Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1893-10-28
FEMALE WRITER'S.
BY J. M'ALIsTER.

| am of the opinion that it is open to
question If pu blishers in the union, and
whose hands are in the International
Typographical Union, should not draw
the line of literary ''slush" somewhere.
This means, of course, that the union
would have it in its power to step in
and refuse to be the instruments of
propagating baneful literary produc-
tions, where such is plainly the case.
That would not be asking too much on
the part of union which now dictates
the details of the procedure of most of
the operations leading to publication.
In these days of the boasted advance
of woman's rights into every conceiv-
nble domain; when domestic virtues
on their part are being showed aside,
when it is said she has proved she can
do every thing that man is qualified
for, except produce a Handel or
Henry Ward Beecher; say in these
days it is amusing to have to say that
the great overpowering bulk of tho
modern production of i'm beetle litera-
ture in the field of fiction is written by
women.
If i'm beetle writings of this kind re-
ferred to are not injurious, what isp
They are not actually Zolaesque,
though some of them trem BILE on an
overhanging verge In that direction
from overdrawn, gushing suggestive
ness. But, If such were not the case,
They are curse to young or elderly
female minds in their unnatural, stupid
dntrue, impro ba BILE and insane fu-
tility. They lead to any amount of
ignorant ideas of life and its possibili-
ties; false hopes and anticipations for
the coming years. and strong found
alton of helpless impractica bility work
ing on silly" young females mind and
imaginations. Some of my readers will
have seen or perused publications of
the kind l am driving at, such, for in
stance as Tempted to Leave Her
Lover" "Twixt Love and Hate"
''She Was Daisy" "The Fortunes Of
Beautiful Factory Girl" &c l am
not concerned about the literary make
up of such productions at present, it is
the trend of this abominable unnatural.
ness that is deplorable though their
diction is such as to cause surprise that
market exists for their purchase.
These are the writers whose heroes
dream of feeling the raptures of that
perfect bosom beating against his own"
Their heroine 'swoons away at the
touch of his hand in thrill of exquisite
happiness" or, as the case may be for
him, "a thrill of longing sweeps DER
his manly face" while again, ''she is a
iream of ethereal loveliness' as the sun
plays with her au burn tresses. These
are actual quotations from the efful-
penca of feminine ipeptituda
Twixt Love and Hate" In its plot
makes would be strong-minded wom-
an, in the wealthier walks of life,
marry detective whom she hates from
the first, because, forsooth, he served
her by hunting up the secret history of
her rival in love; and it makes another
masculine female marry man before
she has made any inquiry as to the fate
of former husband who was injured,
not killed, in railway collision. He
turns up alive afterwards, and plays
into the hands of the detective s wife.
OF course, it transpires, the railway
victim had another wife, so the hunted
female rival is again uppermost in an
atmosphere of complicated folly and
unheard-of social blunders. The story
ends with the old-fashioned banish-
ment of the demon, and the unalloyed
happiness of beings pictured as abject
fools hunted through life by the most
impossible of impostors after the fash
ionable female kills her detective hus-
band and poisons herself
Billie Goldie, in one of these effu-
sions, is portrayed as factory girl,
well-loolring, of course and is supposed
in the course of the story to be au fait
with the fneries, the education and
the capacities of fashiona BILE girl in
comparatively high life; goes through
a mock marriage with man repre-
sented as something of ny brid be-
tween tough and viscount She fails
to convince herself whether she is mar
ried or not, and yet allows a man, Ru.
pert Morgan, whom she likes to fondle
her and to make love to her in proiusion.
Her marriage, such as it was, was ac-
companied by the peculiar circumstance
of two hired bullies being posted at the |
door where it took place, in her "hus. |
bands" mothers house. Morgan and |
Wallingford, her husband, hunt each |
other Ito the death" for months, for |
her, often meet and forget to mete out |
vengeance through sheer idiocy. And |
so on, in wonderful maze of jun bled-
up, alleged plot, full of inconsequent
actions, forgotten threads of the story,
high falutin talk under unheard- of cir
cumstances, dialogue to be expected |
from such haracters-almost-a an
utter absence of any motive in the ac.
tors, who run about the world in wild |
goose chases, and when they find the |
person they won't forget to say and do
what they announced as their inten.
ton All is disjointed and delirious
and yet some publishers of this sweet,
ness long drawn out" in our big cities
have hired hands who smoke 25-cent
cigars and live in gilded splendor. The
above are the heroes who "sit horse
like centaur,," of whom it is said "a
beautiful smile wreathes his expressive
lips" whose conduct to the heroine
sets her blood tingling to her finger
tips;' whose heart is subject to alleged
wild bounds of exultant joy" while al
other times "she colors up at the men