The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1891-03-19

and of Egypt. And the magiclans
lid so with their entertainments, and
brought up frogs upon the land of
Egypt"
There is almost a universal aversion
20 frogs, and yet with the Egyptian
hey were honored, they We're sacred,
md they were objects of worship while
alive, and after death they were EN-
balmed, and today their remains may
be found among the sepulchers of
Thebes. These creatures, so attractive
once to the Egyptians, at divine be-
hest became obnoxious and loathsome,
and they went croakins and hopping
and loaping into the palace of the king,
and into the bread trays and the couches
of the people, and even the ovens,
which now are uplifted above the earth
and on the side of the chimneys, but
then were small holes in the earth
with sunken pottery, were filled with
frogs when the housekeepers came to
look at them. If a man sat down to
eat, frog alighted on his plate. If he
attempted TO put on shoe it was pre-
occupied by a frog. If he attempted
to put his head upon pillow it had
been taken possession of by frog.
Frors high and low and everywhere :;
loathsome frogs, Shiny frogs, besieging
frogs, innumerable frogs, great plague
of frogs. What made the matter
worse the magicians said there was no
miracle il tits, and they could by
sleight of hand produce the same thing,
and they seemed to succeed, for by
sleight CT hand wonders may be
wrought. After Moses had thrown
down his staff and by miracle it be-
came a serpent, and then he took hold
of it and by miracle it again became a
staff, the serpent charmers initiated
the same thing, and knowing that
there were serpents in Egypt whic' y
q peculiar pressure on the neck
become as rigid as % stick of
they seemed to change the serpen
the staff, and then throwing it
the staff became the serpent. 20
wise these magicians tried to in r
tho plague of frogs, and perhar
smell of food attracting great number
of them to a certain point, or by shak
ing them out from a hidden place, the
magicians sometimes seemed to ac
complish the same miracle. While these
magicians made the plague worse, none
of them tried to make it better Frog.
came up and covered the land o.
Egypt, and the magicians did SO will
their enchantment, and brought uE
frogs upon the land of Egypt"
A MODERN PLAGUE.
Now that plague of frogs has come
back upon the earth. 1t is abroad to
day. 1t is shifting this nation. Il
comes in the shape of corrupt litera
ture. These frogs hop into the store
the shop, the office, the banking house
the factory, into the home, into the
cellar, into the garnet, on the drawing
room table, on the shelf of the library
While the lad is reading the bad boob
the teachers face is turned the othel
way One Of these frogs hops upor
the page. While the young woman i.
reading the forbidden novelette, after
retiring at night, reading by gaslight
one of these frogs leaps upon the page
Indeed, they have hoped upon the
news stands of the country, and the
mails at the postohice shake out in the
letter trough hundreds of them The
plague has taken at different time
possession of this country 1t is one o
the most loathsome, one of the mos
frightful, one of the most CHASTITY O
the ten plaques of our modern cities.
There is vast number of books ant
newspapers printed and published
which ought never to see the light
They are filed with a pestilence tina
makes the land swelter with q mora
epidemic The greatest blessing tina
ever came to this nation is, that of Al
elevated literature, and the creates
scourge has been that of unclean liter
AZURE. This last has its victims in al
occupations and departments. 1t ha
helped to I'll insane asylums and peni
tentiaries and almshouses and dens o
shame The bodies of this infection
lie in the hospitals and in the graves
while their souls are being tossed owe
into lost eternity, an avalanche 0
horror end despair. The Londol
plague YVES nothing to it. That count
ed its victims by thousands, but thi
modern pest has already shoveled it
millions into The charnel house of tn
morally dead. The longest rail trail
that ever ran over the Erie or Hudson
tracks WIS not long enough Tor larg
enough to carry the beastliness and the
putrefaction which have been gathered
up in bad books and newspapers Of
this land il the last twenty years. The
literature of nation decides the fate
Of nation. Good books, good morals
Bad books, bad morals.
| begin with the lowest of all the lit
erature, that which does not even pre-
tend to be respectable-from cover te
cover blotch of lenrosy. There art
many whose entire business it is to dis
pose of that kind of literature. They
display it before the schoolboy on hi.
way home. They get the catalogue.
of schools and colleges, take the name,
and postoffice addresses and send theil
advertisements, and their circulars, ant
their pamphlets, and their books t.
every one of them.
SENDING OUT FAD BOOKS.
In the possession of these dealers il
bad literature were found nine hun
dred thousand names and postoffice
addresses, to whom it was thought il
might be profitable TO send these cor
rupt things. In the year 1873 there
were one hundred and sixty-five estab