, aged respectively 14 and 17 years. The ring was taken by the officer, and the mother of Lemeke sent for. When she arrived, Charles gave her a pair of diamond earrings and three rings, valued in all at $420. On being arraigned in the Fifty-seventh Street Police Court, yesterday morning, before Justice Smith, it was found that William Francisco, the companion to Lemeke, had induced him to commit the theft. A few days ago he prevailed on Charles to agree to run away with him, and go west to the prairies and hunt "wild buffaloes" and live with the Indians. How to accomplish this without funds seemed an insurmountable obstacle, but Francisco, knowing that Mrs Lemeke had a lot of valuable jewelry, advised Charlie to steal the ear-rings and rings and pawn them. Young Lemeke agreed to do so, and while trying to raise money on the articles was arrested. In the court-room both mother and son wept bitterly. Justice Smith told the mother that it was out of his power to let the boy go, and that he was fully convinced that he had been induced to commit the theft by the older boy, and that he would request the District Attorney to be as clemebt as possible with him, in view of his previous good character. In default of $1,500 bail each, the boys were committed to answer at the Court of General Sessions.
The Jack Harkaway Library
Thomas Eyman, aged sixteen, Thomas Stubbs, aged seventeen, and August Vommeg, aged eighteen, disappeared from their homes in Waterbury, Conn., on Thursday evening and took passage for this City en route for the Far West, where they proposed to go on an extended hunt for buffalo. They boys were all employed in the factory of the Waterbury Button Company, and had been always regarded as steady, industrious lads. Through a course of dime-novel reading they had become imbued with a spirit of adventure, and determined to start for the plains, the glories and dangers incident to buffalo hunting, of which they had read, having seduced them from their more sober but more remunerative occupation. Before leaving Waterbury they each purchased a hunting rifle and the necessary outfit, out of their last month's wages, which had been paid them on Thursday. Their flight was soon discovered, and the Chief of Police of Waterbury telegraphed to Inspector Dilks to intercept them on their arrival in this City. The lads came on the New Haven boat, which arrived at 5 o'clock yesterday morning, and were arrested and taken to the Central Office. The father of Eyman, accompanied by the agent of the Waterbury Button Company, arrived later in the day, and with little persuasion the lads were content to abandon the proposed expedition to the West and return to their homes, fully satisfied of the folly of their undertaking.
Where is He?
The other day a seventeen-year-old boy was found dead in a room of a rear tenement in New York City. He was dressed in a flannel shirt, high boots, corduroy clothes, gauntlets and a broad-brimmed sombrero; and round his waist was a cartridge-belt, with a chain for a revolver. A bullet had entered his forehead.
The person arrested for the shooting was a boy of fifteen, who, with a companion of his own age, was known to frequent the room. He, too, wore cowboy clothes and carried a revolver. In the room the police found a large pile of dime novels and plenty of cigarettes and playing-cards.
When the fifteen-year-old boy was arrested his mother appeared, and declared tliat her boy had never been a bad boy, and she was sure he was innocent. He had not been at school for a year, but she "always knew where he was."
She ought to have known that he was not at home, not at work and not in school; that he was spending his time playing cards with two older boys, reading cheap trash and smoking cigarettes. The revolver he had with him was his father's; yet neither the mother nor the father seems to have interfered or to have been troubled by any of these facts.
One may sympathize with parents who have so little sense of responsibility as these parents felt for their son, but one cannot excuse them. It is not enough to know where the boy is. It is necessary to know that the place is not a moral cesspool and a mental muck-hole.
Congress can make, and the courts enforce, a law for pure physical food; but the mental pure food law must be promulgated by parents and enforced at home; and for some youthful diseases no amount of "pedagogy" or "psychology" or "child study" or "moral suasion" is half so effective as the good old "Oil of Palm," a simple unguent with which the youth of an earlier generation was liberally anointed.
An Important Test of a Good Juvenile
Some time ago I was collecting articles on the matter of good reading for boys. Several of the authors in criticising dime novels deprecated the fact that they become such incitements to boys for action. These papers fell into the hands of Mr. H.L. Koopman, the librarian of Brown University, who made the following acute rejoinder:
"Allow me to say a word in regard to the 'incitement' [of] evil in boys' reading. I hardly see how a book that is interesting enough to hold its own in a boy's mind against the Diamond Dick type can wholly avoid the element of inciting a boy to go and do likewise. Books are bad for the young if they are false to human nature or premature in their revelations of evil; not because they stir the blood. I question whether Stevenson tends to tie boys to the fireside. The fact is, the place for the boy is in the world and he feels it; our own business is not to let him leave the nest too soon."
Is not incitement one of the chief tests of a good book? Mr. Gerald Stanley Lee says somewhere that the greatness of the Bible is in what it makes a man say back to it. Is not that the greatness of any book, that it makes you go out after you have read it through or even before you have read it through and do something about it? Was not that the power of Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Jungle and the wicked power of The Leopard's Spots?
So in children's books, I regard as positively immoral in effect certain stories of "Pansy's," which I used to read Sunday afternoons and which left me dissolved in puddles of sentiment. Her Chautauqua books were the best thing she ever did, because they set so many young people toward reading courses for self-culture.
Many of the old-fashioned juveniles had this power, which their authors piously designed that they should have. The Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons had, I believe, a remarkable influence in encouraging Mt. Holyoke girls to marry young Amherst foreign missionary candidates and be number one in their matrimonial careers. Eyes and No Eyes, by Dr. Aikin and Mrs. Barbauld, did more for nature study in its day than even the influential and suggestive books of Long and Seton in our own time. Several great scientists gave credit to this little story as the source of their encouragement toward and interest in careful observation of nature. The Rollo Books, still happily being printed and read, are the most famous example in the early nineteenth century, of the painstaking endeavor of a noble soul to inspire the youth of his time painlessly toward right conduct. You remember how pleasantly he says in one of his introductions that it is his desire to aid "in cultivating the amiable and gentle qualities of the heart." And then he adds what even novelists writing for adults would do well to remember: "For it is generally better, in dealing with children, to allure them to what is right by agreeable pictures of it, than to attempt to drive them to it by repulsive delineations of what is wrong."
Most of the great juveniles meet that test. Has not Robinson Crusoe been the father of all such as handle the boat and build the camp fire? Did not Miss Alcott start home charades and parlor plays all over the land? Have not the old legends of King Arthur originated all the playing at cavalier that is so characteristic of certain years of boyhood? And so Hiawatha and Cooper directed thousands of boys in their Indian play, as Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton found that he was so unexpectedly called on to do when he had written his Two Little Savages. Beard's American Boy's Handy Book and, more recently, two others, The Boy Craftsman and Trapper Jim, have proved to be veritable guide-books to profitable Saturdays and summers to thousands of lads.
The organization of Ten Times One Clubs and later the King's Daughters and, not so indirectly, the Christian Endeavor Society on its practical side, sprang from Dr. Hale's Ten Times One Is Ten. School ideals have been largely shaped by Tom Brown's School Days and, especially in New England, by Mrs. Dodge's Donald and Dorothy, while Kellogg and Alger were undoubted wholesome forces in idealizing the playground and the beginnings of business life. Colonel Knox and Hezekiah Butterworth gave many a boy and girl the first determination to travel when grown up.
The most recent illustration of the inciting power of a story is Peter Pan. I am told that children all over the land are dramatizing it and are sending their versions to Miss Adams, while I know one family that has adjourned its cooperative composition of a new and personal Robinson Crusoe to chronicle what happened before Wendy came to the Never Never Land.
Reality is essential to the book whose incitement shall be effective. The Dog of Flanders is a more brilliant work than Black Beauty, but the latter overtops all other fiction among children between certain ages, because of its simple realism.
Parents often have false ideas about this matter. Many of them think Johnnie is safe because he is reading; their universal antidote for ennui or annoyance is, "O, go and get your book," and they point with pride to the silent lad buried in a page. But Johnnie may be stupefying himself with vicarious activities, he may be becoming self-righteous over virtues which he thinks he possesses because he has read about them, or he may be absorbing false views of life and heroism and gaining, in all his fever for adventure, not a fact or truth that is worth while.
There is a good deal of needless worry about the nickel novel. It is better literature than half the stuff we adults buy at $1 08. Often it rests or relieves the lad who is reacting from an hour of football and waiting for supper. But does it not incite to crime and lawlessness? Sometimes it does. But not all nickel novels are alike. Some deal with athletic sport and some with American history. These incite rather to more manly behavior. So far as the nickel novel gives unreal conceptions of life, suggests that anywhere except at home life is interesting and portrays criminal deeds and associations, it is a bad thing, but if it has any power to make a boy want to be in the world as a forceful factor, it is to that extent superior to the majority of the literature that is assigned in the schools as a requirement for entering college.
Do not misunderstand me. The alternative to the academic classic and the anæmic Sunday school book is not necessarily the nickel novel. The point of all I am saying is to urge parents in selecting reading for children to choose books that shall tend to drive them out into the fresh air and the woods, to help them make things with their hands, to play the old games, to cherish the manly and active virtues.
In short, the great book for a child sometimes is the one that displaces itself by giving the child a better employment than even reading it.
Boys and Steam-Boilers
Not long ago a boy employed in a chair factory in Boston discovered fire in the packing-room. He immediately raised an alarm, and then set about the rescue of the panic-stricken girls in the building, several of whom he helped to safety; but the flames spread so rapidly that one man lost his life, and a number of other persons were saved only by heroic work on the part of the firemen.
Investigation, which was begun immediately, soon traced the origin of the fire to the very boy who had discovered it. He had thrown a lighted match into a pile of newly varnished chairs. When pressed for his reason, he declared that it was the desire to be known us a hero. He had meant no harm, but had expected to be able to put out the fire before it spread, and so gain credit with his employers and the public.
Such cases are so common that they lend to serious questions as to the cause. The tendency of cheap newspapers to make heroism out of the most ordinary incidents; the false views of life presented in dime novels and some more pretentious books, and especially by the melodramas of the cheap theaters -- all these are contributing causes; and as might be expected, they are more potent in the city than in the country.
The fact of the matter is, -- and nearly every parent is forced sooner or later to recognize it, -- a boy's mind is like a steam-boiler. It may appear fair on the outside, and yet, if it is constantly supplied with the foul waters of moral or intellectual turpitude, corrosion goes on unchecked and unseen. When the shell becomes thin enough the explosion must come; and the wreck, as in the case in point, may involve other lives than that of the boy himself and his immediate family.
There is no way to safeguard boilers except by frequent and careful inspection. So, too, there is nothing which will do for a boy what constant and rigid oversight by his parents will accomplish. Such oversight may be regarded as old-fashioned, but it will never be obsolete.
Dime Novels and Doggerel
To be a University professor does not always save a man from being verv foolish. Some time ago Oscar L. Triggs, a professor in the Chicago (Rockefeller) university, compared Rockefeller to Shakespeare -- as unlike in nature, training, and life work as two mortals well could be! More lately he oracularly told his class in English literature (for publication) that the bulk of the hymns in the Protestant churches are mere doggerel, songs and hymns but no poetry; also that the dime novels are literature while the Sunday school books can never hope to be; that you can find little poetry that is not unorthodox. Such sweeping assertions do not mark the careful student, the lover and speaker of truth, nor even the man who knows what he is talking about. Had he said that many of the modern Sunday school and revival songs are mere doggerel he would have been within the bounds of truth; but when he says this of our standard church hymns he is wide of the truth. Does he forget the noble church hymns of John Milton, Dryden Adison, Charles Wesley, Mrs. Steele, Newman, O.W. Holmes, Kay Palmer, Whittier, Leonard Bacon, Bryant, Bethune, Phoebe and Alice Cary, and scores of others whose hymns are not only songs of praise but lofty poetry? His second dictum, that the dime novels (blood-and-thunder) are better literature than the Sunday school books, shows that he knows nothing of the modern S.S. library, comprising as it does many books by our best authors from the literary standpoint. His third dictum,that "you can find little poetry that is not unorthodox shows that he has forgotten that this world's three greatest poets, Homer, Shakespeare and Milton,were all orthodox in belief and teaching as measured by the religious standards of their times, while the greatest poets of the second rank, Dante, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Longfellow, Lowell, Bryant, Whittier, and many others were devout believers in the Christian's God and in the essential truths of Christianity. Surely a professor of English literature should know something of the facts of his chair and keep reasonably close to those facts.
Dime and Dollar-Fifty
The dime novel is classified as of the dregs and offal of literature, and is blamed with boyish escapades and crimes, with the demoralization ot hired help, with the silliness and worthlessness of girls, and mischief generally. Some years ago this writer was acquainted with a gentleman who was employed by a dime-novel factory. He was expected to turn out an average of say one each week -- some such rapid work; we cannot be exact. He was asked about his plots and plans, but said he never had any. When he had turned out a novel he immediately began writing another, without any idea what the story was or would be. He said he had a large stock of women, horses, villains and heroes, and was not very particular in his choice ot them. Any of them was good enough. He filled in with fights and crimes and other novel-stuff till he had the requisite number ot pages. Then he killed off his characters in various tragical ways, had a wedding and a "finis." He never paid the least attention to probabilities. The cook and the stable-boy and the callow youth were not critical, only so he gave them enough of nick-of-time rescues and crimes.
Milady objects to the dime novel because the servants spend too much time and gaslight over them. She holds the books in utter contempt, and steps with intellectual loftiness into her library, where she cuts the wraps of some new books she has ordered. Let us select one which has had its run -- a great success -- Mary Johnston's To Have and To Hold. We select this book, not for the purpose of criticising it, but as a type of the successful novels of the day. It contains a number of engravings, rather better than those in a dime novel. The frontispiece is of two men engaged in a sword-duel. The next is of a fist-fight. The third is of a woman prone on the floor. Another is a shipwreck. The last is of two figures, one lying crumpled in his chair and the other, in fierce melodramatic attitude, pointing a theatrical stock-company's finger at him, and exclaiming: "Thou art her murderer!"
So Milady and the stable-boy are in full sympathy in matters of art. The hero has a pretty name, Captain Ralph Percy. The villain has a bad one, Lord Carnal. Percy is a lady killer in the poetical sense, and as to killing men, he never takes less than three at a time. Three well-armed men are his regular allowance. After being without food or rations, on a barren island, for forty hours, he was pitted against three burly pirates. He killed one and crippled the other two; and out ot respect for his having killed or crippled three of their number, the pirates elected him their captain; and he sailed away, a bold buccaneer of the Spanish main. So Milady and the stable boy are equally indifferent to probabilities or possibilities. Both the dime-book and the dollar-and-a-half book ride raw and bony over credulity; but neither the stable-boy nor his mistress so much as wince. The love scenes in both books are alike destitute of delicacy. They are insincere and maudlin.
Cheap vaudeville, both ot them. The boy gets his for a dime admission, and Milady pays a dollar and a halt for a seat in the dress circle; but it is the same show. The ten-cent book always makes good use of its villain -- hangs him or has him die with his boots on -- makes him sensationally useful; but Milady's book throws him away in a most masterful manner -- poisons him!
The literary taste ot this country has come to a pretty pass when that kind of stuff is necessary to make a selling book. There is, however, an elect company who still read Thackeray, Hawthorne, Howells, Stevenson, and other suoh books, which refine the taste and elevate the moral standard. But just at present the maddening crowd must have its sensations; and whoever wants them for a following must supply the demand. -- Interior.
The Extinction of the Dime Novel
The close of the century is witnessing the extinction of what has been popularly known as the Dime Novel. Very curiously, readers are coming back to the position they occupied about forty years ago, and the books which are commanding wide sales to-day are what are known as high-priced novels. And yet the dime novel has played so prominent a part in the general literature of this country that the story of its genesis, its development. its evolution and its final degeneration is rich with interest. Little as it is generally realised, the dime novel has been a considerable factor in American literature.
The dime novel dates from the year 1860. Shortly before, the firm of Beadle and Adams had begun a series of publications intended for lower middle-class consumption. This series was made up of books on etiquette, on letter writing and other subjects of equal moment and importance. The dime book of etiquette, for instance, purported to be a guide to "true gentility and good breeding, and a complete directory to the usages and observances of society, including etiquette of the ball-room, of the evening party, the dinner party, the card and chess table, of business and of the home circle." It did not differ materially from the books of similar nature that are published to-day. These books had an enormous circulation, and despite the ridicule which one humorously inclined may see fit to heap upon them, undoubtedly had a serious and real educational value. We reproduce herewith a facsimile of the cover of what is probably the first popular Letter Writer published in the United States. Glancing through its pages, we derive a vast amount of information as to the proper form of epistle that should be written "to a coquette for trifling with feelings," "from a maiden to her deceiver," "from a gentleman to his groom." In that part of the book devoted to improprieties of expression we learn that such phrases as "I is," "he came so near as ours," "he read them papers," "he learns his scholars," are neither elegant nor desirable. The book also contains a long list of phrases, mottoes and idioms for those who desire to appear classical, and several pages of apt quotations for writers of poetic tendencies.
Early in the spring of 1860 Mr. Orville J. Victor conceived the idea of the dime novel. At his suggestion the Beadle series was begun, and Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, then one of the most popular and widely known of American writers, was asked to contribute the inaugurative story. For Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the While Hunter, she received two hundred and fifty dollars, a considerable sum for a work of its length at that time. Malaeska was followed by The Privateer's Cruise, by Harry Cavendish; Myra, the Child of Adoption, another of Mrs. Stephens's romances, and Alice Wilde, the Raftsman's Daughter, by Mrs. M. V. Victor. A facsimile of the title-page of this story is herewith reproduced.
About the dime novel there speedily gathered a staff of writers who combined a knowledge of the popular taste, dexterity in the working out of conventional plots and an industry that was simply amazing. With a few exceptions, one hundred dollars was the price paid for one of these novels, which contained on an average twenty-five thousand words, and which was produced by its author in a week or ten clays. In addition to the professional novel spinners of the time the dime library drew on a number of newspaper men, who found in this a way materially to increase their incomes. In the autumn of 1860 the first story ever written by Edward S. Ellis, afterward so popular as a writer for boys, found its way into the office of the dime library. It was called Seth Jones; or, The Captive of the Frontier, and before it appeared as the eighth number in the series it had been advertised with a skill and ingenuity very rare at a time when the art of advertising was still, in a measure, in its infancy. Several weeks before the day of publication guttersnipes bearing the simple legend "Seth Jones" were placarded on walls and fences all over the city. A week later these were followed by other guttersnipes, on which was printed the query, "Who is Seth Jones?" A third guttersnipe answered the question, and proved remarkably effective in bringing about for the book an enormous sale.
Despite the literary inadequacy of these pioneers among the cheap popular novel they were entirely wholesome and far removed from the viciousness and the brutality which mark their successors in the later seventies and early eighties. These romances were often extravagant in plot and crude in treatment, but they were primarily designed for household reading. Probably none of the writers of these books was more successful in commanding a wide circle of readers than Mrs. M. V. Victor. The fourth of the stories which she contributed to this series attained a sale which makes most of the records of book sales of the present day appear insignificant in comparison. This was Uncle Esekiel, the story of an alleged typical Yankee and his exploits at home and abroad. In the United States the book within a short time reached a total sale of two hundred and seventy thousand. In England the sales reached two hundred and eleven thousand, a total of two hundred and eighty-one thousand. This, however, was surpassed by The Backwoods Bride, of which five hundred and fifty thousand were sold, and Maum Guinea. The last named was a story of negro life, which, appearing at the time of the war, actually rivalled in popularity Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The success of this series in a few years brought many rivals into the field. George Munro, who had been a bookkeeper in the employ of Beadle and Adams, began publishing himself books along the same line about 1865. A few years later the staid orange covers of the original dime novels were replaced by covers of gaudily coloured design. The typical dime novel of 1870, a facsimile of which we herewith reproduce, is very interesting as showing the crudity of the coloured prints of the time. But the cheap novel of the early seventies was only a step in the whole scheme of evolution. With the great competition came a marked decline in the quality of the material. Each year showed advances in outright sensationalism until the culmination was reached in the typical shocker of recent memory.
Saved by a Dime Novel
Albert Gordon, a Belleville (N. J.) boy, was saved in a singular manner from death, according to a report in the Passaic Daily News, one day last week. He was passing along an avenue with a number of his companions, when one of them pulled out a revolver, and, pointing it at him, pulled the trigger. There was a sharp report, and Gordon, with the cry, "I'm shot!" fell to the ground. Gordon only imagined that the bullet had penetrated his body, as his friends, upon examination, found that the bullet had lodged in a paper-covered novel which he had stuck in his belt. The novel was one of the dime series, entitled Dead-Eye Dick; or, the Wild Man of Borneo. It is evident that such literature is more serviceable when applied externally than internally.
Two Misguided Boys
The yellow-covered literature of the day puts many foolish ideas into the minds of boys, and creates discontent with home. Two boys in a farming district, who had spent many an hour in a barn rending dime novels, broke into open revolt against what they considered the hardships of their lot.
One was weary of his lessons at school, and of confinement and lack of excitement at home. The other had to saw wood several hours a day, and regarded parental discipline as a form of tyranny. After holding many "councils of war" and making preparations secretly, they disappeared one night from their homes.
Their parents could not learn anything about them, either in the village or at the railway station. As the boys could have but very little money, it seemed improbable that they should have gone away by train, but had taken to the woods and concealed themselves. For several days the woods around the village were scoured by searching parties without result.
Meanwhile, the runaways were enacting scenes from some of their favorite "blood and thunder" stories. Before their flight they had found in the woods an opening in the ground near a large tree, and had enlarged it during their spare hours, roofing it over with branches and boards covered with earth and leaves, and concealing the entrance with underbrush.
They had stocked what they called their cave with provisions and had furnished it with bits of carpet, several knives, a pistol and a long, home-made lasso. They were alternately hermits, wild men of the forest, bandits, or Indians on the warpath. Keeping out of sight by day so as to elude pursuit, they sallied forth at night, armed, and prowled about in search of adventures.
So infatuated were they with their silly sport that when their hiding-place was discovered, they refused to surrender, and threatened to fight for their liberty. It was not until a fire of damp leaves was kindled, at the mouth of the "cave" to smoke them out that they were brought to terms and led back to their homes.
These boys had good qualities, courage, ingenuity and energy which needed proper directing. Bad literature perverted their tastes.
When Agassiz told his pupils that he had spent seventy-two nights on an ice level eight thousand feet above the sea, without other covering than the canopy of heaven, he excited ardor for physical exposure and hardy adventure for useful ends. That was different from a taste for cave-dwelling created by sensational, foolish tales about ruffians and brutal men.
