The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1881-11-25
PERNICIOUs LITERATURE.
How Depraved M~n Are POllating Our
Children.
philadelphia Evening Builetin.l

philadelphia Evening Bnlletin.l
The tariff of Canada contains one pro-
hibitory clause against certain articles oil
American manufacture which both free
traders and protectionists in this country
will agree in commencing. 1t is directed
against the flash illustrated weekly pa
pers which are published in the United
States. The law declares that these
publications shall not be permitted TO
enter the Dominion when the new adj
ministration came into power, it issued,
in the following terms, fresh instructions
to the collectors, to enforce the law
"You are requested to use the greatest
care in preventing the importation and
sale of such immoral and indecent publ
cations as names and similar papers.
1t is not necessary for you to wait for
special notice of any publication by
name, from this department, but is your
duty to exercise your own judgment as
to what may be properly classed under
the prohibitory clause of the tariff. In
spite of the law and this injunction,
however, the publications in question
are to some extent struggled into the
dominion. The men who print such pa
pers have devilish ingenuity and per-
sistence in thrusting them upon the
market just as other American publishers
of obscene literature, forbidden by our
law, have in reaching customers among
our people. But in Canada the news
dealers who expose the flash journals for
sale do so at the risk of having the whole
stock confiscated, because they are
obviously smuggled goods.
Thus, in one respect at least, the
Canadians have the advantage over the
people who live upon this side of the
line. The sheets which Canada has, for
good and sufficient reasons, outlawed,
are sold in this country by hundreds of
thousands without any kind of restric-
ton. They are found upon nearly all
the news stands, they flare in shop win
dows, where their vile pictures are
studied by boys and girls, and they are
eagerly bought by children, to whom
they bring corruption and depravity that
are simply horrible to think of. The
draughtsmen who prepare the pictures
exercise great dexterity in keeping just
within the boundaries of the law. They
go just as far as they dare go in repre-
senting uncleanness; but there is more
In the class of subjects selected by them,
in the scenes depicted, i'll the suggestive
ness of the drawings, than in the actual
violation of the requirements of decency
The manifest purpose is to appeal
directly to, and excite, the basest pas
sions and this is done, not only by the
pictures, but by the letter press which
deals almost wholly with crime, and
especially with the forms of crime i'll
which lust is the motive. Grown people
are aware that this kind of literature,
and this kind of pictorial art is a deadly
poison to the morals of the young. 1t
brings them face to face with forms of
evil of which they ought to know nothing
until they have the strength of character
which will enable them to resist tempta-
tons if they will. 1t gives them glimpses
of conditions of life which are ordinarily
hidden from the public eye, and con-
corning which the lips of decent people
are sealed. OF what use is it that a pure
young girl should have these horrors
withheld her at home and among her
playmates, if she can look upon them
twenty times day as she walks along
the street? OF what profit is it that
boy is watched closely by anxious parents,
who would keep his mind from this kind
of faint, if he can absorb the poison
from any one of a dozen shop windows
which he passes on his way to and from
school? There is actually greater reason
to fear the evil consequences of these
Haunted publications than there is to
dread those of the utterly vile things
that are circulated by stealth.
Society ought to be able to protect it.
self from this evil. The privileges of
free press are not so sacred as the purity
of children. But press may be free
and its freedom maintained without
giving license to the men who desire to
abuse it to pour streams of filth into the
minds of the young.