The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-10-27
Crime.Inciting Story Papers.

Reference has already many times
been made in these columns to the de-
moralizing effect of what used to be
styled "yellow-covered literature ex-
erted on the minds of youthful readers.
The old dime novel has been replaced in
these days by a cheap weekly story
paper, and the average novel itself,
which was in its ancient form believed to
have reached the very lowest notch in
the scale of sensationalism and vice, has
gone still lower as its form has taken on
this new phase, until now its baneful ef-
fects are still more hideous than when
the yellow cover was its Haunting sign.
The deplorable influence of this sort
or scurvy literature has recently been
strikingly exemplified in this State.
Two young boys, aged respectively four
teen and sixteen years, sons of respecta-
BILE parents, became engaged in quar-
rel about girl while going to church.
Angry words were exchanged, and sud-
denly, without warning, one of the boys
took a knife from his pocket and stabbed
the other, killing him instantly. Subse-
quent investigation developed the fact
that both of these boys had been adj
dicted to reading every week a great
quantity of this trashy literature, in
which Just such scenes as they them
selves finally enacted were of frequent
occurrence. Doubtless every number of
the weekly publications so eagerly de.
voured by these young boys was filled
with sensations equally startling with
the one which they at last enacted. Long
mental familiarity with such deeds OF
violence had made them ready for the
reality. That familiarity breeds con-
tempt is as true in such matter as this
as in any other. There can be no posi-.
BILE doubt that reading such fiction, in
which horrid scenes of violence are de-
scribed, and looking at their accompany
ing illustrations-which frequently rep
resent the murderer or the assassin in
the act of committing crime, his muir
derous knife raised high in the air, OF
pistol cooked and aimed-is productive
of the very results which are so wildly
portrayed in words and engravings. The
cause and the effect go hand in hand,
and the bad results are becoming Of
alarmingly frequent occurrence. No
body was surprised to learn that Jesse
James was q regular reader of the
Police Gazette. It would naturally be
expected that such was the case. For
the sheet in question is simply grown
up edition of the present day boys story
paper, substituting facts for fiction, and
yet unscrupulously exaggerating the facts
to nearly as great an extent rs to become
fiction itself. So it would naturally be
expected that when boy of sixteen is
murdered by a boy of fourteen, some of
this trashy literature is at the bottom
of it.
There is alesson and warning in this
last boyish tragedy. The same cause
which brought about this deplorable re-
suit NAV result in the death of some one
who is near and dear to any one of US
If our young boy goes to the newsstand
each week and purchases paper which
he instinctively feels can be read by
him with safety only in a wood-shed,
or at the wood-shed of playmate, OF
in some secluded spot. we may be sure
that seeds of future sorrow are being
sown. But if the boy, seeing the heed
lessness and carelessnesS of father and
mother, brings this firebrand of sensa-
tional literature right into the household,
and gloats over the fiendish tale before
him, while parents neglect to examine
into the character of the mental stimu-
liant so greedily self-administered. how
much more likely is the result to be heart
anguish to those who. by exer-
cising control over the boys habits, could
have stored that mind with the elements
of pure and noble manhood, and given
it healthy stimulus which would have
afforded proper food for its demands.
Parents cannot exercise too much care
in this respect. And we caution them to
have greater care now, lest present
neglect bring future sorrow.
In cities the youth is daily exposed to
the temptations of these vicious papers,
and parents have double cause of vigi-
lance to guard against them. For copies
of the papers, or first chapters of their
vicious stories, are circulated like hand
bills and thrown into door-yards. In
this way these papers are stolen into the
hands of children who would otherwise
never see them. And it seems impossi-
BILE to head off this device of the devil in
the form of a news agent. 1t is grow
ing intolerable, and many parents are
perplexed to know how to stop it. If
the devilish news agent himself would
only circulate the poison the shotgun
could be used. But as he secures little
boys to do it, the way to stop il has not
vet been found. State Register.
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