The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-07-18
FICTION'S TEACHINGS,
The Impressions Obtained of Miners from
the Novels OF the Day.

the Novels OF the Day.
Grass Valley Tdngs
The idea prevails in unnformed circles that
miners are, as a class, very rough and ignorant
men; that they are brutal in their instincts and
give loose rein to those instincts. Such an i'm.
preston or idea Is wrong. We do not deny that
there are individual instances of brutality and
baseness among miners. We have not long
since read of brutal and base members of the
highest mobiles of Europe. 1t has not been very
long since we have had accounts of the dongs of
men who are eminent in America. The United
States Congress would be a nice set of men. in
Decd if the whole of them were classed accord
ing to the actions of very few. 1t is inst so
with our mining populations; the great majority
Of them good and manly men, few of them
are brutal
1t is not so very difficult to account for this
popular impression of what the miners are: the
impression which the uninformed people enter
tain The impression is had from the popular
novels of the day. Mr.. Bret Ha.rte is one of
the writers who has promulgated much of this
kind of falsehood. He describes the California
miner Of the early day rough. uncouth. uued-
ucated, and ready to kill or mob on the least
provocation. Hartes heroes are sometimes
softhearted with their general badness but the
typical miner as Harte gives him is mostly bad
man. The heroines of that novelist are women
who would not make good Sunday school teach
ers Yet the truth is that the early miners of
California the best kind of men They
were brave enough TO come 10 new country
and it took bravery even to start for this land
of gold from established homes And those
early miners, too, were men Of sense as we'll as
courage, and very many Of those early miners
were highly educated. The idiots and the timid
did not cut loose from their old homes And
the excuses that prevailed have been ruch
exaggerated by the story writer's
The idea that our miners of foreign birth are
brutal class comes from the story books
Novels by English writers are popular and pen-
orally read in America. Most of those ENGLISH
novel writers in speaking of mining populations
of the old country, or, indeed, of any of the
laboring classes of the old country give scenes
of brutality, and their brutality as described
becomes associated in the minds of readers with
the whole class of laborng people and not with
the individuals. Charles Dickens who wrote
for the purpose of benefiting the so-called
Clover orders" and who did benefit them. de-
scribes many scenes of brutality and in such a
way to make the impression that the bru-
talty belonged to the class. Many ENGLISH
novelists have described scenes in the coal pits
of their country, and in those descriptions there
is nothing to show any elevation or
humanity in that class of work
ers. George Eliot alone, of all those
novelists, makes us have a good opinion of the
classes referred to, but she is forbidden to be
read by the very people she upholds The
novelists have taught the prevalent idea of snch
rouchness, and only the greatest of the novelists
have seen any good in the toiers; these greatest
are George Eliot (who has been called female
Shakspearel and Victor Hugo.