A story was recently told in The Companion of a photographer's apprentice, whose career was determined by the reading of a book on astronomy. He received an impulse which led him to become one of the most brilliant astronomers of the day. Good reading is as important as good schooling.
Death of Mr. Beadle
If one might look over the shoulder of the recording angel it would be interesting to have a sight of the page on which was kept the account of the late Mr. Beadle. The page was turned last month when Mr. Beadle died at Cooperstown. His name is familiar, and with reason, for he, in the years of his activity, was the inventor and publisher of Beadle's dime novels. Boys liked Mr. Beadle's stories, and read them by the cord. They were not very elevating tales. "Injuns," and scalping knives and war-paths and frontiersmen of unerring aim abounded in them; blood flowed through their pages like beer, and the hair of their youthful devourers stood habitually on end. The effect they had on some boys was to make them invest somebody's money in a pistol and bowie-knife, and start for the remote West, to the inconvenience of their parents and their own subsequent regret. Indeed, if Mr. Beadle is held responsible in his present state of being for the net damage done on earth by his publications, it may seem to him to have been doubtful policy to leave this world, yet there have been lots of worse stories than his for boys to read. His cheap literature was lurid, but at least it was not foul, and for some boys it was possibly better reading than none, especially thirty years ago, when the making of wholesome juvenile literature was still an infant industry.
Pernicious Literature and Its Suppression
Pernicious, as defined by the International Dictionary, is "Having the quality of injuring or killing, destructive, very mischievous." Worcester gives an equivalent definition.
In applying this to literature we refer, of course, to its effect upon the minds and morals of its readers, and those of us who have had an opportunity of observing believe the adjectives "mischievous," "injurious," "destructive," yes, "killing," not too strong. Beginning with the lowest we may classify Pernicious Literature under eight heads, viz.:
- That which appeals to the imagination and inflames the passions.
- That which deals also with imagination and appeals to the feelings, causing the reader to lose his reason for the time, and to reach false conclusions.
- The news of the day as given us in the columns of the newspapers.
- That which, being also fictitious, professing to be based upon facts, pictures possibilities rarely attainable, and has for its sole object to paint a moral.
- That which is called light literature, because it requires no attention to pick up the few points that it contains, or mental effort to float along, and generally leaves a reader better fitted to read the next trash that comes to hand, but not strong enough to manage successfully anything good.
- That which is given us by agitators and sophists, who lead the public to false conclusions, either by correct course of reasoning from false premises, or by starting from correct premises by an ingenious course of false reasoning professes to have proved a case.
- Histories which deal with wars and contentions, and teach that wars are causes rather than effects, and dwell very largely upon battles and incidents pertaining to them.
- That in which loose style and poor English prevail.
Under the first head is a detestable class of literature found sometimes, hidden from the light of day, in the hands of agents who work entirely upon school children. From it these children get their first lessons in vice, and gradually sink into the depths of iniquity. Mention is here made to call the attention of educators to the fact that agents from publishing places, not worthy to be called houses, are continually on the alert to make the immense percentage of the price of the book allowed them for getting it into schools and asylums for the care of children of both sexes. Cases have been discovered where girls and boys of debased natures and low instincts have been sent to school, and all expenses paid, that they might ply their infamous practices, and use their contaminating influences for the downfall of the pure and innocent.
Next in order I would refer to the "Dime Novel" literature, that takes the breath from our children by blood-curdling stories of "hair-breadth escapes" of those who have never existed, except in the diseased brain of authors of low estates. These tell of sneak-thieves, burglars, and highwaymen, and clothe them with the glamour of romance, generally dragging in something about good deeds performed on the way, telling of a "noble nature," "honor," -- the kind common among thieves, -- and ending with a return to a good life to spend the rest of his days decently.
Parents and guardians of youth, look out for this vile trash as you would guard your children from the degradation of drink and narcotics. Somehow these things get into the pockets of our innocent boys almost before they are out of sight of home on their first tramp alone away from the front gate. The pictures advertising these productions are found upon our walls and fences, as well as in our newspapers; and circulars of those "charming stories" find their way into the front halls, not alone of the poor but of the rich as well. Too often do these books occupy the attention of the boy at home in the evening when his school or other work is suffering; or in the school when the not-too anxious, or the too-trusting teacher gives him credit for close attention to study in school.
Again I plead for the youth. Guard well this avenue through which the arch fiend sometimes finds entrance to happy homes.
Our third class includes the sensational daily newspaper, which publishes all the news and rumors of news that may be found by means of reporters, correspondents, news agents and every other means known to humanity. These servants of the press collect the most minute as well as the most disgusting details of accidents, trials, crimes of every kind, scandals of the worst sort, etc., ad infinitum, and turn the sluice gates of all this into the editor's room. This is the "free, untrammeled press" of our land! It is not our purpose to underrate the importance or the opportunities for good that lie in the way of our newspaper press. We would have it purified, and kept as it should be -- an inestimable influence for good in every corner of our country. Yet we too often see the paper which on one side contains editorials laden with lessons of virtue and morality, crowded on another with minutely detailed accounts of prize fights, or a horse race, or with all the filthy recitals of the court-room during a scandalous trial. Is all this necessary? Are the coffers of our Press Associations so dependent upon the resources of the vulgar herd that they must for them sacrifice their good name, their influence for good, and the patronage of the better classes of our country? Would they not find richer compensation in an approving conscience and an increase of income from the world's good and improving people? It must be apparent to all concerned in our country's best interests, which includes the welfare of the young and rising generations, that through the press they must keep informed as to the progress and growth of the nation, and must therefore read our papers. Then the press must be purified, must be lifted from the slough of filth with which it is now mired. Further, it is too often the organ with which the doctrines and dogmas of Anarchists and unworthy agitators reach and inflame the passions of the mob. So, too, our youths, unaccustomed to combating false doctrines, become entrapped, and fall an easy prey to the machinations of the enemies of society and humanity in general. Guard well the press diet upon which the children feed.
We shall now leave the subterranean abodes and enter into a purer atmosphere to which the rays of God's sun penetrate, and morals do not suffer so much as do manners and mind. This comes under our fourth head.
Friends, have you never heard that "that boy was too good to live. God took him because he was so good"? This is a story founded upon imagination, too, based upon some facts with most of the facts left out. That little hero of whom we speak was undoubtedly good; we believe that, but he cannot help my boys nor your boys because he is not represented as having a nature like other boys, who cannot imitate his example. They are discouraged rather than encouraged by such high, impossible ideals. This is akin to another class of novels of the same kind, i.e., of those that go to the very lowest depths to drag out a character around which to weave a story, and build up a man who shall attain eminence and prosperity, and become just as-good a man as he was a bad boy, for the sake of showing our good boys how much better it would have been for them if they had gone out from the good home provided by provident, God loving parents, to eat husks somewhere and then come back to shine as the subject above mentioned. These stories are almost invariably filled and flavored to excess with slang, false syntax, miserable rhetoric, and worse orthography for the sake of catching the attention and interesting the boys and girls for whom fond parents are struggling, perhaps, to pay teachers to correct these very abominations and to afford proper models; while the Sunday school and other free libraries are spreading broad-cast a literature that is counteracting all the best efforts that teachers and parents, too, are making against it. Why should not the son who stayed at home and wasted not his substance in riotous living be glorified too? Then let us set our faces against that literature, the only object of which is to afford a pleasing and interesting story that gives a good, moral lesson, but teaches the dignity of bad manners, and weakens the mind rather than stimulates a healthy and safe mental growth.
In the fifth class is placed light literature, trashy stuff that will do to skim over, is generally somewhat true to nature, filled with good stories, is spicy, rich in anecdote, etc., intended to charm without troubling the reader to think any.
This may be compared with one who, to-day, carries a light load that requires no effort, and to-morrow takes after a while he has no strength of muscle left; so this light literature, while it cannot be called pernicious in the sense of "killing," or being "mischievous," nevertheless is to the mind "injurious," and very "destructive" of mental fiber. On this account it should be shunned.
Hurtful Literature
Our friend, Josiah W. Leeds, in pursuance of the concern in which he has long and faithfully labored, has issued a pamphlet entitled, The Common Weal vs. the News-stand, in which he again calls attention to the demoralizing effects of sensational and impure literature; and appeals to the news companies, the owners of ground occupied by news-stands, railroad companies and the citizens generally to prevent so far as they can the circulation of dime novels, biographies of highwaymen, obscene publications and other corrupting books and papers. After giving some instances to show the intimate connection between such bad writings and crime, he reiterates the conviction expressed in a former protest upon this subject: "The manufacturers of and dealers in so-called 'blood and thunder literature' need to be stood in the felon's cell right alongside of the thieves and murderers they have helped to make; the printers and the purveyors of indecency in the same manner should be banished from the society they have so grossly outraged, to the same separated sort of habitation as that which holds the overt outrager of female virtue."
We suppose copies of the tract can be obtained by addressing Josiah W. Leeds, Seal P.O., Chester Co., Pa.
Is Mind-poisoning a Crime!
A remarkable and pitiful instance of mind-poisoning by pernicious stories is to be found in the case of Hans Anderson the fourteen-year-old Wisconsin boy who has been sentenced to the penitentiary for life. The child goes to the punishment which blasts his life without realizing its fearful meaning any more than he realized the awfulness of his deed when he deliberately fired a charge of buckshot into a lonely old man in the woods a month ago.
This boy, with a younger brother, started out from home Twelfth Month 10th with a shotgun to shoot squirrels and be a mighty hunter generally. In their wanderings they came upon a cabin in which an old man named Marcus Homerfeldt lived alone. The house was empty at the time, and the boys took possession. With his head full of heroic robber tales, the elder boy proposed to his brother that when Homerfeldt returned they kill him and live in the woods like Robber Bill, or the Terror of Bloody Gulch. When the old man entered his cottage he was murdered in dime novel style, and it was not until a week later that the boys were discovered, the younger one innocently narrating the particulars of the horrible crime, and the elder one taking to the woods, where he was captured a few days later.
The boy is rather to be pitied than abhorred as a criminal; he is a victim of evil surroundings and mental poisons, and must expiate a crime really committed by others. And yet the sentence is proper and is as nearly just as human laws can make it. It is as if the boy had swallowed some deadly drug that had made him murderously insane, and for the safety of the community he must pass from childhood into youth and from manhood to old age behind prison bars, with the grave the only open door before him.
The fact that the father of the boy refused to have anything to do with his child during the trial seems to show an indifference which will explain how the boy was allowed to imbibe the ideas which murderous-minded writers are scattering broadcast, and which in this case utterly ruined an innocent life.
Most men pass safely through the dime-novel stage of their boyhood and ever afterwards laugh at their wild imaginings as they lay in the hayloft and imbibed the forbidden sweets. But the instances like this of Hans Anderson prove conclusively that a boy with a weak moral inheritance cannot throw off this contagion any more than a child with a weak constitution can throw off the germs of cholera. -- Chicago Journal.
The Dime Novel.
A few years ago the engineer of a passengcr-train running down a steep grade saw on the track before him a great log so placed that it could not have fallen there accidentally. The train was wrecked, two men killed, several persons injured, and much property destroyed. A boy stretched out on a rail fence near by was suspected, arrested, and finally confessed his crime.
"What induced you to do it?" asked the horrified offlcial.
""I had read of trains being wrecked," the boyish criminal replied, "and I wanted to see how it would look."
Last month a youth of nineteen was arraigned before the bar of Ohio for murder. His guilt was overwhelmingly evident. The judge in sentencing him to be hanged said pityingly and warningly, "You have had more moral and religious training than commonly falls to the lot of youth. You have attended Sunday school, and are a member of the church. Even such strongholds have been broken down by the battery of sensational and villainous literature in which you have steeped yourself, and to which your crime is distinctly traceable."
Two little girls were missed one evening from their happy home. An anxious search for them was begun, which ended in the city police office, where fortunately the two misguided children had been carried. The children had been reading a "girls' story paper" for gome months, and their young heads had been turned by the romantic nonsense found there. "We were going to be nurses like the Little Lady Hildegar," they sobbed, as they joyfully clasped their arms about their father's neck.
Many another such story might be told, where rosy, bright-eyed boys, and beautiful, innocent girls have become wrecked for life through the perusal of the criminal columns. In the newspapers which their fathers have brought into the house; by the reading of story papers stealthily passed about at school, and dime novels flaunting from the windows where money is gained at the expense of the soul.
Deadly Reading.
In sentencing the sixteen-year-old murderer, Alden Fales, to death by hanging, Judge Depue said: "You had opportunities for education and religious instruction superior to most of the persons of your situation in life. You were a member of a Christian church. You attended its Sabbath school, and were admitted to its communion. Unfortunately you gave yourself up to a literature which stimulated your propensity to obtain property dishonestly, and taught you the manner in which noted criminals committed crimes of great atrocity, and the means by which they were successful in avoiding detection. You did not intend to kill the deceased, but in perpetrating the robbery you designed you took his life. Be it said in your favor that after you learned of the death of your victim, you for that reason abandoned the enterprise for which you committed the robbery, and, with tears in your eyes, admitted your guilt. For the crime you committed the statute prescribes the highest penalty known to the law. Your fate should be a solemn warning to the youth who are pursuing the course of life which has brought you to your destruction." The men who will write the dime novels, and the men who publish them, and the men who sell them to children -- all share in the guilt of Fales' crime. They all helped to train him for the homicide. -- Catholic Review.
Boys Changed to Fiends.
Three boy burglars were lately arraigned in Brooklyn. When arrested they were smoking cigars and had plenty of money. None of them was over thirteen years old. At the station house they were locked in separate cells, and detectives placed where they could overhear their conversation. They heard one say he was going to save himself by revealing the secrets of the gang. This idea he expressed in the lowest kind of dime novel slang. They took him aside and he confessed, acknowledging himself "one of an oath-bound gang pledged to steal, portions of their booty going toward the purchase of dime novels. They are bound not to divulge the secrets of the order, and the punishment for violation of this rule is a painful and lingering death."
How much truth there is in the confession cannot be ascertained, but that they are burglars and readers of dime novels is certain. At the rate things are going, necessity will compel a censorship of the press before long. A boy who reads dime novels is not fit to be trusted. The publishers of them are "poisoners general" of the juvenile conscience; their effect is frequently worse than that of rum. They make a drunken mind intent upon bloody deeds, leaving the faculties of the body free to perpetrate them, and while the drunkard sobers, the mind poisoned by dime novels remains polluted.
Writers, publishers, and venders of them should face the weight of public indignation; parents, teachers, and employers should seize and burn such books wherever found.
The Confessions of a Dime-Novelist. An Interview.
He carried no six-shooter at his belt; he wore no false whiskers to deceive me; he seemed "the mildest-mannered man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat," this arch-author of romance, the king of dime-novelists, whose pen has tracked and slain more villains and rescued more heroines than Dumas himself. His editions are not measured by thousands, but by cart-loads; he probably holds the world's championship for story writing, with upward of seventy-five books to his discredit.
As the professional humourist has usually a mournful visage, so no doubt all writers of "yellow-backs" and "shilling shockers," to be typical of the trade, should wear a patient and gentle face. Nature flies to extremes; she delights in paradoxes, and Eugene T. Sawyer, author of most of the "Nick Carter" adventures, is himself a genial, sadly smiling gentleman, whose greatest care is for his geraniums when he leaves the office of the San Jose newspaper where he holds the city editor's desk. But he has his own philosophy to account for it. and his own reasons why he does not choose to "dress the part," like Charles F. Lummis or Joaquin Miller, in boots and buckskins and sombrero.
"To a man whose life is measured by yards of ribbon and pounds of cheese, or bounded by the four dingy walls of a counting house," he said, "a dime novel is a revelation and a delight. Most of my readers are mere 'supers' on the stage of life. They are not in themselves picturesque. Nothing romantic ever happens to them. For all these, hungry for something to take them out of themselves, the dime novel provides a thrill per page, the only real mental stimulus they are capable of. The heroes that strut through the pages of the 'yellow-back' are the only interesting persons they ever hobnob with. No wonder they love Nick Carter." But it must not be thought that Mr. Sawyer takes his work seriously. The excitement that the chambermaid and stable-boy gets in reading these lurid escapades the author received in writing them. He not only has a record for quantity, but for speed.
"The fastest work I ever did," Mr. Sawyer said, "was once when I got an order by wire from Street and Smith, saying that one of their regular writers had failed them, and asking if I could send them a story of 60,000 words in four days. Of course I accepted. And that, too, was in the days of longhand, before typewriters were common. As usual, I procrastinated, and two days had elapsed before I thought about the story. Then I locked myself into my room and began, writing in lead pencil, while my wife copied my work in ink. I didn't eat nor sleep, living on coffee alone, till the novel was completed, in about sixty hours. In order to have the manuscript reach the publishers on time, I had to have it in the post-office at noon, and I caught that mail with something less than a minute to spare. When I saw Captain Crash in print, it was just like reading a new book. I had forgotten absolutely everything about the plot and characters, having written almost automatically."
"How do you go to work?" I inquired. "Do you block out your plot first, and have a general idea of your people?"
"I begin thinking with the first word set down, and not before," he said. "Of course, I must begin with something that will attract interest. The old method used to be something like this:
" 'Help! Help! Help!' These words rang out into the air on a cold November night, in a little town not twenty miles distant from New York. Some one was in dire need, but the whole country seemed utterly deserted.and then immediately there was a row of stars, after which the paragraph went on:
"Twenty years ago, Ephraim Gobson was the most respected citizen in New Potsdam, and Huldah, his sunny-haired daughter, was called the prettiest girl in the village, etc., etc.But I fancy I revolutionized the opening of the dime novel. Writers for the magazines have learned how necessary it is to begin the plot with the first word, and do it perhaps more artistically, but it's the same principle. Here are some of my beginnings. For instance, in Ramon Aranda, the California Detective, I start:
"'We will have the money, or she shall die!'or, in another one I thought rather striking:
"'Swear the defendant!'and in The Dead Man's Hand the opening line was this:
"'It is a case of mysterious disappearance, Mr. Carter!'Sometimes it is harder to get a good opener than a good title, though the title and the 'cover situation' are what usually sell the book. That last quotation is from The Dead Man's Hand; or, Nick Carter's Matchless Method. The main title was suggested to me by the publishers, who thought it would sell well, and from that phrase I built up the whole book."
"But what is your method when you're once started?" I asked. "No matter how cheap a tale is, it must be built up on some kind of system. You must have 'architecture' of sorts in order to hold the reader's interest."
"You are right," Mr. Sawyer said. "And, indeed, this particular kind of dramatic quality is hard to get. I doubt if many 'legitimate' authors could contrive to build up a plot with climax after climax, like a house of cards, so cleverly that at the last push the whole mystery would fall down. And that is what is necessary. The principle seems to be, first, that every chapter shall contain a sensation, then that these situation-sensations shall be cumulative, growing harder and harder for the hero, until at last the knot is untied in the most unexpected way possible. I make no sketch of my plot, nor outline my chapters, but I suppose I feel it naturally. I get my hero into an apparently inextricable situation, -- bound and gagged on the edge of a bottomless pit, perhaps; then I get up from my desk, walk about the room awhile, light a cigar, then -- sit down to my paper and pull him out of danger. Of course, there is some main thread in my mind. If a man mysteriously disappears, I have the solution in my head and work toward that."
"Are there no other 'unities' necessary in the dime novel," said, "besides these considerations of suspense?"
"Yes! Decidedly. First, there is the moral 'unity.' The trend of the whole story must be moral. Virtue must triumph, vice and crime must not only be defeated, but must be painted in colours so strong and vivid that there is no mistake about it. The stories of the James boys are the only exceptions I know; but, after all they came to grief at last. A criminal, according to dime-novel ethics, can never for a moment have a decent. charitable thought. We cannot deal with mixed motives. Remember, please, this is not life, but popular fiction. We are playing with puppets -- with villains, heroes, heroines and detectives. And they must pair off according to an established custom. The detective must not fall in love with the heroine, however beautiful, nor she with him, although he has rescued her from danger and dishonour. No, she is created to love the hero, and love she must. Our psychology is all ready-made and of the simplest kind."
"But how much do you get for these stories?" I asked. "I wonder that it is worth your while."
"Oh, I have retired long since," said Mr. Sawyer. "As I explained, I did it partly for the fun of it and the love of excitement. As to pay, I used to get fifty dollars apiece for the Nick Carters, and they ran to about 25,000 words. The Log Cabin novels were twice as long, or 50,000 words, and I got $100 apiece, so the pay averaged two dollars a thousand words. I 'Americanised' one of the Nick Carters from Gaboriau in three days once, and once I turned out three 50,000-word novels in a month. Then I did serials for the New York Weekly. I have written about seventy-five novels in all."
I gasped. "And Nick Carter was the most famous of your heroes?"
"He not only was, but still is! They have put other men at work on him. Indeed, even while I was writing I was one of three men who were creating his adventures, and sometimes we got each other into queer troubles. Why! Nick Carter was actually killed three times, and we had a hard time bringing him to life with any plausible explanation. And Nick Carter still goes on with his exploits. What's more strange, he doesn't grow old. He's still the young, impetuous, dashing detective that he was twenty years ago, and when I am in my grave I suppose my hero will still rescue unfortunate damsels and hold up ten hardened criminals with one gun. He's immortal."
"Where did you get your idea for him?"
"I used to be a court reporter in the early days here, when there was any amount of picturesque crime doing; and, besides that, I knew Vasquez well. He was the most noted of the Spanish Californian brigands. I've written a book about him. My court work led me into a pretty thorough acquaintance with all kinds of criminals, and I had plenty of material in my head all the time. But perhaps my chief inspiration was old Ned Buntline, who was really the first one to write 'penny dreadfuls' and the inventor of the 'dime novel.' He made Buffalo Bill famous, but he was vastly more picturesque himself than Bill or than any of his own characters. He began by writing for the New York Mercury. He was a graduate of Annapolis, and served awhile in the United States Navy, during which time he fought thirteen duels with his brother officers and escaped without a scratch. He was in the Civil War as a colonel of a New York regiment of volunteers, but was cashiered for drunkenness and sent home. Then he reformed and became a temperance lecturer. In that capacity he came to San Francisco, and there I met him. On his way back East he stopped off at Laramie and met Bill Cody, and wrote a description of him for a leading New York paper. That began Buffalo Bill's fame. Then he wrote a series of tales in which Bill was the hero, and then a play for him in which they both, with Wild Bill and Texas Joe, took part. But Buntline began to drink again and the show dissolved, after which Buffalo Bill went on the boards on his own account and became a celebrity. Do you wonder that I find it easy to provide picturesque events and characters?"
