The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-09-20


suffering familp abroad with breadstuffs
and the means of life. Without help
from this side Of the ocean, he
thousands. l have had a couple of
interviews with MIR. French, and he is
sanguine as to the entire
feasibility of his big prospect. Whether
his grand IDEA of collecting 100000
bushels of wheat from American farmers
and pouring it into the lap of starving
Europe can be carried out or not, it is at
least an interesting subject for considera
ton. He has worked the matter out some
what in detail, and his plan is to establish
a central bureau or depot at the seaport,
say 10 Now York, and have the collection
and distribution of the grain from each
state managed by committees and boards
of trade selected by the governor. Mr..
French thinks this idea would appeal in
stantly to American farmers and it would
not be long until long trains of charity
wheat would be rolling over the
prairies in the direction of New York
He figures that out of the 100000
farmers in this country 100000 of the
number would contribute the re-
CURED five bushels each, which would
make up the total sum of 100000 bushels
necessary to relieve the starving people of
Russia, Germany, France Scotland and
Ireland. This amount would not be missed
out of the present summers yield, which
the government estimates place at $780,
0OO,0O bushels, an excess of 1000, 600
bushels over last years crop. After sup
plying the needs of America and sending
the 10000, 900 bushels abroad as an offering
of love and charity, there would still be left
25o, 100000 bushels to export in regular
course. Mr. French is a grain merchant
Of Kansas City, at present in New York for
rest and recreation. He has a very thor
ough knowledge of the grain trade, both at
home and abroad, which enables him to
unfold the details of his gigantic plan in an
entertaining and intelligent fashion.
M'ALLIsTER AS AN AUTHOR.
Mr.. Ward McAllister is not so successful
in publishing subscription books as he is in
projecting subscription picnics, though in
both widely dissimilar ventures he natur-
ally would look to the same patrons for
profit. But his Society AS Have Found
It'' was SO different in point from what the
Four Hundred expected to find it, that the
sale was slow in the very set where the
author expected to find his best customers.
The book, considered as a mere bit of
schoolgirl writing, is an aoominably bad
one. This is due not so much to McAllis-
ter's want of experience in the art of au-
thorship as to his evident contempt for the
common laws governing English grammar
and his reckless disregard OF the ordinary
rules of rhetoric. l am told that when
he proposed publishing such book that
bright young woman, who knew
his depiorabe deficiencies in the &C
complishments usually attained in
good common school education, advised
him to model his work upon the "Jeems
Yellow Plush Papers" and to publish it
anonymously, as by Butler in q Fifth
Avenue Family" Had he followed this
sensible advice and published the book in
cheap form, 1t would have met with great
sale among the parlor, chamber and ladies'
maids, who would not have been over crit
ical about the go-as-you-please grammar
and spelling. But with his belief in the
extravagant expenditures of other people
particularly for his own benefit he obstin-
ately persisted in publishing his book at a
price which really put it beyond the means
of some of the younger members of Our
Best society"-that is, when book and a
pair of sixteen-button lids are about the
same price, the kids, and not the book, will
be bought And even among those who were
able to buy, and were also able to read,
it was arranged in each little coterie
that some one should subscribe and
then lend the book around to the rest. The
authors financial troubles began with his
publisher, from whom he expected IS 600
down and got but 81, 800. His royalty was
Is per cent, which is five times as much as
many professional authors receive, but, as
only few hundred copies were printed,
the aggregate from this source was incon-
siderable. Mr.. McAllister's most profitable
writings have been menus professionally
prepared for dinners and suppers which he
has been employed to compose" the
a. 1o- %h.,f Co. ~
the subscription papers for his picnics In
this sort of authorship he is quite at home
MAGAZINE NEWSPAPERS AND MARK TWAIN.
One Of the Sunday shawlstrsp publica
tons, in announcing its deliberate determi
nation to take the place of the reviews and
magazines, and to issue once a week miscel
| laneous mstter enough to fill up the leisure
and reading hours of two weeks, gives lis,
of novels it has bought for serial publication
| in its plethoric pages. Among others is 9
new novel by Mark Twain, who is now
making his usual summer progress as Pill
grim Abroad, and the price advertised az
paid, or to be paid, for this production il
| only Sl2, 900. If Mark Twain has sold ou
and out a novel" to a newspaper at this
price the production pI oclaims itself in ad
vance as a mere pot boiler" 1t is not Ions
ago, when in q suit in regard to some in
! fringement, real or alleged, OF one of hi.
copyrights, in answer to an inquiry as Il
his own estimate of the value of his literary
efforts, Mark Twain testified in court tina
any book by him was worth SIC, 600 befor,
he hal written line Of it, meaning that
contract by MIN to write q new book wa
worth that sum at the start. Now, if an,
newspaper has secured novel by him fo
So 900, that sum is for the serial use of tn,
chapters Oh certain number of successiv,
Sundays. 1t represents rent during occu
pancy, so to speak, and at the end of tn,
term of lease Mark Twain will reclaim tn
production, copyright of which he retain
Rnd will reprint it ID book form at hi
own expense and for his own profit, TO
he as &C. L. Webster s. Co, is his ow,
publisher. This ne does with his contribu
lions to the Century, Hdrper's and othe
magazines, including the sober old Atlantic
they paying him handsomely, not so muc
for the productions as for his name as ION
of our contributors for his name is wort
more at any time than his work is at a
times, since in literary or even humorou
point of viewit is subject to considerable
degrees of variation. In this way the new:
papers or magazines boast of having sc
cured the humorist as special contribute
Is weakened somewhat by limitations whic
control the contract. Nor is this newsps
per spread over its enterprise and e1
pense in securing special contributions cor
fined, with the same limitations, to Mar
Twain it extends to Louis Stevenson an
other writers Of note, boosted and advel