The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1879-03-28
Effects Of Novel Reading.
Tasf,ufn Clohe

TORONTO NloDe
We do not agree with those who contend
that novels are usually psrnicious in their
effects. We believe that the taste for SOL
i'd reading is very often due to the hunger
for information which has been stimulated
by novel reading and We quite agree with
Thackeray that all healthy literary appe-
tites relish novels as children relish sweets.
Some novels are trash, just as some histo-
ries, some poems and some works ON science
are but no one wants history, poetry OF
science to be banished from the Libraries.
It should not be forgotten that the Me-
chanics' Institutes have other objects than
the instruction Of the public they are in-
tended to furnish people with the means
for enjoying leisure cheaply as well as with
the means of improving it. The young
men and women who lose themselves in
the pages of the novelist, at least are doing
no harm while so engaged, and there are
few modern novels which convey any but
good lessons, or stimulate their readers to
other than noble efforts. Many q man has
been led to the higher life by such works
as ssJohn Halifax" Vanity Fair " has
warned clever women like Becky, fools like
Amelia, and stupid good fellows like Dob
bins against the temptations of the World
81 Co. Scott has done more to make the
people realize that the Crusaders, knights.
men-at-arms, Stark moss troops, and gen.
tie ladies of feudalism were once really
aIlye-eating, drinking aad subject to the
gicsssltudes of daily life like ourselves
than all the historians Of the language.
and George Eliot, teaching to-day the inf
mite complexity of life, causes MS to feel
pity for the sinner destroyer very often ON
the side of his virtues by the consequence
OF set of acts, the first of which was
hardly wrong, though its logical result is
the destruction which overtakes him.
Will any one assert that the tendencies OF
Dickens novels are immoral, or those Of
Anthony Trollope, Charles Reade or MISS
Thackeray, or indeed any Of the works Of
the most popular wrieers of fiction ?
Ouida certainly sometimes does forget TO
mete out due punishment to her faseina-
ting rogues, but in real life the bad boy Of
ten escapes drowning when be goes swim
ming on Sunday, and once In . while it is
not aispIeasing to see the good natured
scamp OF fiction be allowed to return and
be all that is noble forever after.
-.-4ss-. ----------
, 4
LIFE IN LIGHTHOUSE. "a grim story
of life in lighthouse comes from the Bur-
NAH coast aud is printed ID the Rangoon
Times. A telegram having announced
that tho light on the Algnada Reef was
not visible, stsamsr was dispatched 70 as
certain the cause. The captain on landing
discovered two Of the men in tiie light
house dead, while third was lying in .
precarioua state. The keeper stated that
signals, such as z T want Immediate help, "
and & man dying, Z bad been exhibited Dy
him for about twenty days. Az last re-
sort, MI his signals haying failed 70 attract
attention, 10 darkened the Lights on the
Baascin side, feeling certasn That thar this
step would not fail III attracting attention
% theliahehcuss. And 20. With the dead
and dying, be watched fof RELIEF, which
cams at last.