"But your own life has been as quiet and peaceful as your novels are exciting," I suggested.
"Perhaps," he said, smiling. "I got into a thieves' kitchen in 'Frisco once. But my ventures have mostly been commercial. I have been a member of the Board of Education here in San José, and I have visited a schoolroom to see boys hiding my own novels behind their geographies! But now I'm in the newspaper harness, and not likely to get out of it."
I had heard that "Gene Sawyer" was one of the best city editors on the Coast, and I wondered why he had never had a paper of his own.
"But I did!" he protested. "It ran for eleven days, and was called the Garden City Times. You'll never guess who was my associate -- Edwin Markham, "The Man With the Hoe!" It was this way: We got a backer for the sheet, a man with more money than brains, and Markham and I started in to make the best paper in town. He was literary editor and reporter, and did clipping and stuff for the eighth page, while I did the rest, even rustling 'ads.' Well, in four days I got the advertisement of a liquor man, and it turned out that our 'angel' was a Prohibitionist and wouldn't stand for liquor 'ads.,' which were, of course, the best-paying business we had. Markham and I held a consultation and decided to go ahead alone. We paid our printers by scraping together all the money we had, and ran four days with 700 subscribers. After eleven days the printers wanted more money, and when we had paid them off, Markham and I gave up and walked out into St. James's Park and divided up $3.75."
"You must have travelled a good deal, Mr. Sawyer," I said, "for from your stories I see you are familiar with New York and the East."
"I was in New York for four days in 1865," he replied, "and upon that brief acquaintance I found my scenes. But, of course, the mise-en-scènes, like the characters of my novels, are purely conventional and do not vary. I can get together enough knowledge of places from guide books and maps to satisfy the very modest exigencies of the case; and when I am writing of brigands, of course, I can indulge in California local colour of my own knowledge. For New York, I used Harlem and Brooklyn freely, knowing how little New Yorkers themselves know of such places."
"How did you ever happen to begin such a career?"
"I must confess that I have always been a reader, as well as a writer, of dime novels, though I do not read only that class of literature by any means. I have read them since I was a boy, and still read them, now perhaps from curiosity and because of my knowledge of the technique of this particular kind of fiction. It is not, however, only the 'submerged tenth' who reads cheap stories. I have been into bookshops and seen bankers and capitalists gravely paying their nickels for the same tales their own elevator boys read. I have known literary men to confess that they had read tales as bad as mine with interest and excitement. Such yarns are about as good a remedy for brain fag as you could find. They're easy, and require little effort of the mind. You can read The Pirate of the Caribees when your nerves forbid ethical discussions. But as to my beginning, my first pot-boiling was done by accident. My wife was sick at home and I was nursing her. I soon had read everything in the house and had to borrow of a neighbour. All he had was a pile of New York Weeklies, and when I had finished them I was so absorbed in the gentlemen who gag bandits and ladies who wear daggers in their bosoms, human hounds and boy ferrets, that I thought I'd try it myself and have some of the fun of writing. I sent my stuff to the same weekly and got $150 by return mail. They say that dime-novel writers are born, not made. It isn't so easy as it looks. Of course, I never made any claims to literary quality, and never tried for a 'style.' My books were, frankly, 'pot-boilers,' and I think I have sense of humour enough to know where they stand. Still, Louisa Alcott did it once. I'm on a bad eminence, I know. But though my work was all trashy, it never pandered to any depraved tastes. For a dime novel you require only three things -- a riotous imagination, a dramatic instinct and a right hand that never tires. I never revised a line or crossed out a word. But I doubt if every one could write that way, offhand, as it were, and turn out a story that a messenger boy could no more leave half done than a fox terrier could stop in the pursuit of a rat."
There was no doubt that he had a sense of humour. Dignified, gentle, affable, the quiet editor of a quiet paper in a quiet town, his work is, perhaps, as well known and as dearly loved as any author of repute. He has written not one, but many novels that have sold into the hundreds of thousands. Hall Caine and Marie Corelli might walk down Fifth Avenue hand in hand without creating the enthusiasm this grey-eyed man would meet were he recognised by the Great Unwashed as the original "Nick Carter."
And I am wondering if, rather than being remembered as another brighter light of a similar name is, by surreptitious fugitive bits of lewd verse and prose, I would not prefer to be known -- in the hearts of the telegraph messengers -- as the author of Giuseppe, the Weasel, Murdered for Revenge, Looted in Transit and A Dead Man's Hand -- as Eugene Sawyer, the Best of Worst Novelists!
Dime Novel Makers.
In the first place, the Dime Novel is not yellow. It never was. Many years ago it was salmon-colored, but, literally, the description, "yellow-backed literature," applied to the Dime Novel, is and always has been a misnomer. Perhaps confusion as to the actual colour of the covers may have extended to the supposed deplorable character of the contents, so that the one tinged the other. That is merely a suggestion. No one can deny that a large measure of odium to-day attaches to anything "yellow," whether in literature or journalism.
It was in 1860 that Orville J. Victor, a shrewd student of popular taste, conceived the idea of putting forth original stories of 35,000 or 40,000 words, each in a compact little volume, at ten cents apiece. The publishing house for which Mr. Victor was literary adviser, saw the commercial value of the suggestion and acted on it promptly. It was decided that the stories must be vital, full of adventurous action, and appeal strongly to the emotions. They were designed to sell to the multitude, whose views and understanding of life were largely rudimentary. While it was desired that the scene of each book should be laid in America, it need not be confined to any particular part of the country.
The trackless wilderness beyond the Rockies seemed to offer great romantic possibilities. The winning -- or stealing -- of the West from the aborigines was at this period being pursued with relentless ferocity, and tales of battles between the pale face and redskin were sure of an eager audience.
It is the pride and boast of Mr. Victor that not a single unwholesome thought or suggestion can be found in all the thousands of stories passing through his hands. Never was villainy allowed to triumph permanently, and in every plot the moral toward which the author aimed from the beginning of the first chapter was kept in view steadily until it was clinched by a denouement whose honesty could not be questioned.
There could be only one crime equal to immorality -- or, rather, false morals -- and that was dullness. A dime novel must be full of bustle. The people in it must work, and work hard. The hero must be not only quick on the trigger, have hawklike vision, muscles of steel and indomitable courage, but he must be resourceful. When he finds himself hurled over a Colorado precipice, and is "falling -- falling" into a canyon two thousand feet below, at the end of a chapter, he must devise a means in the next to keep himself alive, and logically, too. Your dime novel reader is not to be put off with a bald statement of a feat that is obviously impossible. It is the business of the author to explain how the hero manages to save himself by catching at a shrub conveniently growing from the face of the rock, and thence, by cutting handholds in the sandstone with his trusty hunting-knife, works his way upward to safety, just as the blade is worn down to the very hilt.
Such an exploit would be difficult, of course, but, as it is breathlessly described by the writer, with a-gasping thrill at every foot of progress, the reader sees that it might be done, and he is content.
As for the characters, they must be sharply outlined with a few strokes. There is no room in a dime novel for slow and laborious psychological development. The work must be impressionistic. Colours must be laid on broadly, like those in a theatrical scene, so that they will "light up well" in the lurid atmosphere surrounding them. As, in a melodrama, the sneering individual, with the black mustache, riding-boots and cigarette, is instantly recognized as the villain, so must the first words or acts of a character in a dime novel stamp him as a detective, ruffian, comic ally of the hero, or what not. Having been placed in congenial environment, what he says and does must indicate what he is. The complex motives actuating him are of no interest to his audience. They care nothing for the soul-struggles which may or may not rend his being. The visible results of those struggles, taking the form of snappy dialogue, dashing deeds or fiendishly ingenious complications, are all that concern the reader, who usually is imaginative enough to draw a mental picture of the individual whose fortunes he is following. Nine times out of ten he does so unconsciously. Name any personage in a popular story of this class to a boy of fourteen who has read it, and he will tell you his disposition and attributes in a dozen words. It is by this faculty of subjectively drawing a character while rushing the narrative along at express speed that the dime novel maker most surely proves his fitness for his task.
At the beginning, the staff of writers comprised many who had already become well known in other fields. The opening story, for instance, No. I of the Dime Novel Series, entitled Malaeskal, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter, was by Mrs. Ann Stephens, who had established what was probably the first salon in New York. A woman of unusual attainments and fascinating personality, she had been the centre of a literary coterie including all the prominent writers then in the metropolis. She conducted a magazine which had great vogue, and, before contributing to the Beadle series, had written several ambitious novels, that sold at the regulation price of $1.50 per volume.
Edward S. Ellis was a school teacher at Trenton, New Jersey, when he submitted the manuscript of a story of singular cleverness, entitled Seth Jones, or the Captive of the Frontier. It was accepted, and had an enormous sale both in this country and Great Britain. While this great circulation was due largely to the merit of the tale, much of the credit must be given to an ingenious method of advertising, by which public curiosity was excited to the fever-point weeks before the book appeared. Mr. Ellis wrote for the firm until it went out of existence some seven or eight years ago. Like many dime novel authors, he did not confine himself to that class of work. He has written, and is still writing, in all fields. Educational text-books by him are in use in the schools, and his History of the United States is recognised as a standard authority.
Mrs. Metta V. Victor wrote many stories. The fourth of the series, Alice Wilde, the Raftsman's Daughter, was by her, and had a wide sale. Her most successful production, however, was Maum Guinea and Her Plantation Children, an anti-slavery tale. Appearing at a period when the question of abolishing slavery was so vital, it created a tremendous sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. Henry Ward Beecher was so much impressed with it that he declared it to be, "next to Uncle Tom's Cabin, the most precious book I ever read."
Other dime novelists were Clara Augusta, who, at eighty years of age, is still writing, and whose work, in the language of one of her admirers, "is as juicy as ever it was." Judge William Jared Hall, now on the bench in Ohio; William R. Eyster, whose forte was Revolutionary stories, and who to-day is an editor in Denver; N. W. Busteed, formerly a prominent member of Tammany Hall; Henry J. Thomas, Mrs. Mary A. Dennison, Colonel A.J.H. Dugan, "the People's Poet," who was killed in the Civil War, and many others of less note.
The breaking out of the war in 1861 gave a great impetus to the sale of Dime Novels. They were sent to the army in the field by cords, like unsawed firewood. Compact in form, they were easily made up into immense bales, and shipped on any kind of freight-car, canal-boat or country wagon. When the salmon-coloured bundles appeared in camp the sutler was obliged to distribute them quickly, or they would be torn from him. Every brigade of both armies had the little books, and when "Yank" and "Reb" pickets used to go down to a stream between battles to swap tobacco, coffee and yarns, there was sure to be an exchange of Dime Novels.
They were small enough to slip into the pocket, and many a tale of black villainy, heroic endeavour and final triumph of virtue was soaked with the life-blood of a poor fellow who intended to finish the half-read book as soon as the engagement should be over. The novel was buried with him, usually. When the "burial party" threw the earth upon him as he lay in the shallow trench with scores of others who would never march or pull trigger again, the little volume of harum-scarum adventure would be still in his breast-pocket.
How many dime novels were sold to soldiers in the four years of the war it would be hard to compute. Their numbers ran into the millions. A newsdealer would take a list of a hundred different stories and order a thousand of each, all destined for the army. If one dealer thus bought a hundred thousand novels at one order, it is not difficult to believe that many more than a million were sold to the soldiers on both sides in the course of four years.
The salmon-coloured "Dime Novel'" went out of existence in 1872. It was then that, with a change of form from a duodecimo to a 32-page folio, the name was altered to "Beadle's Dime Library," and so it remained. The distinction was too subtle for the public, however, and the books continued to be spoken of as dime novels. For convenience sake, the term will be used throughout this article. There was no essential difference between these later stories and those which used to cheer the campaign-worn soldiers in the sixties. Time brought variations in the raw material, but the texture and pattern of the completed product was about the same.
The Indian as a factor dropped out about twenty years ago. The cowboy took his place. It is true that the plainsman, with his mustang, his lariat, and his ready revolver, had been associated with the Indian in the group of picturesque characters gathered together in the old-time novels. But he was of a different type from his successor. Then, as to villains. The Indian used to make a good subject for the white scout, with his unerring rifle. But the white "bad man," with a dozen notches on the butt of his "Colt," and his private cemetery at the edge of the town, was just as useful to the dime novelist, and had the pictorial merit of presenting more light and shade than the stolid savage.
The scenes were still laid on the frontier. Where else could be found the romance, the pulsing primitive life, the opportunities for men to give full sway to their passions, good and bad, in these artificial days? The every-day existence of men who ride fifty miles between dawn and sunset, and who sleep on Mother Earth, with a saddle for a pillow, for months at a stretch, is a romance in itself. Why should the writer of adventure seek any other background for the story he has to tell? Western tales were popular to the very end, although the detective whose victories for law and justice are achieved in the heart of a big city has become a keen rival of the cowboy in recent years.
A Beadle and Adams author one day happened to see outside of a museum a gaudy painting of an enormous horse, with flowing mane and tail. It was "The Wonderful Giant Horse, Nebo, from Colorado -- Admission ten cents," as the big-lettered announcement described it.
A giant horse! What a striking figure for a novel! An idea! Place a man of corresponding hugeness on the animal, and there would be a combination character which could hardly fail to make a sensation. The novelist paid his ten cents and looked Nebo over carefully, so that he would be able to describe him in full detail in the novel he intended to write. Then he went home and began his story of The Giant Horseman. He created a cavalier some eight feet high, with muscles, activity and bravery to match, and lifted him into the saddle. The giant horse was endowed with the ability to clear tremendous chasms and obstacles of appalling height. There was little difficulty in writing a dashing story around this Centaur-like hero. The Giant Horseman was one of the big sellers of that year.
"Black Bart," a notorious California bandit of twenty years ago, who used to hold up stage-coaches single-handed, spending the proceeds in the character of a private gentleman in San Francisco, was used in a novel, and doubtless accomplished more villainy in print than ever he did in his real person, although actually he served several years in San Quentin prison. He was not the hero of the novel, of course. That role was taken by the detective who was ever on Black Bart's trail, both in the canyons where he stopped his coaches and in his magnificent home in San Francisco. This detective was "Sleepless Eye," and he was so much better a man, physically, morally and mentally, than Black Bart, that that rascal's discomfiture was only a matter of so many chapters leading up to his destruction.
Occasionally, Mr. Victor, in revising a manuscript, would come across some striking speech by a character, some bit of description or some twist of the plot, that suggested a catchy title for another story. That meant an order to some one of the two dozen authors on the staff for a "dime" to fit the title. In due time the story would be sent in, and so well-trained were the writers in the employ of the firm that it was almost sure to be satisfactory. Any one of them could have built up a 70,000-word novel from a comma, if required.
The importance of beginning a novel with a brisk sentence or terse exclamation which would instantly enchain the interest and compel the reader to go on, was one of the articles of faith. Here is the way one "dime" opened --
"Git up!"
"Cr-r-r-ack! sounded the long whip, and the leaders of the stage-coach that was flying through a California valley jumped forward, so that the lumbering vehicle, with a groan that was almost human, swung to one side in a most alarming manner -- to at least one passenger on the roof."The chapter told of the coach dashing along a narrow path, with a giddy precipice on one side and a steep wall on the other. Then --
"Some yards ahead -- so near that they could distinguish it plainly -- there was a washout which extended within four feet of the perpendicular rock, and that must, therefore. throw the coach headlong down the awful chasm unless some miracle intervened."This was serious, but in a dime novel such a dilemma is easily overcome.
"'Who-o-o-o! Gi-i-i-i-it! Who-o-o-o-a-a-a! Gr-r-r!'
"With these inarticulate sounds, the driver dexterously turned his team suddenly toward the perpendicular rock; then, tightening his grip on the reins, he yelled again, and the four horses literally leaped over the gap!
"Before anyone could think the coach had heeled half over toward the wall, and the two outer wheels were up in the air, as the vehicle passed over the bottomless rift and righted itself with a thump and a plunge on the other side."This was the first chapter. There were thirty-eight more of them, and each had its thrill, with a tangled and knotted thread of narrative running through it, to be neatly untied or cleft at a stroke in the last.
The methods pursued by all writers of this kind are about the same. All the characters are brought in as early as convenient -- all in the first chapter if possible -- and their dispositions are indicated bbri[e]fly, but clearly. Then the villains begin their nefarious work, plunging the good people into such difficulties at the end of each chapter that it requires the first part of the next to drag them out. Then in they go again for another climax, seesawing from chapter to chapter to the end of the book.
There is a techinque [sic] in dime novel writing which is acquired unconsciously. Each chapter must end in suspense, and tragedy must be well balanced by comedy. Dialect is used liberally, but it must be conventional. The average reader would resent a dialect to interpret which would give him trouble. The slang of the Bowery is always welcome, because the ordinary boy hears it in a mild form from day to day, and the introduction of a new slang expression of obvious meaning, but quaint ugliness, appeals to him. The colloquial speech of the plains is good, with plenty of "Hyars" and "thars," while an occasional Greaser, with his "Caramba!" and "Maladetta!" gives palatable variety to the dialogue. An Irish brogue -- always in the mouth of an ally of the hero -- is much enjoyed, and Cockneyisms, uttered by a tenderfoot who is made the butt of the camp, and who is pretty sure to find himself bumping about on the back of a bucking broncho [sic] in one chapter, are useful in their way.
Great care must be exercised in the introduction of feminine personages. The dime novelist looks on this as the most delicate part of his calling. One heroine is more trouble to him than a dozen villains. Preferably she is a young woman who can ride and shoot almost as well as the hero, and in general is a good example of the well-poised athletic American girl. She may fall into the hands of the villains -- generally does -- but you never have any fear for her. She can take care of herself, and when plans for her rescue are in operation, you can depend on her seconding the efforts in her behalf with pluck, as well as common sense. You never knew of a namby-pamby heroine in a dime novel. She could not exist in its bracing atmosphere through half a chapter.
Aside from the heroine, there may be a "hag," who is so frankly brutal that she is charming. When her parchment skin, chronic strabismus, claw-like fingers and Mother Frochard rags are described, it would be a literary impossibility for her to be anything less than the wicked old creature she is. These two characters, with perhaps a maid or little sister for the heroine, are all the femininity required in a dime novel. The deeds done therein are essentially tasks for men.
The final disposition of the villains sometimes entails hard thinking. While their quietus may be accomplished in various ways, it is not considered good form for the hero to kill them if it can be avoided. It is true, he cannot always help himself. There are times when it is their lives or his, and, of course, then he has no choice. But it is better to capture them alive or let their destruction be compassed by their own act, as Bill Sykes hanged himself with a snarled rope while trying to escape from a roof in a London slum.
One author, who found himself with an assortment of villains of aggravated depravity on his hands in the last chapter, was able to get rid of them conveniently in an unusual manner. It happened that the scene was in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. The villains had been entrapped in a worked-out mine by the detective-hero, who had left them there while he went for a posse of police. Before he could return, there was an accumulation of firedamp and an explosion that blew all the rascals into eternity at one blast. It was a coup only possible when all conditions were favourable, otherwise it would doubtless have been adopted by many other perplexed story-tellers.
When the "Dime Library" was established in 1872, a new group of authors succeeded the staff which had done the work on the original Dime Novel series. Some of the old writers remained, but others were engaged from time to time, thus keeping the firm well supplied with manuscripts. At this period, Beadle and Adams were publishing a story of one kind or another on every business day of the year. Some were "dimes," of 70,000 words, and others "Half-Dimes," averaging 35,000. It required an enormous mass of fiction to supply the demand, and the large amount of work done by some of the regular authors is almost unbelievable.
The records show that the most industrious of them all. was Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, whose name is familiar to youth everywhere. He wrote, all told, the amazing number of six hundred novels, besides several plays and numerous short stories and poems, He was an officer in the Confederate army, and served both afloat and ashore in the Cuban ten years' war for independence, as well as in Mexico, Austria, Greece and Africa. His experience as a naval officer equipped him to write convincing sea stories, while some years spent in the West brought him into contact with Colonel W. F. Cody, and the two men were long close friends. Beadle and Adams published a great many stories written by Col. Cody under his nom de guerre of "Buffalo Bill." When he got tired of making "copy," his friend, Colonel Ingraham, wrote in his name.
"The only request I have to make, Ingraham," said Col. Cody, when his biographer was about to begin on his first Buffalo Bill story, "is that you will not depict me with an ax in one hand and a war-club in the other, knocking out the brains of all the people I meet."
Col. Ingraham promised, and his Buffalo Bill tales have shown the famous scout as he is in real life, chivalrous and gentle, but a fury when the bullets are spattering and there is no choice but to kill or be killed. How many Buffalo Bill stories Colonel Ingraham has produced he could hardly tell offhand. How rapidly he wrote can be judged by the fact that a few years ago he turned out a "Half-Dime," thirty-five thousand words, in a day and a night, with a fountain pen.
"It was a hurry order from the firm," he said, in telling of the feat, "and it had to be done. I drew my trusty fountain-pen, placed a ream of foolscap on my desk in my room, locked myself in, worked from breakfast to breakfast, and completed my task. I was both tired and hungry when I finished, for I had had only a sandwich or two, eaten as I worked."
If anyone thinks this performance was a joke, he might try writing thirty-five thousand words of an original composition in twenty-four hours. As a matter of fact, several of the writers on Beadle and Adams's staff were good for an average of one thousand words an hour with a pen, and could keep it up day after day, completing a dime novel of seventy thousand words in a week. When the typewriter came into general use, their capacity became much greater.
One of the firm's valuable men was Albert W. Aiken, who was an excellent actor, as well as a novelist. Besides creating melodramas in which he played the principal roles, he always had a taste for story-writing, and when his first novel was accepted he turned his attention to that kind of work exclusively. The publishing house of Beadle and Adams was a worm-eaten old building at 98 William street -- a great modern skyscraper swallowed up the site of that and several other ancient rookeries five or six years ago -- and in a little den on an upper floor Aiken used to grind out dime novels day after day with the steadiness of a machine. His stories were excellent, and his name had a distinct commercial value. Mr. Victor knew he could always depend on a "good seller's" coming down from the stuffy little corner of the stock-room where Aiken's desk stood, at least once a week. Detective yarns laid in New York were Albert W. Aiken's forte, and it is to be doubted whether anyone ever has equaled him in facility of invention, picturesqueness of description and clever limning of character along that line.
