Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-07-03
POISONING THE YOUTH.
How Criminals, Coarse Men and Hoodlums
ara Made

pictures and forcing the sale of demoraliziDg
months back file of police fash paper and
could find nothing particularly offensive in it.
Either his standard of decency is marvel
ously low, or else he searched a paper Of
which no one else has knowledge. Now it is
bad enough when the daily press is forced to
publish the cold news record of the horrible
| happenings in the world. 1t is Infamous
when journals are published solely to give a
gloss and glamour to the same, and excite the
imagination and poison the fancy of the
| developing mind OF youth. A journal of the
| class referred to, police paper, one Of the
| kind in which the news-dealer referred to
could find no harm, and one of the very kind
sold by him, and one of the latest date, was
taken up and these illustration were found In
| it, among others too offensive to name. Pa
rents may from the titles alone be enabled to
| form some idea of the matter paraded before
| the eyes of their children on the public
streets. OF illustrations these were noted.
| tOnly the desire to awaken attention to an
alarming evil warrants even this reference to
| them.
One of the demi-monde of Paris swinging,
ffteen.sixteenths naked, in hammock.
Three men struggling for a lady's garter
| dropped on the street.
A naked bather in trap.
Two women fighting in hack in funeral
procession.
A half nude trspeze woman throwing her.
self headlong from the mid-air bar upon a
rival who sits beside the lover of the former
in the parquet.
Six indecent pictures of women and men
bathing at the seaside.
An modal " 40 -,
the studio.
Portrait of bagnio proprietoress.
A scene in low melodeon.
Two lovers.
In the same paper appear articles of which
the least indecent and offensive may be thus
indicated the articles, be it remembered, are
all presented in the manner that gives its
peculiar character to what is termed tracy"
writing:
How gay girls and boys and kept women
go to the seaside.
Account of WIFE butcherer's life.
Strange career OF the daughter of wealthy
Philadelphia.
Honeymoon hotel clerks.
A boy thug.
The adultery of Georgiana and Alexander.
Love and larceny.
Hiding her shame.
Without nuptial ceremony.
Blackmail by women.
Scandal in high life.
A guilty pair.
Knights of the garter.
Tragic end of a liaisop.
Wounded affections.
"I'm Bad Man"
Forbidden subjects now freely exhibited.
Winning the affections Of a MAYORS wife,
Marital misery.
Lifting the cover Of scandal.
Sleeping car deviltry.
Marriage of white girl and a negro al.
ready married.
Severing a seducer's ear.
Perhaps parents think such papers do not
fall into the hands of their boys and girls.
Inquiry on that head will awaken them to the
truth. But this kind of fash journals, sold
so freely in this city, bad as they are, are per.
haps less injurious in the long run to youths
than the miserable cheap story papers and
trashy novels. These can hardly be reached
by the law, as it is. This kind of literature
it is that leads boys to abandon home, to rebel
against parental restraint, and tempts girls
into the path of shame. The sale of these
demoralizing sheets is very large, and seven
tentEs of the thousands Of copies sold here
weekly are purchased by boys and girls,
young men and young women. Frequently
the newsdealers scatter through the city free
numbers of these papers, to induce the read.
ing of the ultra romantic and unnatural
continued tales. Another crying evil is the
exhibition of indecent photographs. One
dealer for months has occupied, with show
case, part of the sidewalk for the special dis
play of the most lewd and disgustiugly Of
fensive photographic pictures.
The Penal Code of this State provides:
Every person who willfully and lewdly writes
poses, stereotypes, prints. publishes SELLS dis
tributes, keeps for SALE exhibits any obscene or
indecent writing paper, or book or designs copies,
draws, engraves paints, or otherwise prepares any
obscene or indecent figure; or writes, eomposes or
publishes any notice or advertisement OF any such
writing, paper, book, picture, print, or figure: is
guilty OF misdemesnor.
Section ST3 provides for the seizing and de-
struction of such prints and publications.. 1t
would seem. therefore, that the law is suffi-
cient to correct in part the evil complained
of, and that the only difficulty is to determine
what is obscene and indecent" Ii Courts,
juries and parents think that the prints and
publications will tend to cultivate modesty
ard purity OF thought, and to restrain evil
desires and promote the innocence, chastity
and virtue Of their children, then the papers
designated are not obscene. If the prints
will not cause a modest girl or woman to
blush ; if father can take them to his chill.
dren as proper subj ects for their examination
if they will not excite vicious or lewd
thoughts, then they are not indecent and
the dealers who sell them are not violating
the law of the land. Sensible people will
probably find it difficult to distinguish be-
tween the man who, by word of mouth leads
youths in such ways as render them callous to
that which should shock and repeI, and the
man who accomplishes the same end through
the medium of vicious journals. In this day
there is vast amount of pure, wholesome
and cheap literature for children, and there
is no excuse for their being possessed of any
other kind. The feeling in this city on this
subject is intensifying and is receiving
strong impstus from the efforts of Comstock
and his adherents in New York city in their
labors to suppress vice. The good work of
Sunday schools and children's aid societies,
and all other organizations for the proper
moral training of youth, is nulli6ed to far
greater extent than the public suppose. by the
things complained of, and the situation re.
minds one of the allegory in 1.-THE Pilgrims
Progress" where stalwaIt man in vain
dashes water upon FIRE to extinguish it, and
fails to zee the oil that is poured in at the
tack and constantly replerishes the flame.
The whole matter resolves itself into this
proposition II the exhibition and sale of in
decent and obscene prints can be, by State
law or municipal ordinance, stopped, then
the demand for this vicious matter will de.
cline, because the public taste will be ele-
waited and purified; therefore the ssls and
exposure complained of should be prohibited.
CAPITAL CHIPS