Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1880-02-25
4 GREATHTIL.


Yellow covers have ceased to be a
mark by which the literature of slang,
vice and crime can be selected or iden.
tilted The publishers of that kind Of
reading have grown too shrewd to dec.
crate their tales and tragedies with a
badge whose meaning the most un.
practiced eye could discover. They
have hauled down the yellow standard,
which like the flag OF n hospital, be.
tokened the ioalness and decay that
lay beneath its folds, aud have substi-
tuted colors as various as the hues Of
the rainbow and, sometimes, as somber
as the small clothes Of George Fox.
But we fear tho reformation in popu-
lar literature is confined almost cAolu.
sively TO the face it presents to the
public. The novels which borrow
their interest from crime the thrilling
biographies Of highway men and buc.
cancers tho ma'nnirs Of young ladies
or dazzling beauty, eriiuit tast.s, ....d
defective morals the prison refec.
tions of eminent murderers who zest.
fully detail the incidents Of butchery
and burst into frenzy Of pious zeal and
Christian hope in the same breath, are
as plentiful as ever and not whit less
poisonous and prurient in modern
brown or drab than when they smiled
at us in yellow. The sale of this kind
of literature is immense-iar greater
than that OF the better sort. Silently,
steadily, and with irresistible power,
it does its work on minds which the
pages OF religion and good counsel
never reach. 1t is everywhere. Book
stalls are covered with il. IL is thrust
into your hands in the cars. 1t is car
red about from house to house and
sold at such a cheap rate that many
well-meaning poor people gather little
libraries of it. School boys study it
by stealth between recitations and hide
it in their desks under artfnlly con.
structed piles of grammars and geog.
raphies, They know It and love it
better than their lessons and dream
OF it, in spite of themselves, when they
would fain iasten their attention on
the blackboard or the globes. II be.
guiles the leisure of the prize fighter
II lies worn and dog.eared on the
counters of low drinking shops 1t
stimulates the burglar, the thief, the
assassin, with the potent excitement
of illustrious example. In short it
does more TO educate the multitude
for lives of crmo than all the other
literature of the land does TO elevate
them TO lives of virtue.
But there is another and more
portentous kind Of sensation writing
than this 1t shuns the coarse picto.
rial novel and murderers' biography.
1t comes to us in the fair type and
clean pages Of cheap magazines and
misnamed literary weekies. 1t often.
times assumes the guise Of fiction, but
the garb Is better, its tailoring more
artistic than the soiled and shabby
raiment of the Ned Buntline novel.
The objection to this species of compo.
ation is not that it is positively injuri.
GUS to the morals of the people who
read 1t as that it induces sad waste
of time. Its real oilense-and il is no
light one--is that II degrades The TASTE
OF the multitude in letters; that il pop
ularizes false and affected style of
writing; that it makes meretricious
and extravagant paragraphs the stand
ard by which thousands measure the
value OF what they read 1t would be
an ungracious task, and, moreover, a
very laborious one, to set down the
names of the vast body of publications
which daily illustrate the trnth of
what we say. Everybody who reads
these lines will have score Of them
in his memory. The only cure of the
evil lies in endeavoring in every posi-
bic way TO elevate the standard Of lit
erary taste among the masses, and to
strive to induce the people in every
class of lie to seek the best models for
their instruction and amusement. This
is, alter all, the only remedy, for as
long as there is public demand for
highly.seasoned literature the supply
will be unlimited Baltimore Gazette.