Edward S. Wheeler was the author of a long series of "Half-Dimes" dealing with the adventures of "Broadway Billy," a typical New York boy. Billy was a detective, and the way in which he ferreted out mysterious crimes and brought the culprits to justice was no less wonderful than his equable good temper and unfailing command of epigram. Up to Mr. Wheeler's death "Broadway Bill" was pursuing an active career, but when his creator passed away he disappeared, too, although his memory will be kept green in the hearts of many thousands of staid men of affairs to whom he was a pet hero throughout all their boyhood.
In view of the interest shown of late in the length of popular novels of a more ambitious class, a natural question is, How long does a dime novel live? Most of them are practically immortal. In the old days enormous numbers were sold of each new story, as it appeared, the standing order of the American News Company, which handled the bulk of the edition, being sixty thousand copies. Often these, sixty thousand would be all sold in a. week, with other editions following each other from week to week. Some novels ran into as many as ten or twelve editions.
The head of a large circulating library was quoted not long ago as saying that "the average novel lasts about six weeks. Then the people do not ask for it any more." He was referring to books of merit put forth by leading publishers, at $1.50 a copy. The dime novel seldom equals the record of David Harum, for instance, seven hundred and seventy-eight thousand copies in five years -- but, if it is a good specimen of its class, it will sell at the rate of several hundred annually many years after publication, and when most works of fiction, save the classics, would be as dead as Trilby, of which a copy is not sold once in two years.
On an upper floor of the old house in William street was a room extending the whole depth of the building, in which were piled up hundreds of thousands of novels -- "Dimes," "Half-Dimes," "Boys' Library" and other series -- beginning with Number 1, and up to and including the current issue.
This stock was always movmg. Now and then a story proved particularly successful, and the demand for it was so great that edition after edition was printed from the always ready plate, but withal keeping barely ahead of the orders.
The common experience of all publishers, of a book falling comparatively flat when first issued, only to become an enormous seller weeks or months afterward, was that of Beadle and Adams. Sometimes a happening in real life, exploited in the newspapers, had the parallel in a novel published simultaneously or before. The real or fancied identity of the actual romance or tragedy with that told in fiction would become widely known, and this particular dime novel would take a sudden jump in circulation that kept the presses running day and night for weeks.
It was seldom that writers for this firm were commissioned to produce tales purporting to narrate the doings of actual people whose names happened to be prominent in the news of the day. Sensational deeds of bandits, thugs or criminals generally were never glorified, and for the excellent reason that the experience of other publishers of low-priced fiction who had tried this line had been disappointing. Your dime novel reader likes his fare well spiced, but he objects to poison.
On the other hand, many suggestions for dramas have come from dime novels. The hurly-burly of action in the narrative often became the blood-and-thunder success before the footlights. It was to a dime novel story of an oarsman-detective that the stage was indebted for the "tank drama" epidemic which raged so virulently ten or fifteen years ago.
It was a dime novelist who first conceived the possibility of a baseball being made to change its direction at least twice after leaving the hand of the pitcher. A series of stories of which the hero was one "Double-Curve Dan," set forth this principle. When the stories were written, baseball had not materially developed and the exploits of "Double Curve Dan" excited derision.
Sometimes, in his hurry, a dime novelist will make a technical blunder which would hold him up to ridicule, were he not to remedy his mistake before it got into print. An example of this found its way into a sea story one day. The author was describing the cruise of a bark, whose skipper was "a bold smuggler," and sea-wolf generally. The hero had been locked up in a cabin aft, and sought to escape by climbing from a window and down the anchor-chains to a boat in which a friend was awaiting him. The hero reached the boat in safety, and after shaking his fist at the great black hull of the vessel, went on his way with further adventures in triumph. He had plunged along through several chapters when the author happened to read the description of the hero's escape from the ship to a seafaring acquaintance.
"You say he got out of the stern windown [sic] and slid down the anchor cable to the boat, eh?" observed the mariner.
"Yes, it makes rather a thrilling episode."
"Thrilling enough and funny enough," was the response, "only the anchors, in all the ships I've sailed in, were at the bow. I think I'd let him get out by way of the f'k's'l. It would save you being laughed at."
The author protested that sometimes an anchor was thrown out from the stern in an emergency, and surely this was one.
"Yes, but the skipper was not furnishing an anchor cable to help your hero. Take my advice and let your man get out at the other end."
The author took the sailor's advice.
Once a dime novel hero, who had been dropped through a trap in the sub-cellar of a thieves' dive in New York, found himself in a sewer main, making his way toward the East River. He had been fighting big gray rats, whose soft bodies had thumped against his face from time to time, and who had bitten his hands over and over again, despite his vigorous attacks with the heavy stick he had been fortunate enough to find. At last he reached a place where it seemed that he must give up indeed. The tide was at flood, and the water had backed into the sewer so that it nearly reached the roof. He was swimming, but soon the water would quite fill the noisome space, and then what could he do? The river was ahead of him, but he did not know how far. What was he to do?
The author asked this question at the end of a chapter, and went out for a walk in the hope of finding an answer. It was a hard nut to crack, and he had strolled about for half an hour without reaching a conclusion. Then he met a cheerful friend, who smilingly asked him the reason of his worried look. The situation was explained. At one stroke the cheerful idiot cut the knot: "Make the Johnny dive."
The solution was majestic in its very simplicity. The hero did dive, and being a deep-chested young man, and a strong swimmer, he contrived to reach the open river before he arose to the surface, and appeared in the next chapter, in good health and dry clothes, for the further discomfiture of the villains.
Impure Literature.
"A man is known by the company he keeps," is an old and true saying. Show me the books you read, and I will be able to divine your character pretty accurately. Do parents and guardians of the young pay sufficient attention to the kind of literature preferred by those under their care? Do they realize what an important influence such may have upon their future? We trow not. Too often their children are allowed to select books from public libraries, and are permitted to read sensational story-papers, without being questioned by parents or guardians. Even Christian parents are careless in these matters. In many Christian homes we have found the daughters so absorbed in some highly-spiced fiction that they neglected home duties, letting the dear mother, on whose forehead lines of care were traced, and amid whose raven hair the silver threads were beginning to gleam, toil from morn to eve, while the girls were filling their minds with trashy sentiments and silly notions of life and its duties. Often, when too late, the mother has had her eyes opened to the fact that her darling has had her mind poisoned by foolish, if not more pernicious, literature. When her dear child has eloped with a designing villain, and her happiness blasted, then in agony of soul she will wring her hands and exclaim, "Oh, that I had been more careful as to the kind of books my girl read!" Is it not the duty of Christian parents to examine every book and paper brought into the home by their children?
A few words of faithful criticism, kindly spoken, may save years of sorrow. Nine-tenths of the criminals under sixteen years in our jails and prisons are there because of their reading dime novels or the sensational paper. They thought it a grand thing to imitate the dashing highwayman or daring burglar, but, alas I they were not expert enough, and when once more free, branded as a jail-bird, what are their chances of becoming either respectable or respected?
But there is a worse kind of literature published in this fair land. The dime novels are bad enough, with their enticing descriptions of bold women and licentious men who dress "elegantly" and live in the most "luxurious style," but the literature that we especially allude to is of a baser and more degrading stamp. Its aim is to stir unholy passions in the breasts of our pure-minded boys and girls, to sow seeds of licentious thoughts that will in time develop into deeds of the vilest sin and shame. How many times have our fallen sisters told the noble women who visit them in prison or hospital, that the dime novel was the first step in their downfall. Once they were pure as the snow; contented, too, in their humble home; but after reading descriptions of the luxurious life portrayed so enticingly in the history of "the beautiful peasant girl," or some such novel, home became distasteful, the love of parents not worth much, until at last they ran away and went to a distant city, in a short time to become the prey of bad men. Almost every week we see one or more advertisements seeking news of an erring boy or girl who has run away from loving parents and a good home. Since this new year dawned, we have seen quite a number of such advertisements. One touched us deeply: A clergyman described his only child, a boy sixteen years of age, who had run away from home a few weeks previous. They knew of no reason excepting that he had been passionately fond of reading "Adventures in the Wild West." When last seen, he was on his way to the Western States. The advertisement closed with the earnest desire "that any person having seen or heard of the said boy would at once communicate with his distracted parents."
Teachers tell us that books of a decidedly impure character are often found in the pockets of their scholars. They have been mailed for the very purpose of ruining our young people. It is true that Anthony Comstock has done and is doing a grand work in ferreting out the dens which send forth these volumes of filthy literature, and last year several men were arrested and sent to prison who were going from town to town distributing piles of this subtile poison among the youth of this land. It is time that this crying evil was looked into. Teachers should warn their scholars against it. Parents and guardians cannot be too careful. Mothers especially should seek to gain their children's confidence, showing a warm interest in their studies and reading. Among the little children, obscene pictures do more harm than literature. Picture-cards that are low and vulgar, if not positively obscene, are given away with boxes of cigarettes or as advertisements by newsdealers at tobacco stores. It is the cry of many Christian workers throughout the State of Maine: "What can we do to stop the dealing out of those mischief-working picture-cards?" The Maine State law in regard to the suppression of impure literature is strict, and it includes vile pictures. We warn traders to be careful, for we mothers know the law, and we mean to enforce it.
Orono, Me.
Boyish Freaks.
From Chambers' Journal
What a strange world of his own is that in which a boy lives! His parents he can see are necessary; but they hold inconvenient theories respecting cleanliness and education, which clash sadly with his notions of pleasure and freedom. But he consoles himself by thinking when he grows up he will do as he pleases. How happy he is in the world of his imagination! Everything about him excites him to activity and mischief. He is proof against the fearful gastronomic experiments he makes on himself, and triumphs over numerous accidents and adventures with which he meets, for nothing seems to hurt him. He is ever acting on a small scale the heroes of the boys' books that fire his imagination; and he looks with wondering contempt on any calling tamer than that of a soldier, hunter, admiral, or pirate, in one of which exciting professions he will distinguish himself before long. There is a certain element of pathos in such childish yearnings, not less on account of the simplicity of the dreams, than because of the artlessness of the methods with which their realization is attempted.
The little fellow who was lately sent home to Liverpool by the Rhyl police commenced his quest of adventures early, being only nine years old. He left his parents on a Tuesday, walked all night, and reached Chester on Wednesday morning, drenched to the skin. Determined to put as great a distance as possible between himself and his parents, he walked straight on to Rhyl, a distance of fifty miles, in very bad weather. Here, on Thursday, he was found huddled up in a corner fast asleep, and next day was sent home.
The love of youthful adventure was further exemplified in two boys, aged respectively fifteen and sixteen, who not long since set out walking from Manchester to Liverpool. When near that city, however, their hearts seemed to have failed them, and one of them sent a postcard to his mother stating where they were and saying they had decided to return. As they were passing through Warrington on their way back, they were detained by an inspector at the police station. On the two youths were found a couple of loaded and capped pistols and ammunition, and a list of books, including Jack Sheppard, Paul Girard the Cabin-boy, Hard Times, and Life in the Wilds. The adventurers were relieved of their weapons and sent home.
It is this early devouring of cheap literature, not often so well selected as some of the books named, which leads to similar boyish expeditions to our seaport towns whence the cabin-boy or stowaway is to commence his world-dazzling career of gore and glory. Liverpool has frequently had the chance of being thus distinguished, and the landing-stage officials -- who, strange to say, do not seem to appreciate the honor -- have grown quite experienced in "spotting" the embryo pirate or slaver looking about for a chance to embark. It is lucky for such young delinquents if the spirit of adventure does not lead them to appropriate other people's cash to defray expenses of preparation and the unromantic but necessary passage money. It is not many months since two youngsters were noticed, by one of the experienced officials before mentioned, walking up and down the landing-stage in a mysterious, expectant mauner. As their overcoats had a very bulky appearance, their observer became suspicious, and questioned them. The youths' unsatisfactory answers finally led to their being detained and examined. It was another instance of youthful adventure. The bulky overcoats concealed leather belts, which contained revolvers and ammunition. The would-be hunters were further provided with money and tickets for America, and confessed it was their intention to live in the backwoods. A telegram to their parents led to the youths being taken home, probably, ere long, to thank their rescuers for putting a stop to their little romance.
These youthful escapades become more serious when the actors in them have been tempted to relieve their employers' cash-drawers in order to fit out an expedition. This was the case in the next instance brought before our notice. The sandy watering-place of New Brighton, at the Mersey's mouth, seems in many boys' opinions to constitute a perfectly legitimate place for enacting Robinson Crusoe, and to be in a vague way associated in their minds with American prairies, the Australian bush, and Pacific island shores. Here two juvenile adventurers attracted the attention of the police to themselves by the magnificent way in which they were parting with money amongst the various amusements to be found there. They were discovered to be in possession of those dangerously fascinating toys, revolvers and cartridges, the usual "penny-dreadful" serials, watches and jewelry, besides over thirteen pounds in cash, which they could not properly account for, so they were sent back to Birmingham to explain matters.
On another occasion, five boys, whose ages varied from ten to fourteen years, got into trouble through camping-out in the same attractive place. A policeman observed a light underneath a large overturned boat on the shore. Such an unusual circumstance at once attracted him to the spot. He peeped beneath this improvised hut, and found our five Crusoes, who had dug a hole in the sand, and entered their retreat after the manner of an Eskimo. They had placed lighted candles at different parts of the boat, and were seated on some straw eating apples, and some were singing comic songs. Here was a happy scene of romantic boyhood to be rudely interrupted by the prosaic appearance of a commonplace policeman, just as they were commencing a glorious career of camping-out. They had all run away from home, as they informed the officer, who had a deal of trouble in persuading them to come out of their wigwam.
Another lad from a manufacturing town had still more romantic ideas. Arrived in Liverpool, he first amused himself by driving about in a cab all day. His next proceeding was to rig himself out in a new suit of clothes, and of course to purchase the inevitable revolver, without which no hero is genuine. More ambitious than the usual New Brighton adventurers, he then took passage in a Manx steamer and landed in the Isle of Man. There he wandered into the interior, and found the solitude of the mountain district brought back descriptions of similar scenery in his favorite books. Our little traveller rambled about for a few days, camping out in a primitive rough-and-ready kind of way, and evidently intended to lead the life of the hunters so fascinatingly described in boys' libraries. With this view he began to stalk the game of the country, which in that island happens to be no more wild or formidable than the mountain sheep. Whether he partook of many mutton-chops, or looked forward to arraying himself in a woolly suit in the true Crusoe style, history is silent. But as the discovery of the carcases of several bullet-perforated sheep by farmers in the neighborhood, led to the youthful Nimrod's arrest, we presume the want of time alone prevented him from developing into a full-bloom specimen of the lone-scout or solitary hunter type.
The effect on the youthful imagination of melodramatic tales is still more striking in America, where both opportunity for, and examples of similar exploits are not wanting. The miscreants brought into activity by the ten-cents tales of criminal life distinctively known as "dime-novel's," are themselves known as "dime-novel brigands." Three members of this class, we are told, were brought before the police magistrate of Harlem, and were shown to have formed themselves into a band, which, after establishing itself in a mountainous district, was to carry off and hold to ransom beautiful maidens and wealthy tourists. Before making for the hills, the youthful banditti plundered the hotel in which they had passed the night; more, on principle, it would seem, than with a mere view to profit, for their booty consisted only of thirty-six bedroom door-keys. It appeared from a ledger found in their possession that they had begun business with a capital of two hundred dollars, "made at New York." But most of this sum had been spent before they reached the mountains; and an entry made the second day after their arrival on the scene of their intended exploits, showed that "things already looked blue." On the third day, the juvenile robbers found it necessary to pawn their solitary pistol; and the only act of highway robbery they succeeded in committing was the theft of some food left on the road by some workmen. Even this little adventure got them into trouble with a magistrate; but the police with good-natured contempt raised a subscription to pay their expenses back to New York. Thus the heroism of their expedition has been very effectively washed out. But while cheap sensational tales circulate amongst imaginative youths, we are not surprised to find these boy brigands of America rivalled by the boy burglars in this country. As it is with would-be heroes, not criminals, we are now dealing, we omit any further examples of the latter class.
Our subject receives further illustration from the effect that the exploits of the cowboys of Buffalo Bill in London and Texas Joe in Liverpool produced on many of our juveniles. To be a cowboy became the rage, and every lad who could get hold of his mother's clothes-line for a lariat or his father's wide-awake for a sombrero practised throwing the lasso, till not a dog could prowl the streets without a good chance of being suddenly "yanked" off its legs by a flying rope. The shrill yells of these lads and the loud cracks of their toy pistols, making day and night hideous, acted as a continual advertisement for the Wild West Show. Numberless letters were written by schoolboys modestly offering to join the cowboy troupe. One Liverpool lad wrote: "I hear every day that you want boys So I should like to see you in private. I have tried to get 3 pence to come and see you Because I am sure you would like me I can sing fence shoot I don't mean to say as I am a marksman but I know how to handle one. I am waiting for an answer." Another says: "I herd you wanted a few boys to join your compy. I will make a bargain with you if I suit you to do anything you may want me to do as long as you keep me in clothes and food I will go with you without wagers except a few pence for pocket-money."
The majority of the epistles represent more than one applicant, one of them being signed by no fewer than eight lads. Two other youths wrote: "We would like to go back with you to America and if you refuse us we should feel it greatly . . . . We like the cowboys their ways and deeds very much indeed. Please don't refuse us and believe us both to be two true cowboys on your permission." The picturesque costume of the ladies of the troupe seems to have proved alluring to a few of their own sex, who expressed their willingness to abandon a dull life in Liverpool for the dangers and excitements of a sojourn in the far West, and offered themselves as wives for the cowboys. Such are a few extracts from letters of many who are eager to forsake friends and country in order to seek adventures of which they have only been accustomed to read in thrilling romances. The fact that these applicants' services were not needed will doubtless be a source of satisfaction to most of them in years to come.
The youth who lately provided himself with dagger, revolver, and bowie-knife, and commenced his journey Wild-Westward by travelling from London to Liverpool, is another instance of this fascination.
Not long since two youngsters disappeared from Hull, and it was suspected that they had made their way to Liverpool. A detective on their track stopped the two runaways as they were leaving a shipping office where they had taken passage for Texas. They had evidently made up their minds to embark on a regular buccaneering expedition, as they were fully armed with revolvers, daggers, and large knives, and were provided with watches and money.
But it is sea-adventures that are naturally more attractive to the youths of this country than the exploits of hunters, scouts, or cowboys. Few young would-be Crusoes show such determination in running away to sea as the Birkenhead boy, who, when only five years old, hid himself away on board a Dublin steamer, and afterwards stowed away to Ireland five times. He was also caught on board the Isle of Man steamers. He then disappeared, and it was found that he had stowed away on the City of Chester, and had gone to New York. There he was captured and sent home. Although only eight years old, his mother is in constant fear he will run away again. Some months ago he stowed away on one of the Hall line boats, such is his love for the sea. He is a sharp, promising boy, though a regular rambler, and the magistrate, to whom the mother had applied for advice, gave him a chance of behaving better by making him return to school.
But some of these youths were quite eclipsed in daring recklessness by a fisherman's son, a youngster in his teens, who rowed a boat from a harbor on the south coast of England, and calmly proceeded to board a pilot cutter that at the time had no watch on board. Although it was blowing hard, he managed to hoist the sails, and before long was flying down the Channel. It was a couple of days or so ere he was discovered, through the boat being observed to behave in rather an unseamanlike manner, albeit the youth had handled her wonderfully all things considered. What his feelings were during those hours of solitary cruising, we do not know, nor how he managed to feed, keep watch, sleep, and navigate all by himself; but boys have an extraordinary faculty for enjoying themselves whenever there is a spice of danger or hardship. However, his happiness was no doubt complete when he observed the sails of the pursuing pilot-boats which eventually appeared in his wake. Before they overhauled and brought him back, he would probably at the time enjoy all the excitement of fancying he commanded a crack piratical craft, and was crowding all sail to escape a squadron of men-of-war.
But as curious an adventure of boy voyagers is that with which we conclude. One foggy night a Thames police galley was pulling off the shore of North Greenwich, when the inspector in charge made out a boat in the mist which seemed to be in inexperienced hands. On running alongside the boat, she was found to contain four boys, none of whom were over fifteen years of age. It was a late hour in December for lads to be amusing themselves in a small craft, so the inspector asked them what they were doing there. The boys said they had been lost in the fog, which was very dense about this time, and further added, that they had come from Blackfriars, and were making their way to Gravesend, when they lost their bearings. Some parcels were observed in the boat, and the inspector inquired what was in them. They replied that one contained biscuits, but they did not know what was in the others. On this the inspector opened the parcels, and among other things found a pistol, a quantity of bullets, some powder in a flask, a box of percussion caps, a quantity of biscuits, a box of stationery, a packet of candles and some matches, a teapot, a teakettle, a lock with fittings, a bullet-mould, a small compass, a song-book, and several copies of boys' illustrated serials. On one of the lads was found a revolver; and, strangest of all -- since it revealed the project of the youths -- in the pocket of another of them was found a letter ready for posting, addressed to the lad's parents, and telling them that he and his companions were off for a voyage to Australia. Thus it appeared that this small fogbound boat in charge of four boys was actually on her way to the other side of the world when encountered by the police galley. The adventure finished in the unromantic precincts of a police station; but as the affair proved to be merely a boyish freak, the lads were cautioned against such foolishness and discharged.
The "penny-dreadful" portion of the boat's equipment probably accounted for this attempted voyage; but one would think boys of their ages, however ignorant, could scarcely imagine that Australia was to be reached in a small open row-boat. After this exploit, it will be hard to know where to draw the line at youthful credulity. These lads being armed with a pistol, suggests their belief in the existence of pirates, and their resolution to cover themselves with glory by rescuing lovely captives from the whiskered villains plunder-stored caves. We can imagine their secret and eager consultations, and self-denial in saving their pocket-money, ere their preparations were complete. But what ideas could these boys have of the awful distance and dangers of the projected voyage in a small wherry, unprovided even with fresh water? Their sheer incapacity to grasp in the faintest degree the character of their insane project is enough to make one class these boys with lunatics, did we not remember that in youth, romance goes first and preparations are entirely secondary. The sentiment of adventure is a passion in youth. Romance leads the way, and enthusiasm smiles on the cold suggestions of foresight and prudence. Is it not sometimes as well that it should be so? and though we laugh at such childish expeditions, may not the enthusiasm which undertakes them prove the germ of the same old spirit which animated the death-defying adventurers who have made this country renowned, and to whose names on the roll of fame we can point with pride and triumph?
Runaway Boys.
A thing of frequent occurrence is that of runaway boys. The fault will generally be found either on the side of too much indulgence or undue severity on the part of the parents. Where the boy is brought up in ease and luxury he is generally disposed to look for something that shall interest or excite him. The dime novel is ready to his hand and he seizes it with avidity. It abounds in pen-pictures that excite his fancy and are in strong contrast to the life he is leading.
