The Portland daily press., 1872-03-27

Poison, from a mental narcotic to rank
moral virus, is pushed before the public at ev-
cry hand where we have right to expect
that the careful eye of the State would permit
no snare to be set for the unsuspecting or the
inexperienced. Wherever people most con-
gregate, at the street corners, in hotels, in
public conveyances, worthless and corrupt
ing literature is spread entcingy to the view.
In the form of the Weekly Moonshine, the
ten cent dreadful, and even under the garb of
religious instruction, this banefll literature
insinuates itself into three-fourths of our
homes and is there doing its work; not per-
haps in poisoning the minds of the young but
enervating and making them incapable of any
mental effort. 1t is to this class of reading,
injudiciously termed eight that society
owes its thousands of vapid and senseless
young men and women; innocent perhaps,
but that innocence that comes from mem
tai imbecility little better than idiocy. In
his time good DR.. Watts said:
''Satan trembles when he Sees
Inc weakest saint upon his knees"
but had the pious hymn maker been prophet
as well as psalmist, and thus been able to fore
see how prominent place worthless and ener-
waiting, if not positively bad, literature would
occupy in Sunday school and other libraries
OF that character, he would have had grounds
to conclude that the Adversary of souls had
little cause to tremble so long as he was en-
trusted with making religious books
1t is urged that this class of reading is not
injurious. 1t may not be directly; but it is a
well-known fact that field left untitled will
not only become barren and incapable of pro-
ducing useful vegetation but sour and
readily nourishes rank and noxious weeds.
So with vapid literature. 1t not only
units the reader for an appreciation
OF the good, but puts the mind into that
barren and unnatural state that makes it
crave books that are positively bad.
Consequently the young person that begins
with the "Moonshine" and the dime novel
gradually finds his way down the scale of vic
ious literature to the half dollar horribles,
concocted by whiskey inspired Bohemians to
assuage the cravings of an empty stomach.
We need not dwell upon the character of
these works. Written by libertines, every
tractive than virtue; all proper authority is
made odious; morality is sneered at as hypoc-
rlsy and villainy is clothed in the attractive
garb of charity. Yet this literature is found
on the shelves of dealers who are good men.
We know of men whose consciences are so
awake to a certain kind of evil that they
would not sell pack of playing cards but at
the same time display for sale and sell to
mere boys the most diabolical of fifty cent
novels. Of course they do not comprehend
the enormity of such a course.
There is still another class that it is hardly
necessary to refer to-the shameless pictori-
ais which from their source in the reeking
slums of New York, pour their fostering cor
ruption all over the country. There is a law
on our statute book Furnishing the sale of OBJ
scene publications, but law without an awak-
ened public sentiment to give it vitality, is of
no effect.
We do not make objection to works of fic-
ton, by any means. Some of our most valu-
able, instructive and useful books are novels,
and in fact, great part of the most effective
advancement of the good and rebuke of the
bad of late years has been made by this class
OF works. But we do protest against the
great flood of sensational novels which is
thrown over the length and breadth of the
land, effecting sort of intellectual debauch-
cry which cannot be too much deplored.
The remedy for this evil is indeed to be
found in supplanting the base and unnatural
literature with that of healthy and vigorous
character