The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1876-03-03
FIDGETY FIcTIoNs S.
BY APoTH f. CARY.


Some with morals pointing up to the Skies
Some with tales pointing contrawise;
Gotten up in every conceivable guise.
Thrilling the senses and dazzling the eyes;
Lies, lies, stereotyped lies.
Twenty-eight Centennials ago wise
man said: "Of making many books there
is no end" and the everlasting truth ol
that creamy remark is as fresh and sweet
to-day as when it was first worked over.
Those old-time people had a way of laying
down their brain-churnings SO they would
keep without getting rancid and frowy.
How fitting, how peculiarly appropriate,
that lies published i'll book form should
first be submitted for the approving smile
of our Representatives at Washington.
Whenever we pick up q novel we always
look to see if it bears this doubtful recon-
mend" entered according to an act of
Congress, land il it does cur mind settles
down prepared for most anything in the
way of horizontal, perpendicular, horrible,
fantastic, picturesque, or solid lying.
The world would be better off if there
were fewe- books published. The litera-
ture of the day is too much inflated with
nerve-jingling, night-walking, ghost haunt
ing romance. THIS dragging youthful
minds over imaginary prairies to follow the
" 1njun-killing adventures of Ear
Chewing Bill, the Blood blister, or sending
them out on a free-booting sea-voyage in
company with Pok-marked Pete, the
Purple Pirate, is all wrong. The impress
sions made by such lies are deep and last
ing, leading to bad thoughts, wicked asso-
Citations, and evil-habits.
And then there are too many hypochon-
driac 1ove-stories booked. This fact must
be apparent to the attentive reader, unless
he be an orphan without a parent. Love
gizzard-twisting love is the burden of most
novels; some of them have such an indi-
gestible load of it that they are dyspeptic
and sickening. Love is all right, and we
would rather be in love than in lawsuit
any time. and we would rather have q
gushing, susceptible heart than the best
dry-goods store in the Tropic of Capricorn;
but this unwholesome bread-poultice kind
of love, dished up with literary spoon
that makes the lover u walking idiot asy
lunn, and keeps him tearing his hair and
sitting up nights (for they never get
wink of sleep) month in and month out, is
too much. AS the little boy remarked
about the castor-oil, "A little of it goes
good way; it's SO lubricating."
Then there are some writer's who suffer
their minds to roam over the highways and
by ways of mental pfevarication unrestrain-
ed. Such an author, seemingly, has no
of conscience. He will visit
some quiet, peaceful home, take an only
son by the coat collar. and lead him step by
step down the slippery staircase of sin till
his mothers heart is broken and he lodged
in the penitentiary. Then he will get some
mean, depraved villain to betray the only
daughter, and leave her to life of shame
and suicidal DEATH After that he will
mortgage, turn the old man out
OF doors, and make a poor, miserable
drunkard of him. Then he will carry the
heart broken mother to the lunatic asylum,
all these disreputable imagina-
tions, and call it a frst-class book. The
author of such story ought to dosed full
of nitro-glycerine and have life insurance
agent kick him.
We were never much given to blood
curdling romance. While we have control
of our mental faculties, we sasdcsa da net mean
a. lea aisssfee rs ey associasng
who loaf around the bar-rooms of fancy
and get dead-headed into most works of
fiction. No! we can find mean enough
people right in our immediate neighbor-
hood, without raking over the filthy cutters
of a morbid imagination for them. When
we write novels instead of scattering our
heroes and sheroes all up with inky dis
grace, we load them down with virtues till
they look like hump-backed cherubims, and
sarah-phims. We make the girls stay at
home and the boys clerk in dry-goods
stores, until they are all decently old
enough to fall in love; and then, after put
ting on the domestic handouts, we Danish
fine simpletons to the Van Dieman's Land
of miscellaneous misery, where they live
about as comfortable as their mother-irl-
laws will let them.
So when you run across one of our Gen.
tennial love stories 1--WE write one every
hundredth Year, you will observe, if you
have your eyesight with you, that it is
bound in calf, or something equally as
binding, and commences something after
this manner: Within large stones throw
of N. Y, which stands for 'Niquity, lives
a woman whose given names are Jane
Prior: one name was given her when she
was christened and the other when she was
married. Her husband calls her Jane
Before; he says prior and before mear. about
the same thing and she was Jane before he
married her. She is q woman who looks
upon the duties of home with a lovely pair
Of near-sighted blue eyes. Jane calls her
husband George in private and Mister Be
fore company.
When you catch all of his name together
it reads Mr.. George w. Prior. The w
stands for Washington, his parents naming
him after the capital of eur commonwealth.
Washington is the place where all Of our
commonwealth goes, and those Congress
men use it common enough after it gets
there. Prior is retail merchant, and pre-
tends to sell more unbleached muslin for a
hundred cents than you can buy elsewhere
for a dollar He is II member of the Pres
byterian Board of Underwriters, keeps in
sured against fire, and has his shirts but
toned on the back.
Hatchet Vernon Prior and Martha Cen
tennial Prior are the two coupons attached
to Mr. and Mrs, Before's connubial bond.
The boy was named Hatehet Vernon, be-
cause the g Father" of Z. Pluribus Ununl
began his career with a hatchet and closed
it at Vernon. The girl writes her name
Matte c., is near-sighted like her mother,
and the whole family will go to see the
fifteen hundred thousand dollar Centennial
at Philadelphia, unless Barnum buys the
thing and brings it around to the country
towns. Marth:,'s face is freckled, but she
is a good girl, full of moral excellencies
high browed ideas, and soul-radiating affec-
ton. That's the way all girls read wher
YOU read about them.
This thought relative to the goodsome
ness of girls is one of the characteristic
features of our novels; we spread it ont Sc
that it covers the entire territory from ths
winsomeness of feminine babyhood to tht
garrulous chinsomeness of grandmother
hood. Then, after we get all through witt
the weddings, and everybody in the bool
is settled with an income about tWic'
Vanderbilt's, we break off with a stimula
ting moral like this:
Girls, be true! be honest, ana you
To tho altar come day VIII be carried:
And then you can work
For a red d-headea clerk,