In the want of wholesome occupation his mind becomes enthralled with the false yet fascinating scenes of adventure presented, and he longs to be out on the prairie chasing the buffalo or pursuing the trail of the red man. On the other hand, many unfortunate boys are driven from home by the strife and unhappiness in the family of which he is the daily sharer and witness.
A True and Sad Story.
Charles G----- was the only son of a widowed mother. He was a frank, generous, unselfish boy, and a great comfort to her. Everybody who knew him said he was a promising boy, and his mother was very proud of him. When he finished school a situation with a good, reliable man was found for him, and for a time he was faithful in the discharge of every duty. But by-and-by he seemed to be growing away from his mother. She noticed that he did not give her his confidence as in the former days. He hurried off after he finished his supper, and he neglected his business, and he did not come home until late. Anywhere else seemed to be pleasanter to him than his home. His mother did all she could to make the home attractive, and talked kindly with him about his neglect of her. But, as she once said, "It seemed as if the boy was way off somewhere, he didn't act. like himself." One day he was missing. There was no trace of him for months. A boy with whom he had formed a strong intimacy, and one of which his mother did not approve, was missing at the same time. For months that mother prayed and watched and waited, listening every hour for the footstep of her much-loved boy. She could not sleep or eat, so great was her anxiety. At length a telegram came to her, and as she read it she fell to the floor. The shock was so terrible to her. This is what it said: "Your son is very ill, come at once." The name signed to it she had never heard, and the telegram was dated from a small town in Texas. It was a long journey, and she had but little means, but kind friends helped her, and the midnight train bore her off alone with her anxiety and sorrow to the far-off State. O how fervently sho prayed that her boy might be spared to her, that if he must be taken from her, he might live till she got there, and be able to recognize her, and give her some assurance of his repentance. Her prayer was granted. "God was very merciful," she said. "My boy knew me, and I heard from his own lips his bitter repentance for what he had done, and his hope that the Lord had forgiven him." The poor mother was so thankful for even those few words, and they kept cheering her on the long journey home when she was taking her child's body to the family burial-place in his native town. What brought all this about, do you ask? Dime novel reading. After her son's death the mother found the most sensational dime novels in the garret with the name of her boy's friend on the cover. Ranch Life in Texas was full or unreal adventures, schemes for making money any way but by honest work; and "Seeing Life" had fascinated her boy in such a way as to lead to the sad results which that poor mother must bear to her grave.
Juvenile Reading Matter.
Scarcely a day passes that the press does not contain an item from some part of the Union illustrating the evils that grow out of the reading of pernicious papers and stories by children. Probably not one instance of depravity in a thousand resulting from such literature gets into print. Girls and young women are doubtless affected more than are boys and young men, because they have more time to read and less employment to divert their minds into useful and instructive channels.
It would be a great exaggeration to say that all or nearly all readers of dime novels and flashy, sensational papers and magazines go to the bad. A very large proportion do not become criminals or descend into the slums, but their views of the responsibilities and duties of life become dwarfed or distorted so as to render them unhappy, and they become the cause of much unhapplness to all connected with them, either in the family circle or among friends.
It is not necessary that young people, and children especially, should have their reading matter limited to the goody-goody books that in some respects are as objectionable as dime novels. There are many excellent books, magazines, and papers now published especially for young people, that are not only highly interesting but are instructive, and tend to develop the moral character as well as the mind.
It is the duty of parents to know what their children -- small or large -- read, to forbid the reading of objectionable matter, and to provide for them wholesome literature.
The dally as well as the popular weekly paper is largely read by children and youths. While it is objected that much is published in such papers that should be kept from the eyes of children, it is the duty of parents to teach them to separate the good from the bad. Moral lessons may be taken and strength of character developed from the accounts dally published of great and even infamous crimes. The worthy parent teaches his or her children to avoid bad company, and to pay no attention to improper language heard on the streets. The conscientious newspaper gives a daily history of the world, the good and the bad, yet presenting the bad in such a manner as to bring it into contempt, and to hold the doers of the evil up to public scorn. The evil cannot be ignored. Let it be recognized and condemned. -- [Savannah News.
Chip-Dirt.
"Charles, come here. What is the meaning of such a report as this?
Report of Charles E. Stevens, for term ending March 7. -- Arithmetic, 66; Geography, 71; Grammar, 47; Reading, 83; Spelling, 69; Writing, 70; Average, 68; Deportment, 71; General standing, 71; Whole number in class, 16; Rank in class, 16."Foot of the class -- No. 16 in class of 16. That is my boy Charlie, is it! How did this happen?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Don't know, sir! Who does know? When you first went into the Wentworth School you ranked No. 2 in a class of 33. The next term you were No. 6. In the Spiing, No. 9, and at the close of the year you got down to No. 12. Then in the fall term -- let me see, where is that report? Here it is. Number -- I have it; No. 13 in a class of 18. Now you are 16 in a class of 16. Well, where will you be at that rate next term?"
"I think I shall do better next term, sir."
"Well, but just explain how this came about."
"Cant tell? I can tell you, Charles: Do you see that basket filled with apples?"
"I do, sir."
"Empty out the apples upon the floor in the corner of the room."
"I've done it, sir."
"Now, take the basket out to the wood-pile and fill it half-full with pine chip-dirt, and bring it to me."
Charles was in the habit of the most impliclt obedience to his father's commands. He therefore half filled the basket with the dirt at the wood-pile, and brought it to his father without any delay.
"Here is the basket, father."
"Well, now put in the apples."
Charles piled on the apples till the basket would hold no more.
"It will not hold them, sir."
"Will not hold them? But it did before? Pile them on."
Charles piled up the apples as long as they would stay on, and then said:
"It will not hold them all, sir.
"Pile them on. Pile them on. It held them all before."
"Yes, father, but now the basket is half full of chip dirt."
"Ah, my son, there's the mischief. When a basket is half full of chip-dirt it will not hold a basket full of apples. You have been cramming your mind with chip-dirt stories, and now do you think you can fill it with arithmetic and spelling? How many volumes of Oliver Optic's books have you read?"
"I have read them all, sir."
"And how many dime novels have you read this winter?"
"I don't know, sir; I think about a dozen."
"What papers do you read?"
"The Fireside Companion, The Boys of New York, and The Boy's Own."
"Well, my son, that basket must be pretty nearly full of chip-dirt, and how do you suppose you can now pile on the arithmetic?"
"I never looked upon it in that light before."
"Well, my boy, take the chip-dirt back to the wood-house and see if the basket will hold the apples then."
Charles quickly left the chip-dirt outside and filled the basket with the apples.
"Does it hold them now?"
"O, yes, sir. It holds them all now."
"Well, my son, it will not be so easy to empty the chip-dirt from your mind. But I caution you not to put any more in."
Charles understood the meaning of this. It was a good exemple [sic] of "object-teaching," and the next term, although it cost him many a severe effort to keep away from the chip-dirt, his record was far less unsatisfactory. It is to be hoped that Charlie will yet crowd out the chip-dirt from his mind by filling it with the good and the true.
The Would-Be Hero.
"Buy a Gazette, sir! Buy a Gazette?"
The words were spoken quick and sharply. The man to whom they were addressed, struck by the tone of voice, stopped and looked at the boy who spoke. He was a handsome looking fellow of twelve, most shabbily dressed. His ragged shoes and broad-brimmed bat, much too large for him; his overcoat, a world too big, in which he shivered and shook with cold because he had on no underclothes nor any linen, all showed that he was penniless and friendless.
"Yes," said the man, "I want a paper." Then he looked kindly at the poor, hungry, and ill-clothed lad and said, "I'll buy them all."
"Thank you, sir. Then I can get some dinner, for I've had nothing to eat to day."
"Then come with me," and the stranger led the boy into a restaurant, or eating-house, and ordered dinner.
It was in San Francisco. While waiting for their meals the stranger gentleman said:
"You don't look nor speak like a common newsboy, or street arab. Tell me how it is that you are so poorly dressed, and are compelled to sell papers for a living. Perhaps I may be willing to help you."
The poor, hungry lad burst into tears.
"The truth is, sir, I am not a regular newsboy," he replied. "I am not a street arab; I am a runaway boy. My parents live in New York, and they are well off."
In surprise the gentleman asked, "How came you here, then?"
"Sir, I am ashamed to tell. But I read so many stories of wild Western adventure in the dime novels and in the picture-papers, that I ran away from home and came West. I hoped to become a hero and be the captain of a band of men who would rob stages, and find gold or silver mines, and have so many interesting adventures. Instead, I am penniless and almost starved, and I wish I had never left my comfortable home."
"Is your father's name Robert Allison?"
The boy started in surprise, and tears gushed from his eyes as he said, "Yes, sir; do you know him?"
"Two weeks ago," the man answered, "I left New York. As I was leaving I shook hands with my friend, your father. He said to me, 'Try and find my boy, who so foolishly ran away. I don't know where he has gone, else I'd go and search for him. If you see him, tell him his mother's heart is almost; broken.' I promised to be on the look-out for you, and when you spoke I guessed who you were as soon as I looked at you, by your resemblance to your father. Will you go back home with me?"
"Indeed I would, sir, if I thought my father would receive me."
"He said he would receive you with open arms."
"Then I will be only too happy to return with you. For I am miserably disappointed, and have suffered, O, so much, from hunger and cold. And I will never again read those foolish, silly stories that led me astray. O, sir, did you say my mother's heart was broken? Please take me back to her."
In a few days Mr. Granville returned East with his friend's son whom he had found so providentially. Let all young boys take warning, and let alone the silly trash they find in dime novels and five-cent novels. They always do harm to the young who read them.
A Young Murderer.
A Youth Who Has Been Ruined by Dime Novels.The Literary Tastes of the Boy Murderer
of Kelland, the Kingston,
N.Y., Saloon-Keeper.It has been discovered here that the Sheriff of Ulster county, N.Y., his corps of constables, and a small army of amateur detectives have been looking; for the wrong man in their search for the murderer of the Kingston saloon-keeper, Edwin Kelland. The story of how the real criminal furnished himself with an alias, coolly appropriated another youth's name as his own, and then deliberately planned and carried out a cold-blooded murder for a watch and chain, a suit of clothes, and less than $100 in money reads like a chapter from one of the dime novel detective stories of the day. The name of the murderer is William Willet, of Chicopee Falls, Mass., and he is but little more than a big boy in appearance, and one whose moral nature seems to have been wholly perverted by reading dime novels. Willet made his first appearance along the Hudson Valley on June 1, 1883, and it was in this town that he schemed and planned exploits to be carried out in the future. He came here with a gang of men on board of one of the Poughkeepsie Transportation Company's propellers as a berry-picker. These boats every summer bring hundreds of boys, youths, and men here to work in the strawberry and raspberry "patches." Willet, in pickers' parlance, "struck" Marlborough, June 1. He loitered around town for a day until he met Patrick Barry, who owns a small fruit farm here. Barry's berries were then far from being ripe, but, nevertheless, he hired Willet "to do chores" for his board and shelter in the barn until June 12, when the first picking began. Mr. Barry states that Willet worked steadily until July 4, when he became intoxicated and acted cross and ugly. Mr. Barry discharged him, and Willet went to New York. Every time Mr. Barry started from his farm to come to the business part of the town, he says, Willet always asked him to get three or four five-cent "blood and thunder novels." Willet would lie for hours awake in the barn, when be should have been asleep, reading the stories.
After being discharged from Barry's employ, Willet remained in New York two days, and then returned to Marlborough. He found employment on the farm of Eli Harcourt, who says that in the main he was a steady boy, but had a mania for reading flash literature. In four weeks' time he purchased and read fifteen five-cent novels. His whole frame would be in a tremor of excitement, and his eyes would glisten while holding one of the Jesse James series in his hand. In the early fall Mr. Harcourt discharged him. Shortly before he left Mr. Harcourt's employ Willet obtained board for a short time at the house of Sidney Barnhart, at West Marlborough, who owns a small grocery store there. While there, it is evident, he concocted several plans of the Jesse James order, and he made the acquaintance of two youths named Crosby, one of whom up till yesterday was supposed to be the murderer of saloon-keeper Kelland.
The Crosby boys are cousins, both are named Charles, both are about the same height, age, and general appearance, and both were born and brought up in the vicinity of West Marlborough. Willet made the acquaintance of William Crosby's boy Charles first, and subsequently with Charles Crosby's son Charles. He filled the heads of both lads with all sorts of nonsense that he had read or imagined, and then when he concluded to leave Marlborough for good he exchanged clothing and satchels with Crosby boy No. 1, and then proposed and did go off on a tramp in the night-time with Crosby boy No. 2. Willet and Crosby No. 2 obtained work driving mules on the Delaware and Hudson canal, and when the canal-boat on which they were employed "laid up" at Rondout, Crosby No. 2 returned to his home at West Marlborough, where Crosby No. 1 had been nearly all the time since his cousin and namesake had been gone. Willet walked up town from Rondout to Kingston, assumed the name of Charles Crosby, and finally obtained work as a general utility boy in Kelland's saloon. How he deliberately murdered his employer in cold blood has already been told in the columns of the GAZETTE. The fact that there are two Charles Crosbys, and that one of them exchanged clothlng with Willet caused the officers to look for the wrong man for a week.
At the inquest held on Kelland in Kingston a number of witnesses testified that Willet, alias Crosby, was a constant reader of trashy newspapers and stories. Willet is a weaver by trade, and he has a number of brothers and sisters in Chicopee Falls' and Springfield. Mass. His idea ot exchanging clothes with one Crosby and then going off with another seems to have been planned in advance and was not done on the spur of the moment. When Willet was discharged by Mr. Barry he said he did not intend "to go home to Springfield until late in the fall," and when he did Mr. Barry "could just bet his life he would have a nobby suit of clothes, a gold watch and chain, and considerable chink."
The murder of Mr. Kelland creates intense excitement throughout Ulster county. District Attorney A. T. Clearwater has been untiring in his efforts to bring the guilty party to justice.
Evil Literature.
Ignoring the close classical definition of literature, let us consider it as meaning the entire mass of printed material that influences the thought or occupies the attention of human beings. This, I suppose, must mean everything, from St. Jacob[']s Oil advertising stories to Arnold's last poem. For the purposes of this essay, I want you to think of literature as all that is printed and so made public, in avalanches of white and black, daily and hourly, east and west, by reams and tons and mountainous accumulations. Thousands of newspapers send out their fluttering messages. There are scores of magazines, myriads of books, and legions of literary aspirants. Every street in every city of civilization has its news-stands. Our houses overflow with printed matter. In street-cars and on steamboats men and women read, read, read. It is not the age of iron, nor yet of electricity: it is the age of paper. If the standard of public taste lowers, it becomes harder or even impossible to develop a high and pure literature.
First, let us consider the vulgarian books. The larger proportion of them are novels. By the phrase "vulgarian" I mean those works that, without being absolutely vicious, yet in their tone and style lower morals, weaken character, injure literary judgment, and spoil delicacy of sentiment and feeling. Some of them do much worse than this: they shade towards the vicious class, and sear, as with red-hot iron, the finest emotions and sensibilities of the soul. It is not probable that books of the vulgarian type send people to the insane asylums, but they debase life to a lower level for those that read them.
One may go into Bancroft's and ask for fifty of the latest novels, published by reputable houses, and scarcely five of them will be simple, healthy, and natural. The remaining forty-five will in one way or another be overwrought, and not worth even a passing hour of any intellectual being's attention. I remember five novels that once came into my hands to review in one month, all written with considerable ability. Each one left a bad flavor in the mouth. The favorite heroine was a foundling, the favorite tragedy the struggle against unhallowed love. Suicides, murders, and crimes against purity were described with zest, and punished with regret; while a veil of choice phrases was thrown about compromises with duty and doubtful relations of many sorts. A muddy sort of people obscured things in a murky atmosphere, that wit and dash and eloquence could not redeem.
But perhaps you say that literature has nothing to do with morals. To this I reply, that in written essay, in printed article, in word, and in the secret thoughts of my soul, I wish continually to maintain the doctrine that literature is but handmaid and servant of the good, the pure, and the serene. Only the wise and gentle should dare to analyze the lives of men; it is only such whose words can really increase the value of life, with merriment for happy moods, comfort for sorrow, and strength wrought out of pain. The manhood and womanhood of the world have too infinite an aspiration, too grand a destiny, to be made the scorn of cynics. We must have books that are wise and sincere and sweet. Their heroes and heroines shall not be too ideal, but the admirableness and charm, as of "the best people we have ever known," shall be there. They may be as strong and as lovely as they can be made; and yet, in great things and in small things, they shall "hug facts" close and firmly. We dare not separate literature as an art from the spirit of its teaching; and if the torrent of weak and vile books continues, the insane asylums and the jails will make an equal division of their readers.
But I must illustrate the vulgarian sort of books. Take the Boston Public Library: During 1880 and 1881, 1,065,081 books were circulated, of which 680,000 were fiction. Among these novels were books by such writers as Florence Marryat, Edmund Yates, Rhoda Broughton, Mrs. Edwardes, Mrs. Braddon, Julian Hawthorne, Joseph Hatton, Mrs. Linton, Messrs. Besant and Rice, the Earl of Desart, and others of equal fame. Now I bring an indictment against each one of these, on the ground of vulgarianism and bad morals. Since I could not venture to inflict upon you lengthy quotations from the books themselves, I will use the New York Nation, the London Athenæum, and some other leading journals as authority, merely adding that I have read the books, and cordially indorse the reviews as fair and truthful.
Of Florence Marryat's Love's Conflict, the Athenæum says: "An account of the 'terrible temptation' of a young wife to break the Seventh Commandment." Of her Confessions of Gerald Estcourt, the same journal remarks: "The most prosperous character of the lot is a bare-faced courtesan; the most religious are two repulsive combinations of heartlessness and brainlessness." Of The Prey of the Gods, the Saturday Review says: "She makes a great parade of religious sentiment, and gives effusive descriptions of the effect which the sight of a crucifix produces on a married woman meditating an elopement with her lover; also on the loss which the same palpitating sinner foresees she will feel when she can no longer go to Holy Communion; while, at the same time, she revels in the details of a meditated adultery which only just escapes the last actual crime --painting the progress, raptures, and dangers of the situation with odious minuteness." This review closes by calling the book vulgar, nauseous, sentimental, and immoral. Six other books of Florence Marryat's are reviewed by leading critics in similar terms. The London Graphic, speaking of several writers of this class, says: "The hostility entertained by average lady novelists against husbands is one of the features of modern fiction." The Spectator inquires: "Why will such writers stick pertinaciously to the hateful subject of adultery?"
The Athenæum takes up Edmund Yates, and of his Black Sheep, a peculiarly disgusting story, says: "It is a book about scoundrels and their ways." The Rock Ahead is the same sort, only more so. The fast and worthless people in A Waiting Race are dismissed with the statement, amply borne out by the facts, that "the men are bad and the women are worse." The New York Nation says of The Wages of Sin: "According to this austere moralist, typhoid fever is all that need be dreaded by a woman who has been unfaithful to her husband." The Athenæum winds up its views of Two by Tricks with this: "When we find two adulteries in the first chapter, besides an allusion to a painful scandal of a few months back, we know what is coming . . . . . An imaginary state of society, in which all married women are unchaste except one or two who are only vulgar, while all the men may be said to be both."
Rhoda Broughton ought to be pretty well known by this time as an apostle of gross and vulgar views of life, but her books are in general circulation. The Saturday Review gives her work a free advertisement by saying: "The great object of books like these is to teach immorality by representing it in an interesting and seductive form, and by making good people who live according to the laws of decency appear tame, stupid, and despicable." The London Examiner denounces her "degrading conception of human nature."
Mrs. Edwardes comes in for about the same criticism from the Athenæum, which complains that the women in her novel are depicted as recognizing a startling amount of badness and baseness, not as evil to be hated, but with quiet, callous unconsciousness of any moral law.
Mrs. Braddon may be dismissed by the terse comment that her whole work is revolting and unwholesome. There is lawless passion and a dalliance with sins unmentionable. The Saturday Review says of her book, Just as I am: "Any young person who reads Mrs. Braddon's new tale will learn that a bride, a lady of the sweetest nature, may carry on a clandestine love affair with an interesting widower, just when she is on the very point of becoming a mother."
Of Julian Hawthorne's Idolatry, the "Athenæum says: "He (the villain of the plot) determines, as the most fiendish revenge conceivable, that this brother and sister shall fall in love and marry. Here the book becomes so painful that the reader revolts against it altogether. Why are we to have these ghastly suggestions of inhuman evil placed before us?" Bressant, by the same author, is morbid and peculiarly offensive. Sebastian Strome is intensely painful, and worse than painful to any right-minded person. As to Joseph Hatton's Clyde, the Athenæum says: "It is an almost literal reproduction of an excessively nasty trial for slander, which was degrading to society. The whole thing is disgusting," etc.
The Saturday Review, usually very favorable to Mrs. Linton's books, says of Under which Lord?: "We will not quote a single sentence from the hideous descriptions of imaginary confessionals, or trust ourselves to characterize the ravings which pass for interviews between an English clergyman and his female parishioners." The Academy says: "She reminds us sometimes of some of the earlier Romantics, . . . . in the delight which she seems to take in smirching her page with blood and cruelty, and with a certain kind of inarticulate un-cleanness."
The Nation, in reviewing a novel called My Little Girl, by Besant and Rice, says: "It is a story reeking in its most innocent passages with brandy and soda, and with accounts of black mistresses, mock marriages, illegitimacy, gambling, horse-racing, and every form of evil doing, which cannot fail to have a bad effect upon readers who may mistake its vulgarity for profound knowledge of the world, and its offensive description of human degradation for a valuable picture of human nature and civilized society."
Of the Earl of Desart's Children of Nature the Academy says: "Everybody is abominably loose, everybody is atrociously vulgar, everybody speaks the wretchedest English, and talks the nastiest nonsense conceivable." And the Athenæum remarks: "Every man is either an idiot or a scoundrel, and every woman -- well, what one of them is termed, in a moment of excusable irritation, by her own husband."
