The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-12-25
THE HERALD PRIZES.

Periodically THE HERALD has Offered
money prizes for stories, poems and specia
articles on designated subjects Our Object
in this has been two fold-to obtain for the
patrons of this paper the very best matter
to be had and to excite and encourage lit
erary ambition among the people. The re
suits of our efforts have been entirely sat
isfactory to the editors andpublishers, and
we believe, to the public. For THE CHRIST
MAS HERALD prizes amounting to several
hundred dollars were offered, the largest
one-S150-for the best historical sketch OF
Utah. There were but three competitors
for this, and we regret to announce that
none of the papers sent in could be re-
garded as satisfying the conditions, or as
possessing sufficient merit either as his
torical sketches or as literary efforts to en-
title them to publication. This failure is
much more grievous to THE HERALD than
it can possibly be to the writers of the arti-
cles, for we had confidently counted on an
excellent, concise history of this territory.
1t was little surprising to US that the
winner of the Christmas story prize $50
and the S25 for the best Christmas poem
should be the same person, as it is not often
the case that the composer of good poetry
writes good prose Mr.. A. M. KARR, the
winner of both prizes, is one of the few so
gifted, his story "The Hero of Greenock's
Head" being cleverly conceived, admir-
ably constructed, charmingly written and
delightfully."- entertaining romance, while
his poem, ''Christ and the Mother is a gem.
The author, our readers and THE HERALD
are all to be congratulated.
And this brings US to the point where we
can say what should, perhaps, have been
said several days ago, at the time of the an
nouncement of the decision of the gentle
men who awarded the prizes for the story
and poem. These gentlemen found such
merit in another story and in another poem
that they suggested second prizes and the
publication of ''The Laurel Branch, )" which
it turned out was from the pen of Miss
EMMA MCCORMICK, and SIN Many Fanes,"
a poem by Miss JOSEPHINE SPENCER, a lady
somewhat known to the readers of
this paper. THE HERALD heartily adopted
the suggestion and offered as second prizes
respectively S25 and $40, which were &C
cepted by the ladies, and the story and
poem appear in THE CHRISTMAS HERALD.
Mr.. KARR was unknown to US until few
days ago, when, forming his acquaintance.
it was learned that he is man of letters,
not unknown to the literary columns of
of the east and west and to the
pages of the better class of American mag
azines. The other competitors, therefore,
need not grieve over their failure to secure
prizes, as they were amateurs in contest
with a professional, so to speak The
HERALD's aim and desire, as remarked
above, being to encourage to literary effort
and inspire ambition in our citizens to
write, we congratulate Miss MCCORMICK and
Miss SPENCER, as all our readers will do,
on the excellence of their work, and by way
of further appreciation and encouragement
hereby double the prizes here tofore
awarded them-S50 to the writer of the
story and $40 to the author of the poem
We do this in the hope that they will con-
tinue to write; also with the view to en-
others of our young people to
literary effort, and because we regard the
productions of these young ladies as worth
the money.
We regret to say there were no competi-
tors for the $50 offered for the best article
on mining, important as that industry is
and deeply interested in it as are so many
of our educated men.