The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1878-02-28
What Oar Bows are Readfng.

Prof. Summer, of Yale, has been ex-
amining the fish story so widely read by
boys, and in Scribner for March gives
some earnest words of warning to parents
accompanied by specimens of types de-
scribed in the stories. Here is one
Another type of hero very common in
these stories is the city youth, son of
rich father, who does not give his son as
much pocket money as the latter con-
siders suitable. This constitutes stingi-
ness on the fathers part, although it
that these young men drink champagne
every day, treat the crowd generally
when they drink, and play billiards
for 800 a game. The father, in this
class of stories, is represented as secretly
vicious and ALPHABETICALLY piOus. In
the specimen OIL this class before US the
young man is " discovered in the police
court as a prisoner, whence he is re-
manded to the Tombs. He has been
arrested for collaring big policeman TO
prevent him from overtaking a girl
charged with pocket-picking. He inter
fered because he judged from the girls
face that she was innocent, and it is
suggested, for future development in the
story, that she was running az ay from
insult, and that the cry of step
thief" was to get help from the police
and others to seize her. The hero
who is the son of man worth five
milliens, and who is in prison under an
assumed name, now sends for his father
clerk and demands 81 900, saying that
otherwise he will declare his real name
and disgrace his family. He gets the
money. He then sends for a notorious
Tombs lawyer, to whom he gives $500.
L L L.,
cured. He then starts with his cousin
to initiate the latter into life in New
York. They go to the thieves college,
where they see a young fellow graduate.
His part consists in taking things from
the pockets of hanging figure, to the
garments of which bells are attached,
without causing the bells to ring Of
this full-page illustration is given.
The two young men go up the Bowery
to beer saloon, where the hero sustains
his character by his vulgar familiarity
with the girl walters. Next, they hear
row in a side street. They find
crowd collected watching a
woman who hangs from a third
story window, while her drunken
husband beats and cuts her hands to
make her fall. The hero solves this sit
uation by drawing his revolver and
shooting the man. AS he and his COM
panion withdraw unobserved, the former
wards off the compliments OF the latter
by saying modestly that he could not
bear to stand there and see such crowd
looking on, and not knowing what to do,
SO he just did the proper thing. Next
day the hero, meeting the thieves
college graduate in the corridor of the
Fifth Avenue hotel, agrees to receive
and hold for him any booty he may
seize in the bar-room, which he does.
At night he and his friend go to dis
reputable masked ball, where the hero
recognizes his father In disguise amongst
the dancers. Securing place in the
same set, during pause in the dance, he
snatches the mask from his own face and
his fathers at the same moment. This
edifying incident is enforced by full
page illustration. A friend suggests the
question, ''What demon of truthfulness
makes the artist put such brutal and
vulgar faces on the men p In this class
OF stories, fathers and sons are repre-
sented as natural enemies, and the true
position for the son is that of suspicion
and armed peace.