One could go on in this way, and show how unhealthy and unhappy and immoral, according to the best of critics, many of the modern novels are. I have marked similar reviews of over one hundred books, that could be used to swell the foregoing list, and yet leave the slimy creations of the Zola school ignored. I do believe that in one-third of the novels published in any year the plot turns on criminal or vulgar hinges. I believe also that two-thirds of the rejected book manuscripts reek with vile phrases, and are crowded with questionable situations. The young persons who are trying to write stories now are apt to take as their model such writers as those we have just criticised. The inevitable result is a ten times worse and ten times weaker book than the model. The magazine-writers of the day are too intense, too unnatural. They revel in the morbid and the emotional. Their characters "make scenes" too much. Now, in real life, respectable people do not "make scenes." The more deeply they feel about anything, the less they talk of it. It is one of the peculiar weaknesses of the modern novel, even when of a better than vulgarian type, that its atmosphere is seldom that of strength, and almost never that of serenity.
A grade lower in morals, and many grades lower in ability and usefulness, than the books we have been considering, are the vicious ones. They are mainly read by young persons, and ruin concentration of thought, demoralize the character, weaken the will, and, I have no doubt, aid largely in filling insane asylums and jails. They lead to peculiarly brutal and sensational crimes. Years ago I knew of a boy at a public school whose desk was full of "yellow-cover novels" of the worst type. Ten years later, this rude, swaggering, idle boy grew to youth's estate, and was hung in Utah for midnight murders -- having killed and robbed two men who had welcomed him to the hospitality of their camp-fire and mountain fare.
I went to the news-dealer's lately, and gathered up an armful of rubbish of the sort that makes boys hate work and despise truth and dishonor purity. The yellow-covers of twenty years ago were mild enough as compared with these highly spiced deviltries.
First, there are the five-cent books, of which about five thousand sorts have appeared, in about a dozen libraries. One firm publishes five hundred and eight volumes. Exactly what the sales have been cannot be ascertained, but the profits are enormous on all this sort of publications. One five-cent book I picked up lately relates how two boys of sixteen discover the North Pole, and find an empire there and marry princesses, after building fleets, casting cannon, and defeating whole armies. In a second tale, boys of a similar age find a nation of whites in Africa, and go through with about the same programme. In a third is a Persian prince, millions of treasure, pirates, impossible geography, an average of one murder to each chapter, and one betrayal of womanhood to each three chapters, winding up with the wholesale poisoning of officers and crew of 'a ship -- all this for five cents! These are three of the mildest samples. Is it any wonder that streets are filled with idlers and the frontier swarms with human wrecks? Some of the telegraph and news boys I know of are in the habit of reading these five-cent books, and it soon gets them into loafing, and lazy and thievish habits. Here are the titles of books I have myself seen in the hands of boys and young men during the past year or so:
Freebooters of California; Dominoes of Death; The Buffalo Demon, or Border Vultures; Roaming Ralph Rockwood, the Reckless Ranger; Panther Paul, the Prairie Pirate; Wild Frank, the Buckskin Bravo; Dashing Nellie, the Road-Agent; Skeleton Gulch; besides six or seven books glorifying the James outlaws.
Then there are the dime libraries of trash, published in series, one a week; and four or five thousand are published in America. Next come the boys' weeklies; such as, Boys of New York, the Champion, the Young Men of America, and others. Each issue contains installments of from five to seven stories. So far as I have examined them, the grade is a notch lower than the average dime novel. A little of it, to a mature mind, is very amusing. In one, I notice, a boy of fifteen invents an electric boat, and wears mail that rifle-bullets cannot penetrate. In another, a girl of eighteen or thereabouts rides wild horses, leads bandits, shoots or stabs half a dozen men, makes love, is betrayed and deserted, vows vengeance, gains it by drugging her foe, carrying him to a lonely place in the mountains, burying him alive, and watching the wolves eat his head off. To wind up this farrago, she marries an English lord, and becomes a model of womanly virtues and graces. The "New York Society for the Suppression of Vice" have studied the subject thoroughly, and endeavor to find out what proportion of the enormous increase of crime among young persons is due to the spread of vicious books. They report many cases in which boys of ten have been convicted of burglary, and various felonious crimes, to which they were led by reading these stories. Boys have formed brigand organizations under this devilish influence; and become highwaymen and murderers before they were sixteen. The facts are frightful. The telegraphic columns of any journal give in the course of a year dozens of cases of juvenile crime, generally developed by reading of this sort.
I have obtained from dealers some figures as regards the sale of these things in San Francisco. During the year which ended in July, 1882, a single company circulated 212,000 copies of boys' papers, and 1,245,000 copies of other story-papers, and 285,000 copies of the libraries, ten-cent and five-cent. During this period there were 33,000 copies of The Century sold. It is fair, I am told, to estimate that the mails carry nearly as much more. Practically, the reading of the young Californians is as shown in these estimates. Leaving out the standard republications, such as the "Franklin Square Library," the yearly sales of pen-poison amount to a total of about 1,600,000. If even half as much more comes into the State by mail, the grand total is 2,400,000 copies annually.
Now, who are the people that read them? You and I do not, except for a joke or as a sad duty; but they are read, and worn out by being loaned and re-loaned. First, there are the school boys and girls. Every country teacher finds occasion now and then to confiscate these books. Second, the factory and shop girls, and apprentices of all sorts. Third, the car and hack drivers, bar-keepers, sailors, farm laborers, etc. Fourth, fallen women, and, in general, the denizens of the midnight world, night-owls, prowlers, and those who live upon sin and its wages.
There is a third class of evil literature, unseen of men in any daylight: slimy, dripping poison from every scale, this serpent of uncleanness moves among the sons and daughters of men, and slays their souls, as the black plague and the Asiatic cholera slay their bodies. Priests and ministers denounce these books, and the law forbids them: but they are published, and they are read in secret; and when to this point the soul, wandering through many deserts, has arrived, it descends into the valley of the shadow of death, and is lost from sight, and almost from hope forever. No one can obtain statistics of this forbidden literature; but catalogues find their way into hundreds of schools and seminaries, and they are sold in every large city. The last report of the New York society for suppressing this sort of thing gives some valuable points. In that State, since 1880, two hundred and eighty-one persons have been convicted of publishing, dealing in, or distributing obscene literature. The years of imprisonment given them form a total of one hundred and fifty-one, and the fines were over $63,000. Nearly 30,000 pounds of book and sheet stock were destroyed, and over 203,000 obscene pictures. Hundreds of thousands of circulars and newspapers, catalogues, songs, and poems were seized and burned. A list of names of persons and post-office addresses, numbering over 900,000, was captured. These are glimpses of the work of this society. It has prevented the sending of vileness into many a school, academy, and seminary, and its active organization is still at work.
But the subject is too painful and too terrible. Ten years ago, one of the most careful of students of London said that these diabolical books were the direct inciting cause of the ruin of thousands of young persons in that metropolis. He quotes passages that, for simple vileness and total depravity and fiendish suggestions, outdo the worst passages in the worst French and English novels that are allowed to be sold in public. No brother who reads these books can love his sister in the same sweet, unconscious way as of old; no son who reads them can again kneel beside his dear mother, his arms about her waist, her hand in his, with the same pure devotion; no lover can enshrine his princess with chaste thoughts among the stars, and thrill with perfect reverence, and watch and love the beauty of her soul.
Remedy in law, except for the devilish books, there is at present none. Hope there is that all of us may in our lives be apostles of the higher literature, and by word and example help to stay the currents of evil. There can be no more dreadful indictment brought against a book than, that it is a debaucher of public morals. If we punish robbery, murder, and crimes against family relations, shall not we punish the men who write books which incite to such acts? Shall we not more often make warnings out of ruined lives, and gather up more closely the statistics of these things? There are publishers who are more than millionaires from the profits of vulgar and vicious books. If furies followed Orestes, what hosts of mighty demons, think you, would the Greek mythology have let loose upon such as these. The subtle poison even of a merely sensational book, who can measure or combat? Chiefest of reasons for many a wasted life and blighted career; inciting cause of many a withering sirocco of human passion; dark, wide, and dreadful beyond expression, reach the remorseless sands of this desert of literature, where asps and vipers and monsters not fabulous beset the traveler, and slay all who linger. Far off, looking down on these deserts, the great mountain peaks of true and healthy literature rise serene. To them, we must teach the wanderers in these Death's Valleys and Sahara Deserts to climb. There the forests are, and perpetual springs and deep rivers; and there songs and mirth and strength and beauty abide forever. There the great masters of verse and prose rule their realms, and perpetually guide their children, and feed them with the fruits of wisdom, and quench their thirst with the waters of life.
.
A Dime Novel Hero.
John Tribbets, the Boy Desperado of Minnesota.His Brief Career of Lawlessness After
the Most Approved Models of
Romance Ended by Judge Lynch.On another page of this paper is a portrait of the seventeen year old boy John Tribbets, who was lynched at Perham, Minn., on June 9. This boy began early as a reader of the pernicious border hero literature, which eschewing facts draws on the wildest opium dreams of diseased Bohemian brains for glorious tableaux and heroic situations.
After a round of minor experimental outrages he bodily cut loose with his revolver and murdered two men in cold blood. This made him a graduate of the border hero school and according to all the rules of romance he should have gone on in his dashing career, slaying, robbing and leading a true heroic dime novel sort of existence, meeting with and rescuing a young heiress from the clutches of a suave villain who was trying to get her fortune in his hands but is defeated by the hero happening to rob the coach in which the pair were. But the people of Minnesota with a sad lack of literary taste, ended the plot in the first chapter by summarily hanging the boy hero to a telegraph pole.
His own accounts of the murder were of the most romantic style of braggadocio, evidently modelled on the ideas and phraseology of his favorite stories. The men he killed were surveyors named Washington and Fehrenbach, and from their bodies he got enough money to go on a spree among the rough class among whom he aspired to be a hero and a leader. He hailed, it will be remarked, from the appropriate locality of Red Eye, Minn. He said he first stole up behind Washington as he was bending over his chart and shot him dead with his revolver. Fehrenbach then rushed at him with a hatchet. A hand to hand struggle for life ensued between the man and the boy. The latter dodged the blow of the hatchet and received only a slight cut on the neck. The young fiend drew his knife meantime and Fehrenbach turned to run. The boy pursued, overtook him, stabbed him repeatedly and completed the job by striking him on the head with a club. He then coolly pulled off one of the dead man's boots to see if it would fit him but finding it would not threw it aside. Then he robbed the body of Washington, securing $90 in bills and a watch. The murderer then went to the town of Perham where he bought a new suit of clothes and sold the watch.
Then he went on a grand spree, spent all his money in a week and finally after pawning his revolver engaged to work his passage down the Mississippi river on a steamboat when he was met on the street in Perham by Deputy Sheriff Butler who had been in pursuit of the murderer.
When asked his name he said it was Frank Ford, evidently wishing to identify himself with the James gang, his typical heroes. The deputy toot him into custody. Said he to Butler: "If I had a revolver I would like to see you arrest me." He remembered after he had been handcuffed that there was a bar of iron lying near where he was captured and regretted that he had not crushed in Butler's skull with it.
At Perham after having his portrait taken for the POLICE GAZETTE he was conducted to jail. The excitement in the town ran very high and finally came to a head at 1 a.m. on the 9th ult., when a crowd of 25 masked men broke in the doors and dragged the boy fiend from his cell. He was hauled roughly out into the street and dragged on his knees through the sand crying, "Don't take me away! This is hard, boys; oh, don't." He was hurried along by his merciless captors to the railroad track not far from the jail. A ladder was braced against a telegraph pole, the boy's neck was put in a noose and the ropes being run over the topmost rung was pulled by the mob until the wretch was hauled into the air crying with his last breath, "Go away! oh, go away!"
He choked to death and his agonies were horrible, but the fierce lynchers viewed them with satisfaction and after securing the end of the rope to the ladder, hurried away, leaving the body swinging in the breeze. The trains that came along the next day were all stopped to enable the passengers to get a good view of the horrid object on the improvised gibbet.
So ended the "boy hero of Red Eye," with his "life romance" in only its first chapter. What it might have been but for these marplot lynchers the wildest imagination may fall short in contecturing. But on the whole perhaps it's best that his "dime novel of real life" has been nipped in the bud.
One Thing and Another
Make a boy feel that a dime novel is vulgar. The flooding of the land with dime novels and with infamous periodicals of the cheaper and coarser kind acts like Circe's enchantment on wide circles of youth. No doubt it is a frequent incitement to crime, and on the whole, is one of the most monstrous of the undisguised evils in these modern days of cheap printing. Let a boy learn that some publications are not fit to be handled with the tongs. Let parents exclude from the family mansion the frogs and vipers that swarm forth from the oozy marshes of the Satanic press. Let the dull boy make the acquaintance of Cooper, Scott, Defoe, and Pilgrim's Progress -- a book by no means outgrown. Personally I must confess great indebtedness to the "Rollo" books, the "Jonas" books, and The Young Christian.
Pernicious Literature and Its Effects
The pernicious dime novels and other sensational and corrupting literature of the day are producing an immense crop of misery among thoughtless young persons all over the land. They read any amount of highly colored love stories and perverting literary trash, from which they imbibe false views of life and duty, and then, having their imaginations and passions excited, they rush into matrimony in haste, to repent at leisure. In one small town in Massachusetts, recently, on a single day, thirty applications for divorce were made -- many of them by young women not yet out of their teens, who had gone through the farce of getting married. The Judge of the Court was horrified, and declared that these applications for divorce, which had to be granted under the law, disclosed a state of things which appalled him, and caused him to despair of the future of the Commonwealth. On one day also, in a Boston Court, nineteen applications for divorce were filed, and of these ten were granted, while nine were continued to a further hearing. This state of things is the direct result of dime novels and sensational stories, which young people of the period devour as their chief intellectual food; and until parents exercise more supervision over the reading matter of their children the evil will not be remedied, but grow worse.
The Boy Bandit
Story of Young Baldschmieder, a Youth who Thirsted for Dime Novel Glory.
Adolf Baldschmieder, a slight boy of sixteen, but seeming two years younger, stood at the bar of the General Sessions on the 4th, charged with robbery in the first degree -- the old-fashioned highway robbery. Baldschnieder's red hair was dry and rough, and the lids of his pale gray eyes were reddened by sleeplessness and tears. His complexion was of a chalky pallor, but not from fright, for he glanced airily about him, as though proud of his conspicuousness. He wore a weather stained suit of gray jeans, and fingered a faded old felt hat that, having lost its band, was shapeless. He pleaded guilty, and Judge Sutherland sentenced him to state prison for eight years. Baldschmieder seemed unmoved. He turned away from the bar, and, with his head bent, as though mentally measuring his sentence, sauntered after the officer, who led the way to
THE PRISONERS' PEN.
"My father was a fresco painter, and a very kind man" -- this is the boy's story, though his own way of telling it must be translated -- "he died about three years ago, and my mother married Gustave Mott of 332 West Thirty-ninth street. I could not get along with my stepfather, and I went to live with an aunt at Third avenue and 139th street. A year ago I formed a taste for novels of border life. I determined to imitate the heroes of these stories, and I thought Texas would be the best place to begin in. I worked hard until, about three mouths ago, I had saved $73. I took cabin passage in the steamship City of Houston to Galveston. There I fell into the company of gamblers, among whom were Yankee Bill and Shorty. I managed to win a good deal of money. We went to Houston and San Antonio, gambling and spending money. Then we returned to Galveston, and I determined to return to this city. I had $300. I took passage in the steamship Rio Grande, paying $50. So, when I landed here, I had about $250. I lodged in the Bowery, took my meals in restaurants, and had a good time in loafing aboutUNTIL I HAD SPENT MY MONEY.
Then I got work in a grocery. On the 18th of May I met Ferdinand Froy and Fritz Wagner, old schoolmates of mine. I proposed that we should go shooting next day. When we were near Fleetwood Park I told Frey and Wagner of my purpose to take money to go back to Texas from the first man that seemed to be "well fixed" that came along. They sat down on the rocks in 171st street under some cherry trees, but I stood at the roadside. When Thomas Lynn came along I said: "Mister, what time is it?" He took out a fine gold watch and said, "Half-past two, my boy." Then I said, "How much money have you got about you?" I suppose that he suspected then that I meant no good, for he stepped down and picked up a stone. He had not raised it above his knee when I drew a revolver that I had bought the day before in a panwshop [sic], and fired at him. The ball lodged in a Russia leather pocketbook. He says so, at least. I don't know whether it did, you kuow, because I didn't feel it. I fired again, but Mr. Lynn says the bullet struck one of his suspender buckles and glanced off. He hallooed "Murder! murder!" and ran, but I fired at him again andTHE BULLET ENTERED HIS THIGH.
I would have fired again, but I heard men running toward us and so I took to my heels. Frey, Wagner, and I climbed over the rocks to a cave that I had fitted up with a kind of a bed and some cooking utensils. I told them to wait outside while I went in, and took off my Sunday clothes. I put on a rough old suit that I kept there, and then, having put away the revolver and hung up my Sunday suit, I walked down with Frey and Wagner to the city. I kept very close to my lodging house for several days, but then, seeing that my name was not mentioned in the newspapers in connection with the shooting of Mr. Lynn, I went out to look for work. On the evening of the 29th of May Frey asked me whether I would like to go up to the cave on Decoration Day to have a fine time and get my clothes. I told him I would not go unless we could go armed. He said he could get two of his father's batons -- his father had been a policeman. We went up to the cave, and were arrested on our return as we were crossing McComb's Dam Bridge."
The Boy Bandit
Reckless Career and Final Capture of
a Young Desperado who has been
the Hero of a Dime Novel.TERRE HAUTE, Ind., May 12. -- This afternoon intense excitement was created here by the gallantly effected capture of Ernest Whitehouse, the desperado known hereabouts as "the Bandit of the Wabash," of whom a dime novel has been written and a dramatic representation given at the theatre here and in adjoining towns. On the evening of June 8, last year, Whitehouee was arrested for store-breaking, and on the way to the station house he shot Deputy Sheriff John Cleary, inflicting two very dangerous wounds and succeeded in escaping. The affair created great excitement then. Parties searched for him for weeks in the Illinois swamps. He was often seen and many persons exchanged shots with him, but he finally escaped. Cleary, after a long illness, recovered, and the large rewards offered were withdrawn. The bandit's mother resides here and it has been known to our police that he was in the vicinity and often visiting the city. It was learned by them that he arrived here last Tuesday and all have kept close watch. This afternoon Chief of Police Stack was informed that Whitehouse was with two low characters, Kintz and Scherburne, playing cards in a wretched tenement occupied by Kintz. All three have served a term together in the prison
AND ARE A BAD LOT.
Stack, accompanied by Lieutenant Fasig, Marshal Buckingham, Deputy Marshal Vandeuer and Deputy Constable Cleary, immediately proceeded to the den, and, surrounding it, all entered it by three outside doors. Whitehouse rapidly drew two large six-shooters, and, springing at them, opened a fire on Cleary, inflicting two painful wounds in the leg and hand, and slightly wounded Chief Stack in the hand. Cleary shot him in the shoulder, a slight wound, and all closed in and disarmed him, and he is now in jail. He is about twenty-one years old, of medium build, dark complexion and a very desperate appearing person.Whitehouse tells the story of his flight with evident relish. He said : "After shooting Cleary last June I escaped from the crowd and ran to the south part of the town, where I remained all night in a barn. The next day I walked home in broad daylight and changed my clothes. I then walked to Darwin, where I crossed the Wabash into Illinois. The first man I encountered was a Darwin officer, who slipped up behind me and pinioned my arms. I stooped forward, put my pistol between my legs against his belly, and he let go of me. I made him throw up his hands and run ahead of me for a mile or more, when I let him go. The next day I took a horse from a barn near Darwin, which I rode all that day, moving north. I had no idea of the country, but kept moving on. I mounted a horse which I found hitched in front of a house north of Paris and pushed on to the southwest. When the horse was about played out I saw another hitched in front of a farm house. I turned my horse into the barn, which abutted on the road, and walked up to the horse standing in front of the house. As I did so two ladies came out of the house and smiled ardently, with the impression that I was
DOING THE GALLANT.
When they saw me mount, one of them begged me not to take the horse, as she was going after the doctor. I told her I was riding for my life, and referred her to the horse in the barn. I rode that horse until I found it necessary to take to the woods. When hungry I would enter a farm house, present my pistol, and demand something to eat. Once Officer Gibson, of Terre Haute, came on me and tired seven shots at me at easy range. None of them took effect. I could have killed him but did not want to. At last I reached the track of the Indianapolis and St. Louis railway, after six days of running, riding and creeping. At about 9 o'clock on the evening of June 14, I was walking west along the track when I met four men marching in single file. The foremost man throw his arms around me and we rolled in the ditch. I placed my pistol to his head and told him to release me or I would kill him. He released me and I got up, presented my pistol, and told them to clear out. Three of the men jumped the fence. The fourth showed fight and fired one shot. I returned the fire, when he followed the others. That was the last of my troubles. I cannot tell how I made my escape without giving some of my friends away. I have visited home several times during the past year. On this visit I have been in town four days. I had been watching for officers all day until ten minutes before they arrived, when I left the window and was sitting on the bed smoking a cigar. If I had not been surprised they would not have caught me."Whitehouse is of slight, wiry form, is five feet eight inches in height, has black hair, dark complexion, and gray eves. He possesses indomitable courage, is as fleet of foot as a deer, and has outstripped the officers in every chase of which he has been the object. Cleary, the victim of the shooting one year ago, was also the victim of to-day's encounter, and bears som[e] bullet marks as remembrance of the "Bandit of the Wabash."
The Result of Dime Novel Reading
A Massachusetts paper says: A local Illustration of the evil effect upon boys of the blood-and-thunder literature which is daily increasing both in quantity and trashiness is seen in a recent accident which befel a boy named La More. It has been stated in several papers that the severe scalp wound from which he is suffering was received while he was fooling with a revolver, but the real facts of the case are said to be as follows: La More and three boy friends were out walking in a field two or three weeks ago when it was suggested by one of the party that they have a game of cards. It appears that the boys had been lately reading The Blear-Eyed Blinker of the Tuscaloosa Range, or The Bloody Handed Demon of Dead Man's Gulch, or The One-Eyed Screamer of Assassination Hollow, or Slippery Sam's Sister, or other books of equally suggestive titles and edifying contents, for the game could not proceed until a solemn oath had been assumed by each boy that the strictest honesty and fair dealing was to be observed, and a loaded and cocked revolver had been placed on the ground between them. The revolver part of the business was absolutely necessary; it was explained by one who was posted upon the customs or California gamblers and border ruffians, and so the game was played "according to tho book," each impersonated adventurer sharply watching the motions of his opponents. La More was the winner, and one of the losers, slowly rising and pointing the revolver at the former's head, said, with all the tragic earnestness befitting the occasion, "Buckey, you cheated, curse you." The boy forgot that the revolver was cocked, pressed his finger too hard on the trigger, a sharp report followed, and La More fell to the ground with the side of his head furrowed by the bullet. One inch nearer and the bullet would have entered his brain.
