The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1892-04-03
MIR. BOK'S LITERARY GOSSIP
RumorsC Concerning aLiterary Newspa-
per and q Daily Journal for Women.
How Beecher Found His Borrowed Books
Magazine Success in Eugland-Literary
Women as Housekeepers-PersOnal.

Aoob "OCA u PEIt0 W III AltCLoi AuCh
got together to discuss the starting of q
literary newspaper. Quite a good capital
was assured, and the idea was talked OF as
quite a probability. Then. another set of
men recently came together with the view
OF starting a newspaper entirely devoted
to woman and her interests. Here are two
projects most seriously talked of. Now.
the fact is ! do not think it requires o
very f%ar-sighted man to see quite
clearly that there is positively NO
room in New York OF Elsewhere Tor either
venture. The time has not come in our
literature when q literary newspaper can
be made to pay. as our strictly literary pc
riodicals bear evidence. There is not O
single literary weekly. foTtnightly or
monthly in this country which issues and
sells ten Thousand copies. A literary news
paper Is undoubtedly needed. but things
that are needed are not always taken by
the public. So far as q daily newspaper for
women Is concerned, there is no demand for
1t. Women are PROFESSIONALLY reading
newspapers far moro than they ever did,
but this is no indication that a daily paper
entirely given over to their interests could
me made profitable. Such q venture would
be costly, for only the best is successful
nowadays, and l think that when the
projectors of the proposed paper for women
carefully look over the ground they Will be
inclined to abandon the idea.
JOURNALISTIC ANGLING FOR
II is inst q nice question to what extent
the daily newspaper can hope to secure
the patronage of women. Every editor is
after il, but how many secure it?
"Womsn's pages'' are almost numberless;
they are started briskly by almost every
paper which has q Sunday issue. Now, as
a matter Of fact. there are just two news
papers published in America to-day which
are sustaining anything which even ap-
proaches a successful woman's depart.
ment IL happens TO be in the line of my
work to have watched this branch of
ton after months, YES years. of the most
careful watc hing. TO print the picture OF
q new gown, to give a column of cooking
recipes. TO tell how to make q chair out of
q barrel, to tell how to clean lace
curtains. does not constitute n "woman's
page although many editors ap-
parently think il does. Women re-
ceiye this class Of information from other
sources which have better facilities for Sc
curing it than has the newspaper. An
first thing he puts into that page IS a lot of
fashions. And here, where he honestly be.
lieves he has made his first hit, he has
made his first mistake. Women are not
such creatures of fashion as some men i'm
agine they are. There are certain periodicals
entirely devoted to women's fashions, and
the daily newspaper can no more hope to
enter into their field than can the fashion
journal, published every week, rival the
T Tinsy as Is abd sasanfer room on t fae = Tsaliv n eood
w~cIien's department. In modern Journalism,
but as yet exactly the right article put
forth by the right person Is still invisible.
And the best veriication of this will come
to any one who chooses to seek 1t from the
women of any of our cities.
THEY BORROWED %BEECHER's BOOKS.
Any one who knew Henry Ward Beecher
at all knew of his love of books and the
varied libraries which be succeeded in
gathering. He was. however. most prod
igal in lending his books and forgetting
the borrowers. Then. when he wanted a
certain book from his library. he would
find it gone. He would. OF course, q
forgotten the borrower. but his method of
tracing a borrowed book was unique.
One evening the great preacher suddenly
appeared at q friends house, and, walking
quietly into the drawlng-room without re-
moving his overcoat. n up to his friend,
said:
W. why don't you bring back that
Ruskin of mine that / lent yOui"
The man colored to the roots Of his hair:
~ III ~ Az coA0 % N ~
to your house tomorrow morning. would
not have kept it so long if you had not told
At this Beecher burst into o fit of merry
laughter. Found! Found!n he shouted. as
be took off his oyercoat and threw himself
exhausted into q chair.
Some one asked him what he meant.
When he could stop laughing he said: Il
am always ready to lend my books to any
one who will make good use OF them and
hripn than harE hnf L uIWava formal that
l have done 1t. 1t happened, in this case.
that / wanted that volume OF Ruskin. but
when / went to the shelf for it 1t was gone.
l knew l must have lent 1t, but to whom l
could not remember. During the past
week 1 began to demand the book of every
friend l met to whom l might have lent Ii.
/ have been to six houses tonight. A
dozen. at least. have protested innocence,
but Mt last Pve struck the guilty man.
i shall know in future how TO find missing
books. The plan works beautifully"
MAGAZINE SUCCESSES IN ENGLAND.
far more critical than is that of America,
but l often wonder how that statement is
reconciled with the peculiar successes
achieved in English periodical ventures.
The perfect ease with which q magazine of
doubtful merit can apparently be launched
in England is astounding. Take the new
periodicals OF recent origin. and not one of
them could achieve even q moderate de-
gree of success were 1t published in Amer
lea. The Review OF Reviews Is, perhaps,
the most worthy Of support from the
stand point of true merit. yet a more shock
ingly Inade-up magazine than Is the En-
glish edition OF that periodical would be
difficult to find. Yet Mr.. Stead has Sc
cured an actual sale Of $50. 900 copies for his
paper. OF the first issue of Jerome X.
Jerome's new monthly, The ldler. over
one hundred thousand copies were sold, yet
no one, l am sure. Will say that either the
first or second number of the magazine
was within hailing distance of being oven
readable. to say nothing of being interest
ing. In the hrst issue there was printed,
as original, q poem to Mark Twain pub
lished years ago In this country. Then it
had the first installment of Mark Twain's
story, The American Claimant" which is
about through its tedious run in this CONN.,
try. The Strand Magazine. a publica-
tiOn q tri1e over a year old, has also u CIR.
cul.tion of 100. 600 and over. and if you give
it credit for having had three bright feat
ures since its commencement. you have
said all and more. The Long Quarterly
Is the latest venture. and a success from
the start, | Am informed. 1t has brought
out one issue. This quarterly purposes to
be for fiction what the existing quarterIies
are towards politics and church matters.
A quarterly Is always q dismal periodical
at it's best, but this recent acquisition from
London Is simply par excellence in that re-
spect.' Truly. to edit a magazine in Eng
land and to edit one in America ore two
entirely distinct things.
WOMEN AS HoUsEKEEPERs.
1t is o popular supposition that literary
women live in q sort of hazy atmosphere.
and that the bomely arts of cooking and
housekeeping are unknown to them. was