Modern Fiction
Fiction has in all ages and in all countries been made the means of giving to the world the sentiments of the wit, the moralist and the sage. The evil influence of fictitious writings when the services of the writer are enlisted against the cause of virtue and of truth, have been so marked, that many thoughtful persons have been inclined to interdict all works of the imagination, at least for the young. Would it not be wiser, now, to give our energies to the separation of the tares from the wheat, rather than to ignore the whole abundant harvest for fear of the evil seed? There is no question in regard to the fact that the purest truths of spiritual religion, the highest morality and the best practical maxims for the conduct of life, have found expression by means of the ever welcome story-teller.
The Greek fabulist could just as readily have reminded his fellow citizens of the folly of arrogance and of the wisdom of patience in plain language, but he well knew that the lesson concealed beneath an amusing allegory, would be ten-fold more attractive and have a far more enduring place in human thought. Who to day would have heard of the existence of the Grecian Æsop, the Phrygian philosopher, if his "reflections and maxims" had not been handed forth to mankind as the practical experiences of bird and beast of mount and streamlet.
As the traveler of to-day stands upon the slopes of Olivet, overlooking Jerusalem, he is reminded of the wise Teacher who loved these pathways and rocky rests, and who was wont to linger in the high places with the child-like men who loved him, and believed in his divine mission, instructing and enlightening them with simple illustrative parable, drawn from the familiar experiences of their daily lives. A simple enunciation of truth might have been forgotten, but not so the tender story of parental love, of the watchful shepherd giving his life for the sheep, of the faithful sower scattering good seed in trustful hope, of the merchantman seeking the goodly pearls and of the enemy sowing tares among the wheat.
Having the example of the blessed Teacher of Nazareth, we hardly need apologize for the modern writer who holds the mirror up to nature; by means of the imagination points out the tendency of folly and of crime, presents analysis of character and motive, or seeks by appeals addressed to the emotions and the conscience, by means of fiction, to overturn great wrongs.
But the evils which follow an unguarded indulgence in reading the sensational and unwholesome fictitious publications which find too frequently their way into the hands of the young, must be steadily kept in view.
James T. Fields, of Boston, in a recent lecture before the students of Swarthmore College, described a conversation he had lately held with the Pomeroy lad, now under sentence of death for several murders. "Are you fond of reading?" said Fields to the young criminal. "Yes; very," replied the boy. "What kind of books have you read?" "Novels." "What sort of novels?" "The dime novels; and I like the kind that tell all about murders, and have colored pictures." "Do you think," inquired the visitor, "that the books you have read had anything to do with leading you to the crimes for which you are condemned to die?" "I have no doubt of it," answered the miserable boy; and the learned and accomplished man turned away, doubtless more firmly fixed than ever in his feelings of indignation against the impure and exciting publications that are diffusing a moral pestilence in the lower strata of society in our country. What can our legislators do to rid us of this great evil?
The lecturer then paid a just tribute of praise to some of the best story writers of the present day, and drew an instructive contrast between them and the tedious and immoral novelists of the 17th century. It is a good sign of the times that these writers no longer find readers, for the age is past when obscene wit and degrading references to woman can find admirers. Has the high place taken by women in the literature of our day had anything to do with its purification?
J.T. Fields ventured to encourage the youth at Swarthmore to make themselves acquainted, from time to time, with what was noblest and best in the imaginative literature of the day, while presenting most forcibly the evil effects of the moral and mental poison which finds its way to the people through the lower sensational school. So great is the responsibility involved in separating the evil from the good, and so just is the apprehension of the thoughtful and conscientious friends of youth, lest seeds of evil may be hidden among the harmless or the positively good in works of fiction, that we cannot wonder so many have deemed it best that "novels," properly so called, shall be entirely interdicted. Even those who have been willing to give larger liberty, must see the need of critical scrutiny, and of a scrutiny more and more rigorous as the field of literature is opened to the young. There is nothing in the religious profession of the Society of Friends, nor in the rules they have adopted for their moral government, which would preclude the enjoyment of any good, where the reason is sufficiently enlightened to discern light from darkness, and over the family and the school library, mature and really enlightened minds should keep faithful watch and ward.
What Do You Read?
Father Chase, an eminent divine and founder of churches in the state of New York, used to say: "Show me the books or papers the children read, and I will tell you the kind of men and women they will make." Although his dust has long since mingled with that of mother earth, his words and sentiments still live and the proof may be seen every day. When Cataline attempted to overthrow the liberties of Rome, he began to cultivate a taste, among the young people of the city, for reading the history of deeds of daring and crime. In this he acted with keen discernment, for when one reads of such things the ideas are in accordance with them, and the hairbreadth escapes, atrocious murders, &c, and they long for the opportunity to present itself when they, too, may participate in some act like those so vividly portrayed. Jesse Pomeroy, the boy murderer, has confessed to having read sixty dime novels! Behold the result. Miss Higgie, the notorious murderess, who deliberately poisoned her parents in Philadelphia, used to spend the most of her time in reading the yellow-covered trash. The other day we saw a small boy, not over twelve years of age, sitting between two large boxes, so intently reading a dime novel that it was necessary to speak to him several times to attract his attention, and when he did so it was with a nervous start which showed that his mind was already deeply affected. Again, later in the day, our attention was called to a pair of boys who who were sitting under our window, both devouring the contents of dime novels; and so wrapped were they in the stories, that a crowd of half a dozen standing near, talking loudly, failed to attract their attention. Again, when we had returned home from our day's work, in the evening, a twelve year old boy, an employee of the house, was reading aloud from a Beadle, with the thrilling title of: Old Grizzly, the Bear Tamer, and his audience, three other boys, their hands, in imagination, clinching with the deadly knife or trusty rifle, and peering between the window, beyond the houses, trying to discover the feather bedecked head of the Sioux Indian, or to see ambling towards them a Rocky Mountain Grizzly. The next day the reader was arrested for theft!
On the person of young Beard, the boy who murdered the peddler, was found six dime novels. A sixteen-year-old boy, armed with a revolver, bowie knife, and six dime novels.
And the alarming extent to which this vile reading is carried, we learn from one of our exchanges that there is not less than four hundred dime novels retailed every month in towns of less than twelve thousand inhabitants. Many parents it is true, oppose the reading of them, but the opposition is so weak that it is almost entirely disregarded by the children. Again, other parents have no objection, and permit their children to read them openly in the family circle at the fireside, as much as though they were masterpieces of rhetoric and historical composition. Hundreds of boys are arrested every month in this city, who have saved enough of their hard earned money to buy a revolver, and started west to trap and hunt Indians after the style of "Long Armed Ike," "Grizzly Pete," "Big Joe the Trapper," or any of those notorious characters whose deeds of daring are so vividly portrayed in the novels in which they are made the brave heroes.
While one may decry the danger, it is difficult to prescribe a remedy, unless the parents and teachers will use extraordinary efforts to keep these books from the children.
The heroes which are represented in these stories, are generally the outcasts or scum of society, and gain their notoriety by deeds of recklessness, that while it may sound grand to a young boy or girl, when viewed in the light of sober reason, is nothing but crime and brutality. And it is by a series of bold robberies and thefts that they ultimately become rich and powerful; right here is where the whole danger lies, by the young mind striving to imitate the example set by them. Any one who reads of such bloody scenes are treading upon dangerous ground, and are all the while forming a taste for such a life, for during the reading of any book or story, a process of assimilation will be going on, and as the reader advances step by step with the hero, he finally reaches, what is to him, the very acme of earthly bliss, thus far he has dwelled in a region of chimera. Then, when the story is finished, the reader must descend to the sober scenes of real life, when every thing appears too commonplace, and a longing for the exciting chase, the contested Indian fight or hair breadth escapes of the outlaw. These heroes are dressed in fine clothes, and have unlimited supplies of money, while the characters, (if any there be), which are worthy of imitation are in rags and poverty; the former are educated and intelligent; the latter, boorish and ignorant. Reader, let this class of reading alone, there are plenty of good books and newspapers, the reading of which will make you useful members of society; an honor to your acquaintances, and will aim to form you for duty and usefulness, for holiness and God.
What Are We Going to do About It?
That is, about Pernicious Literature. Its very existence is unknown to many of our readers; its extent is hardly dreamed of by any. There lies before us, as we write, a letter from one of the leading railroad men of this country. And this is what he says about it:
"I cannot use too strong language to express the mortification I feel at tbe fact that upon every road that I happen to be connected with, unless perhaps the C. & P., not only the vilest trash is sold as reading matter, but also positively licentious and infamous illustrated papers and books are thrust upon passengers, young and old, male and female. I am perfectly aware that the R. R. authorities take what they regard to be the best plan to control the character of reading matter sold by authorized agencies on their cars -- but I am equally aware that, come about as it may, the fact remains that the worst possible stuff continues to be sold in spite of all the rules, regulations, schedules of works on sale, and general orders to the contrary."This does not in the least exaggerate this monstrous evil, albeit upon certain railroads, since this letter was written, something considerable has been done effectually to check it. But for the most part, this indescribable literature is omnipresent. It is flaunted in our faces on the street corners, thrust under our eyes in the rail-cars, insidiously offered to our innocent children by companions less guileless than themselves, brought into our houses wrapped round packages from the shoemakers, the tailors, the grocers. It is like the miasma in a miasmatic country --there is no building of the house tight enough to exclude it. It is like the poison that lurks in the air is cholera times; we imbibe it, our children imbibe it, and the first intimation we have of its presence is the disease it generates. In milder, subtler, but not less dangerous forms it creeps into books that bear the imprint of respectable publishers, and journals whose name gives them unsuspected currency everywhere. It is sometimes mawkish, sometimes morbid, sometimes sensational, sometimes covertly, sometimes openly vicious. It distorts life, depraves the imagination, portrays passion for love, paints hideous crime in fascinating if not attractive garb, and in its very mildest form destroys all desire for healthful food by creating an appetite for the intoxication of sentimentalism. Even the Sabbath School library is not free from this form of it, and many a pupil is taught to read the dime novel by the dollar and a quarter novelette that his Sabbath School furnishes him for his Sunday reading.
What are we going to do about it?
We are glad that the Young Men's Christian Associations, in their International Convention held last week at Poughkeepsie, have indicated a purpose to take hold of this matter. There are no organizations better fitted for this work; there is no work which needs more to be done. An impression has been produced in certain quarters that these associations have outlived their first and best stage of usefulness, and have come into that in which their energies are absorbed in taking care of themselves. They cannot do more to correct this impression and justify their claim to the confidence and support of the churches than by concentrating the rising public sentiment on this subject, and giving it both direction and force.
They can indirectly exert an influence both for the enactment and enforcement of wise laws for the repression of pernicious literature in its worst forms. During the past twelve months, owing-largely to influences which a few associations have exerted, laws have been passed on this subject, both by the General Government and by several of the States and nearly a hundred of the worst dealers in the worst literature have been arrested, and either convicted or are awaiting trial.
They can do more by direct, moral, personal influence. In Orange, N. J., Syracuse, N. Y., Cleveland, Ohio, and other points, committees from these associations, either officially appointed or self-constituted, have waited on the newsdealers and requested them to discontinue the sale of the lower class of illustrated and story papers -- and always with success. When the request did not accomplish their object, a threatened prosecution under the law has done so.
They can do still more by calling the attention of the community to an evil which is tolerated only because it is unknown. They can bring it to the attention of Christian pastors, Christian teachers, and, above all, Christian parents. There are dangers in unwise agitation; there are greater dangers in silence.
But none of our readers need wait for the action of associations in this matter. The Board of Health is needed to abate the pest-house. But; surely every parent can guard his own children from the contagion of disease, and every citizen can at least avoid, consciously or unconsciously, aiding to develop it.
Take heed what ye hear, said Christ. In the days of the printing-press he would say, Take heed what ye read.
Heroes of the Imagination.
In the Observer of September 12th, I notice an article on Boyish Adventures, written in denunciation of the sensational novels with which the market is flooded, and to dissuade boys from attempting, the role of Heroes, after the pattern of "Wildcat Bill," or "Buffalo Bill," or "Wild Bill," or any other Bill who wins notoriety by butchering his fellow-men and leading a wild, reckless, wicked life.
There is opportunity enough in every life of twenty-five years' duration to manifest the hero spirit and to act the role in all sincerity and honesty; but the attempt to make heroes in an offhand style, by running away from home and braving the dangers and hardships of'the frontier, is a very silly notion, the very antipodes of the heroic; and the one who leaves civilization with such an idea and such a purpose, does by his very act prove himself unequal to the heroic life amongst his fellows.
The cheapest kind of a reputation and most contemptible is that won by deeds of wickedness and blood. And yet how many there are who see only the gilt and show of hair-breadth escapes, and utterly forget their price and their consequences!
To point a cheap tale, a desperado is tricked out in gaudy trappings of furs and jingling spurs, "with belt of the wild deer's skin, nicely tanned and ornamented with beads by a favorite squaw, about him, from which hang two silver-mounted Colt's revolvers, instruments of unerring death in the hands of our hero," &c, with long hair hanging in curls about his brawny yet symmetrical shoulders, and all such stuff. But this is the hero in his stage costume. I have seen many of them -- Wild Bill, Dangerous Jake, Left-handed Jim, and others less prominent in the bloody field of quack honor. I have seen them in town, when their clothes shone fresh from the tailor's, and their external persons were clean, from the bath,, and perfumed with "new-mown hay;" their constant companions the revolver and bowie hanging by their side. I have seen them on the prairies, dirty and ragged and destitute; but whether in the city or on the plains, the same foul tongue and blasphemous they carried with them, the same nervous manner and restless eye, and the same quick resort to the revolver to settle all differences. The life of this sort of a hero is falsely told in the "paper covers" -- the dime novels now so largely in circulation; it is like painting the bright spots of the adder, with the adder left out. There is a deformed and gloomy side to all of these pictures of heroes, and there is generally a terrible death after a wretched, hazardous life; or, in the words of one of themselves: "The man who lives a hard life generally, dies with his boots on;" or, in the words of Holy Writ: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."
Without doubt, there is a healthy excitement and a bounding delight in a hunting excursion on the prairies where buffalo, deer and antelope is the game, or in the wild woods after the grizzly bear, as any of us can testify who have tried it. But of all dreary lives, that of a half-trapper, half-desperado, is without parallel: the nearest approach to it being the life of a soldier in garrison in time of peace. Marco Polo was a hero; but, according to the dime novels, not half so much of one as The Knight of the Blue Mountain.
The explorer, Livingstone, is a hero to brave the dangers of Central Africa in the cause of science, but how insignificant he and his exploits seem by the side of one of these painted heroes who are decked in all the fair attributes of humanity and perform the most incredible deeds of valor and of glory with the same sang-froid that they drink a glass of strychnine whiskey.
Paul du Chaillu is quite beneath our notice when "the avenger on the trail of blood" claims our attention, and Capt. Lindley's exploits in South Africa sink into the merest common-place.
The amount of it is this, these writers of cheap fiction seize upon some adventurer who has by association with other monstrous story-tellers imbibed the spirit and drank deep of the well of lying; and they make use of his stories for the truths they write. The lives of their bloody heroes never were known except in the fertile brain of one of these chief storytellers.
Why don't they tell of their gambling, theft and debauchery? Why don't they tell of their viciousness and blasphemy? Why don't they write the true story of their abandoned lives? Because sin must be covered; the tinselled robe must be thrown over the deformity of a bad life to make sale for the book.
The moral consciousness of the people rouses itself enough to demand the covering for vice. Now be it the province of the true journalist to tear away the covering and expose vice in all his distorted features.
One cannot say that there is not a grain of truth in these sensational stories, for there is, -- just about a grain -- but the most palpable truth in the life of one of these heroes is not the neat, trim buckskin breeches, "the coat of deerskin, worked with beads, and the coonskin cap" -- these are myths on the plains, they are realities only in ths licentious halls of the "fandango," in Mexico, or in the "ballroom" of the "States." But the truth is, a pair of greasy, black pants, held at the girdle by the pistol belt, a filthy woolen shirt, an old, wide-brimmed, slouch hat, full of holes, and a pair of heavy, cowhide boots, enveloping and clothing a sallow, hard-fisted, hard-faced man, with matted, tangled hair, combed only "when be goes to the "settlements;" a walking tobacco-chewer; a clean, smooth, exact rifle-shot his only commendable accomplishment, unless we reckon lying, petty larceny, gambling, swearing, drinking, chewing and "filthy communications," accomplishments. Let the writers of the ten-cent literature add this part to the character of their heroes, let them paint a true picture, and then let us see how many infatuated youth will leave the Christian home of their father to engage in "hairbreadth 'scapes" and frontier life. The poetry is all in the recital, the prose (plain prose) is in the life itself.
Boyish Adventures.
Not long ago, three boys, aged from eleven to fourteen years, had gotten their heads filled with romantic notions of starting out into the world to seek some bold adventure on the Plains. Having perused some of the "Dime Novels" which are filled with sensational stories, they imagined that each one was to exceed Robinson Crusoe, and become heroes in the eyes of their associates, as they returned again to recount their wonderful, hair-breadth escapes among wild Indians and the bears and wolves of the Rocky Mountains. Having provided themselves with a fowling-piece, ammunition and a knapsack each, and a small sum of money, they stealthily left their homes for the prairies of Illinois. They were not to accept of any hospitable entertainment, even to a lodging in-doors, in order to inure themselves to hardship and fatigue.
Three or four days, during which their anxious parents were scouring the country in search of the runaways, sufficed to cool their ardor, and one night in the woods came near frightening them to death, as the screech-owl startled them with its unearthly cry. Then arose the sudden recollection of mother's cupboard, while their sandwiches had become stale, and no tea or coffee br warm milk was at hand to wash them down. It is needless to add that a council of war was held, and a retreat was ordered, which brought them home in short order, by the nearest train of cars, much to the mortification of the romantic youth, whose scoldings from anxious fathers and mothers were soon forgotten in the embraces of sisters and brothers who gathered round the adventurers to see if their hair had not been lifted by the savages, or their bodies torn by wild beasts during their very long absence from home and neglect of lessons at school.
A similar case occurred at Philadelphia not long since, and now the papers are printing a card calling for information in regard to a boy who left his father's house in Brooklyn in the same manner, induced by the reading of sensational stories to start out for himself and try a life of adventure on his own book.
Is there no remedy for these things? Not always. The story of Robinson Crusoe has stimulated the love of adventure in many a boy's mind, but there is nothing at all of an unhappy nature in this, the greatest known of any similar work for youth the world has ever seen. But De Foe has been out-Heroded by a multitude of scribblers who write fabulous accounts of such men as "Buffalo Bill;" "Belden, the White Chief," &c.; when, if the truth was written and printed of some of these heroes (?) an American youth would blush for shame at the miserable, low life they have led to the mortification and disgrace of parents and relatives.
Parents too often give little or no oversight to what their boys read. Naturally, they are glad to know that their sons have a taste for reading, and encourage this desire, as it is laudable and far better than seeking excitement in the streets and in doubtful places of amusement. But nothing can excuse the frequent lack of free intercourse between father and son, beyond that of mere table-talk, often had in the hurry of busy engagements. Get the confidence of your boys, for if you do not, they will make confidants of others, and often have most unhealthy advice from persons whose business is to lead them astray. A boy's nature is generally confiding, but some parents are afraid their dignity will be compromised by too familiar intercourse, and they trust that their boys will find out many things, just as they did when children. And yet how often has the writer looked back with saddened heart at the period of his childhood, when he feared his father almost too much to love him.
Some well-informed person might do a world of good by publishing a carefully selected list of Boy's Books for a Library; not merely goody books for goody boys, but sound, sterling, wholesome books, which would leave a healthy impression on the minds of our future Legislators, Governors aud Presidents.
The Mystery Solved.
A Methodist minister in the United Stites, who was quaint in his manner, had a son who was attending a public school. Though by no means deficient in natural ability, this son returned from school a few months since with a scholarship below the average.
"Well," said the father, "you've fallen behind this month, have you?"
"Yes, sir."
"How did that happen?"
"Don't know, sir."
The father knew if the son did not. He had observed a number of dime novels scattered about the house, but had not thought it worth while to say any thing till a fitting opportunity should offer itself. A basket of apples stood upon the floor, and he said,
"Empty out those apples and take the basket, and bring it to me half full ot chips."
Suspecting nothing, the son obeyed. "And now," he continued, "put those apples back in the basket." When half the apples were replaced, the son said,
"Father, they roll off. I can't put in any more."
"Put 'em in! put 'em in, I tell you!"
"But, father, I can't put them in."
"Put them in! No, of course you can't put them in! Do you expect to fill a basket half full of chips, and then fill it with apples? You said you didn't know why you fell behind at school, and I will tell you. Your mind is like that basket. It will not hold more than so much. And here you've been the past month filling it with chip-dirt -- dime novels!"
The boy turned on his heel, whistled, and said, "Whew! I see the point." Not a dime novel has been seen in the house from that day to this.
A Youthful Band of Robbers.
A PARTY OF BOYS RESIDE IN A CAVE FOR A
NUMBER OF DAYS, IN IMITATION OF BRIGANDS.The pernicious effect upon childiren of reading dime novels, and other literature of the yellow cover variety, says a Cleveland paper, has recently been illustrated by an occurrence in this city. A number of young boys, on Perry street and vicinity, have been in the habit of reading these trashy works, to an unusual extant. One of them has expended twelve or fifteen dollars in the purchase of those dime novels, during the past summer, and his companions have been but little behind him. These novels are all of the extremely sensational character, and belong to the most superficial of their class. The exploits of burglars, of highwaymen, of smugglers, of murderers, of pirates, and of every other blood-thirsty character known to fact and fiction, make up the material of the dime novel to a great extent.
The boys of which we speak had gorged themselves with this class of reading so long, that they had contracted a morbid desire for adventure, which took a practical shape about two weeks ago. At that time five or six of them -- the oldest fourteen years old, the youngest ten -- organized themselves into a "band of robbers," with a capital of forty dollars to begin business with. They proceeded to a wild cavern, near Bedford, which they had selected for their base of operations -- from which they could commit depredations upon the surrounding country. This would enable them to become practical Dick Turpins and Jack Shepards, about whom they had read in the dime novels. They lived in the cave a number of days, and during that time they were busy with all sorts of mischief. At last their parents found out their strange hiding place, and took them home.
The depredations of the "gang" were by no means confined to their residence in the cave, but had taken place before that event, and have been committed since. Several of them have been caught in the act of burglariously entering houses. The youngest of the party has recently been away from his almost distracted parents for an entire week, and it was not until one of the "gang" had been bribed to disclose his hiding place, that the little fellow was recovered.
Dime Literature.
Some curious statistics have just been given respecting a class of literature, which, though rarely meeting the eye of ordinary book-buyers, has been stimulated into astonishingly rapid growth by the military events of the day, and now proffers to thousands in the tedium of camp and garrison life, etc., the only accessible means of mental culture. We allude to the "Dime Books" started by an enterprising firm in the year 1859. The distinguishing feature of the series was the price of each, ten cents, or a dime, from whence they take their name. They already amount to several hundred separate publications, and circulate, especially in the armies of the United States, to an extent perfectly unprecedented. Up to April 1st of this year, an aggregate of five millions of Messrs. Beadle it Co.'s "Dime Books" have been put in circulation, of which at least half were novels, nearly a third song-books, and the remainder hand-books, biographies, etc. Over 350,000 copies of the Dime Song-Book, No. 1, have been sold. The Dime National Tax Law has reached a circulation of more than 200,000 copies. The first edition of the dime novel Seth Jones, by E. S. Ellis, was 600,000 copies. It is satisfactory to learn, as a recent critic in the North American assures us from actual examination, that the dime literature is unexceptionally moral, and contains nothing that can even remotely pander to vice, whatever fault may be found with the literary style and composition; and it is a striking fact that the best books on the list are those that meet with the most steady and constant demand, so that the publisher is encouraged to raise the standard of merit, and discard gradually the poorer books -- replacing them by works of real excellence.
Bad Boys and Good Books.
Several instances of picturesque youthful depravity, retailed with the inevitable wealth of circumstance in the public prints, have recently shocked some millions of good Americans -- all the more because there existed no excuse of moral handicap from hopelessly vicious surroundings or unfortunate parentage. The most serious of these escapades was the wrecking of a New York Central train at Rome, where two lives were lost, and many more would have been sacrificed had it not been for the unusually excellent construction of the cars and their methods of equipment as to lighting and heating, which prevented the frightful disaster of fire. It was the proud exploit of four boys, their leader only sixteen years of age. This pleasing youth was found, after the dénouement, with a hammer strapped to his wrist, to be used, he explained, in forcing the wrecked passengers to give up their valuables. It is an agreeable thought that the fit punishment for such precocious things may be delegated to expert criminologists. But the average decent citizen, interested in the common cause of this and other, only less shameful, incidents, is again impressed with the news that the perennial dime novel fired the imaginations of these boys and led them to become ghastly murderers and robbers in the midst of their teens. The passengers on the wrecked train will scarcely be in a mood, during the remainder of their lives, to assume the customary jocular attitude toward the youngster in throes over his hoarded penny dreadful.
Nor is it difficult to appreciate the righteous indignation expressed in the leading articles of serious-minded editors who find such a strong text for inveighing against all stories of adventure. And yet, without a word of apology for that vast output of juvenile print which can be swiftly classified into the mischievous and the inane -- and with every respect for the subtlety of the distinctions which must be drawn in achieving the literary salvation of ones son -- every lover of Scott, of Cooper, and of Stevenson will put in a word here for this same story of adventure. Nor will it need to be defended in spite of its moral effect, but chiefly because of it. Every generous, high-spirited boy who has the habit of reading is going to find out for himself stories where men do mighty things in the primitive, manlike way, and blessed be his lot if it is Jim Hawkins's brig he ships on, or Alan's round-house he fights in, no matter how many gory murders and consummate rascals come into the voyage. Even in such a complex character as Attwater, in The Ebb-tide, the artist leaves his reader, be he boy or man, with the most unequivocal loathing for the moral ugliness in that excellent rifle-shot. No boy could close his eyes on The Wrecker, with its chamber of horrors, without a strengthened hatred of dishonor and villany. It would be, of course, an impertinence to defend Cooper and Sir Walter, though they are not, in their residual effect, a whit more antipodal to contaminating influence than is the Tusitala. And the great point is, that if the chance is lost to hear these noble story-tellers and men in their celebrations of the deeds that he loves, the ingenious youngster is in a fair way to provide himself secretly with the chronicles of the Jesse James gang, idly told, from a brutally unreal point of view. The lesson of the boy robbers and wreckers, so far as it has a bearing on literature, is surely that the world has too many worthless stories of adventure and too few good ones -- not that lively young fellows should be forbidden the delight of those finely thrilling tales by the masters of romance. It is a step farther to Dumas père, and perhaps not a safe one for all; but who can picture a hopelessly bad fellow reading The Three Musketeers, or a healthy one suffering from the friendship of Athos?
Tarry at Home Travel.
And here is Music Hall. Yes, it is the same place we were in when they had the school convention which I remember two or three years ago. And here is our audience, mostly, as you see, from the Providence schools.
I must tell you a good story about what they call the Fort Point School. The master, Mr. Sawin, a man of excellent sense, was in the habit, when the boys had done well of a morning, of letting them shut up their books while he read aloud to them something which would interest them. This is the sort of prize to offer to boys. And on the particular morning when this story begins, he read them something which was very attractive. He had the tact of Scheherezade, and left off just where the story was the most intense, but said to them that if they worked well the next morning, he would read to them again. Accordingly, the school was at its best the next morning; everything ran smoothly, recitations were rapidly disposed of, and the hour for reading came. Mr. Sawin bade them put away their books, and took out a dime novel which he had confiscated a few days before, from some boy who was reading it at the wrong hour. He began to read from the dime novel. The school naturally expressed its indignation; this was not what they wanted; they wanted the end of the other story. No, said Mr. Sawin, this is your own book; this is the book which such a boy had brought to school and was reading behind the desk. If this is what you want, you shall have it, and to the indignation of the others the dime novel was read until school was done. I will not swear that Mr. Sawin read it with his best elocution; that, as the English lady said, was a matter between him and his God. What is certain is that the school was indignant at the substitution. Then Mr. Sawin addressed them seriously. He said, "I am always telling you that you read very poor books when you choose them for yourselves. You see that I know what is interesting reading better than you do." And beginning on this text he made those boys join in a union, which was bound for a certain period of time to read what he suggested, and to read nothing else. Perhaps I can get him to write a letter to the NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE to tell what has been the result of this union and how far it has gone.
Vampire Literature.
Not long ago a very fashionably-attired young woman called at the office of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and asked to see the writer. She wanted to know if it was against the law to publish a "spicy" book. I looked at her in amazement, as she was young, of slight form and very intelligent appearance, when, with perfect sang froid, she informed me that she was an actress and had written a "peculiar book," which she unblushingly described, to bring her name prominently before the public. She had taken her manuscript to a publisher, who, after looking it over, had advised her to submit it to our society. She then inquired if I would promise not to touch the book if she could secure a publisher for it.
Being informed that such a book would surely be seized if published, she wished to know if she could not pay us not to attack the book if published as she had prepared it! Pains were taken to inform her of the various decisions of the courts of England and this country, and she was advised, with great minuteness, of the law and its bearings upon such publications. Receiving a very emphatic negative to her delicate proposition that she should pay some money not to have her book attacked, she next asked whether, if she should change the book so as to make it conform to the law, we would not "attack it just a little," and seize a few copies if she paid us for doing so, so as to attract attention to her book and get the newspapers to notice it. This proposition brought only another disappointment to her hopes. She said she did not care about any odium from publishing the book; the only thing she was anxious about was that we should promise not to arrest her, as she did not want to be arrested and locked up.
It was suggested to her that she had better submit her manuscript for examination. She said that she would, only she was afraid it was so bad that we would destroy it. We assured her that if her manuscript was of a doubtful character we would submit it to the district attorney for his opinion, and be bound by that opinion. She finally left, expressiug sorrow and regret that she had come to our office, as now she would not dare publish her book, as she had set her heart upon doing.
It was both sad aud ludicrous to hear this fair young woman pleading to be allowed to publish her obscene book in order to advertise her name and lift it into prominence before the public. Her motives as avowed are typical of a certain class of modern writers who place the sensuous products of their minds before the public for fame and pay. Money and a large advertisement of their names before the public as authors are all the reward that many writers ask for prostituting their genius and talents to base purposes. There seem to be a criminal indifference and recklessness on the part of many writers and publishers as to what results flow from the dissemination of their leprous products.
The first thing after an author has written a book of questionable character is to secure some reputable publisher or bookseller to handle and push it. The next step towards the realization of his desire for fame and gain is to have the book roundly attacked because of its lustful tendencies, by the daily and weekly papers and periodicals. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice long ago learned that to attack a book or paper, and not carry through the prosecution to success in the courts, was to secure a quasi-indorsement by the courts and a large amount of free advertising for the offensive matter. Our plan has always been to discover the author and publisher, and secretly strike a blow at the fountain-head by seizing the publication and plates and arresting the publisher and author.
The care taken by the society in the preparation of cases may be illustrated by the results for the past three years. During 1888, of 103 cases brought to trial 101 were convicted. In 1889, out of 127 cases brought to trial 125 were convicted; while during 1890 we had 155 convictions out of 156 cases. This record speaks well for our district attorneys, as well as for the preparation of these cases.
Again, this society has always aimed to reach authors and publishers, and not merely venders. This is illustrated by the fact that out of 227 different books published in this country, the stereotypes and electroplates, woodcuts and steel and copper-plate engravings for printing and illustrating 225 have been seized and destroyed; while the plates for the other two books were destroyed by the publisher for fear we would secure them and prosecute him.
It is both lamentable and disheartening, just as the New York Society for the Supression of Vice has practically suppressed the grosser books and pictures which for years have cursed this country, that we should have an epidemic of lewdness through the channels of light literature. There is at present a strong competition among writers and publishers of cheap books and papers to see which one can excel the others in unclean stories.
The object and ambition of many writers seem to be to show how they can evade the law and yet publish stories of a suggestive and criminal character. The basest representatives of profligacy and unhallowed living are made the subjects for leading characters in many novels published at the present day. Many news-stands are no longer either safe or respectable places for children and youth to visit or purchase books at. Many of the publications are of such a character that they are sufficient when seen in the hands of any girl to blast her good name and reputation. A respectable person scarcely knows what novel to select from the numerous products offered by the newsdealers, and many books publicly offered for sale no decent person would be seen carrying in his or her hands upon a public conveyance.
There are two things of immense importance to be considered in this connection. The first is the class to be affected and the results of this kind of devil seed-sowing; the second, the kindred vices that are preying upon the youth of to-day.
As to the first, nearly one-third of the entire people of the United States are twenty-one years of age or under. This means that upwards of twenty millions of youth and children are in the plastic or receptive state, open to every insidious teacher, and subject to every bad influence -- a period of life when character is forming and is most easily moulded.
Nor must we forget that the children of to-day are not only to be the men and women of to-morrow, but also the parents of a still more future generation. This nation's highest interests today centre in these millions of youth and children. Religion and morality are the only safe foundations for a nation's future prosperity and security. Any other foundations will crumble before the encroachments of vicious propensities and criminal avarice. By cursing the youth of to-day we heavily discount the prosperity of the future of this nation, and endanger the permanency of our national institutions. These writers and publishers are conspirators against the nations highest hopes for the future.
Such authors may coin money from their publications; they may attain popular positions before the public; but as sure as the night follows the day, so sure must this nation's harvest from this seed-sowing of popularized nastiness be corrupt lives and blotches upon the face of society. These authors may evade the laws of the land, but they cannot evade the natural consequences that are sure to flow from the dissemination of their vile publications.
"Oh, but," some author says, "my story always has a moral!" What does the boy care for a moral after his mind has been engrossed, his imagination fired, and his passions aroused by some florid description of the precincts of sin, or of the loose conduct of the vile principal characters? What boy or girl stops to read the moral of a sensational story of bloodshed, lust, or crime?
The worst blow that can be dealt such a book is silent contempt. Why notice such a book at all? Why not send it back to the author or publisher? Is not the sending of a dirty book for favorable notice an insult to decency, and to the one to whom it is sent? A good man named McDowell, before our day as a society, undertook to suppress obscene publications by denouncing the authors, disclosing the methods of trading in such matters, and describing how such books were advertised, and how they were kept hidden or stored away by those dealing in them. This served the vendors of filth as one of the very best means of advertising that could have been employed.
There are various other sources of danger to the youth of this country to which it is proper to call attention before passing to the laws and decisions of the courts affecting this kind of literature.
The secular press, by the sickening details of loathsome and reeking crimes, is invading our homes with matters which blast the finer sensibilities and spread the pestilential seeds of crime and vice. Distilled from the daily papers, come the weekly illustrated papers of crime, which flaunt their degrading influences from news-stands and shop windows, to the detriment of the morals of our boys and girls.
Other subtile [sic] influences are also exerted. The tendency to scoff at religion, to rail at moral reform; the practice of emphasizing infidel and blasphemous lectures and subjects by full reports; and the advertisements of "personal" and "quack" medical notices and books, all are exerting a silent influence in the wrong direction. While they destroy respect for holy things, they breed also a disregard for those higher and nobler qualities of mind which make for good.
Then, again, we have the boy-and-girl story papers, the "nickel" and "dime novels", and so-called "monthly libraries" of cheap literature. Many of these are revealers of criminal secrets, instructors in the science of crime. Crime is glorified. The leading character in many of these stories is a criminal, who succeeds in winning a fortune for himself by setting at defiance the laws of the land. Morality and virtue are treated as things to be despised, while reckless living is made the means of rapid transit from poverty to affluence.
Better that our youth be taken by their parents into the sinks of iniquity and dens of vice, and their finer sensibilities shocked by the realities of crime, than that their fancies shall be taught fantastic scenes from these sensational and vivid descriptions of the purliens of sin and shame.
Our newspapers are constantly filled with accounts of the victims of "dime novels" or "blood-and-thunder" story papers. To show something of the enormous amount of this kind of criminal literature, we may cite the fact that six tons weight of books and plates was seized by this society in a single office of one of these criminal story-paper publishers.
It was not long ago that, in Westchester County, three lads, crazed by these stories of crime, under a fourteen-year-old leader, presented a loaded revolver at the head of a gentleman upon the public street and demanded "your money or your life".
A few years ago we arrested a young man at Newburg, N. Y., who, hearing that the officers of the law were after him, had armed himself with a bowie knife. When asked what he had that for, he replied: "I heard you were after me, and so I fixed myself." The next day he and his young associate, after being locked up in a cell over night, confessed that they were victims of these boy-and-girl story papers. Both had been expelled from an institution of learning for insubordination and disorder.
A youth in one of our Western States, under fourteen years of age, was recently hung by a mob of citizens for having, in his mad craze to be famous like the boys in the stories he had been reading, shot three men.
A few months ago a lad about thirteen was arraigned in the Tombs Police Court, in New York, for shooting a boy about his own age. The evidence disclosed the fact that some boys had been gambling; that a dispute arose over a pencil, during which one of the boys told this young desperado that he "lied"; where-upon, after the manner of the hero of a story, the young gambler arose from his seat at the gaming-table, drew his revolver, say ing, "Johnnie, that's got to be wiped out with blood," and shot his little companion down.
The newspapers recently contained an account of a gang of boys, all under fourteen, who had bound themselves together under solemn pledge and oath as a band of bandits, and in solemn conclave an order had been issued that each boy should slay his own mother. One young lad started to practise on a servant girl before attacking his mother and was arrested for assault, and the details of the conspiracy were thus discovered.
Many a boy or youth has been led to commit crimes which have brought him to the penitentiary or the State's prison, from the infection or seduction of this class of crime-breeding publications.
There is still another class of books which are to-day appearing in great numbers, comparatively speaking, which reflect no honor on those who make them a source of personal profit and gain. Many publishers seem to have searched the archives of foreign libraries for erotic books, classics, standard literature, suppressed editions of notoriously vile writers of old, and these are translated, or obscene selections taken from them, and bound up in cheap sensational shape, and placed in indiscriminate circulation with a wanton desire to make money from the sale thereof, utterly regardless of the degrading effect of the matter thus reduced from literary purposes to sensational circulation.
Garbage smells none the less rank and offensive because deposited in a marble fount or a gold or silver urn. So these foul stories and unclean tales of ancient writers find no justification in the moral world simply because clothed in smooth verse or choice rhetoric. Decaying matter breeds disease, whether confined in costly receptacles or ash-barrels. So this wretched tainted matter, stolen from ancient writers, which is made to appeal to the depraved taste, is equally deadly in its polluting effects; indeed, it is in some respects worse, for coarse words shock and disgust, while the smooth flow of genius and talent thus prostituted more easily deludes and captivates the fancy and engages attention.
Some years ago a book-dealer on Broadway undertook to publish a cheap edition of a grossly obscene book, which in the original tongue was and is regarded as a text-book of pure Italian of the fourteenth century. To make it still more sensational, he added certain engravings, and then advertised and sold it at a cheap price. The sale of this publication was stopped by this society.
There is a mistaken idea, which largely prevails, that anything, no matter how corrupting and indecent it may be, which appears in classical or standard literature, may be disseminated indiscriminately. Classical and standard literature is designed for literary men and for literary purposes. When of an obscene nature, such books are properly restricted in every well-regulated public library, and should be kept from general circulation and confined to literary purposes, precisely the same as standard medical works, containing anatomical plates, are restricted in their sale to physicians and medical students.
These cheap, garbled translations, with additional matter added to quicken the sale, are of no earthly value to any literary or professional person ; they are "quack" literary publications, and are of no importance except to promote the greed for gain of the man who publishes them in this form. There is no sound principle to justify the parading of such ancient indecencies in literature before the rising generation; and the book-seller, whether on Broadway, Fifth Avenue, Fourteenth or Twenty-third Street, or in the lowest slums of the city, should be dealt with like any other dealer in disreputable and immoral works. To call these cheap, garbled translations "classics," and to make no distinction between the original and these bastard publications, is an insult to modern intelligence.
Again, medical books, with plates showing the anatomy of the human body, are misappropriated to illustrate pamphlets which are made the advertising medium of some quack medical institution or quack doctor; these last, sent out indiscriminately through the mails of the United States, going into the homes of the land in unsealed packages, liable to be opened by any class in the community, are an outrage upon the family and an insult to every person to whom they are sent.
It seems strange that men of intelligence and literary culture should fail to make the distinction between legitimate classical, standard literature, or medical works restricted to their proper and legitimate purposes, and these cheap and garbled publications and translations when sold indiscriminately and in such a way as to be liable to fall under the notice and attention of those for whom such publications are neither fitted nor designed. The popular idea concerning this class of books, no matter how vile or how indiscriminately circulated, is that the vender or publisher cannot be interfered with by the law. Such is not the law, however.
Another popular delusion is that, if a writer claims not to intend to harm others, he cannot be interfered with; that an artist may set up for himself a certain ideal or standard of morality; that he may undertake to expose vice, and by so doing may make pictures that are shocking to modesty and offensive to decency, but that as long as his motive is commendable his pictures cannot be condemned. Again, it is maintained that, if it does not appear that the motive or intent of the vender or writer of a book is bad, then the matter is not to be considered in any other light than as intended by the writer or vender thereof. Many good lawyers have contended in court that we must show the guilty intent of the person accused in order to make out a case of "selling an obscene book or picture."
It seems exceedingly fitting just at this time, when there are so many of these cheap novels and abortive attempts at reproducing translations from standard and other literary works, that we should consider not only the effects of this sensual matter upon the twenty millions of youth in this country, but also the legal principles which govern this very important subject.
Classical, standard, literary, and medical works are all indictable if sold in such a manner as to reach and corrupt the young and inexperienced. The principles of common law which have prevailed for more than a century and a half are tersely laid down in a celebrated case decided in 1727 in the King's Bench Court in England, in Rex vs. Curl, to wit:
"Peace includes good order and government, and that peace may be broken in many instances without an actual force, to wit:
I. If it be an act against the constitution and civil government.
II. If it be against religion.
III. If it be against morality."This principle was affirmed in 1815 in the great leading case of Commonwealth vs. Sharpless et al. in Pennsylvania, the defendant being indicted for exhibiting an obscene work of art, a painting, -- where it was again held that
"what tended to corrupt society is a breach of the peace, and punishable by indictment . . . Hence it follows that any offence may be punished, if in its nature and by its example it tends to the corruption of morals, although it be not committed in public." (2 Serg. & Rawle 102.)These principles have been affirmed and reaffirmed for more than a century and a half by all the higher courts in England and America.
The leading case against the sale of obscene books in this centnry is that of the Queen vs. Hicklin, tried in Queen's Bench Court, England, before Lord Chief-Justice Cockburn and a full bench, in 1867. Hicklin was charged with the sale of a book which the prosecution admitted and conceded was written in the interest of the Protestant religion, and sold by Hicklin from a good motive, to expose, as he claimed, the errors of the Roman Catholic Church concerning the evils of the confessional. Hicklin made no profit, but sold the book at cost, as a member of an anti-Romanist society. Mr. Kydd, a learned barrister, appeared for Hicklin. He did what many a lawyer in this country has attempted to do -- offered the substance of other and standard works as justification, on the ground that the matter under indictment was not worse than matters existing in other works which are tolerated. The Lord Chief-Justice said:
"I think the test of obscenity is this: whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall."This test of obscenity has been adopted and affirmed in every case of importance tried since upon both continents, until it is now the settled test for a jury. It was a few years afterwards applied in this country in the most celebrated case ever tried in the United States courts regarding the sending of obscene matters through the mail. Judge Benedict, in charging the jury, after citing the above test, added:
"Now, gentlemen, I have given you the test; it is not a question of whether it would corrupt the morals, tend to deprave your minds or the minds of every person; it is a question whether it tends to deprave the minds of those open to such influences, and into whose hands a puhlication of this character might come. It is within the law if it would suggest impure and libidinous thoughts in the young and inexperienced." (U. S. vs. Bennett.)There is also a unanimity in the decisions of the conrts in England and the United States upon the impropriety and unlawfulness of offering for indiscriminate circulation in popular form medical, standard, and literary works where they contain matters relating to sexual organs, or stories replete with lewd, indecent, and obscene suggestions. These decisions need to be emphasized at the present time. Many publishers are reckless, and doubtless ignorant of them. Says the United States Court in Illinois:
"Illustrated pamphlets, consisting partially of extracts from standard works on medicine and surgery, but of an obscene and indecent character, and intended for general circulation, are within section 3893 R. S. of U. S." (U.S. vs. Cheeseman, 19 Fed. R. 495.)This is the section prohibiting obscene matters from being transmitted by mail.
The Court of Appeals in the Müller case confirms and affirms the same principle by saying:
"We do not