St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-02-25

lowest estimate 5000, 900. or about one
in eleven of our population are being
affected for good or evil by periodicals
of the existence of which the educated
classes are in ofOund ignorance, and
to which our legislators never give a
thought.
These family papers are taken up
principally with continued stories, short
sketches of love and adventure, and
verses that come as near to being poetry
as the serials do to being literature.
These stories are sensational to the last
degree. indeed. they cannot be too SEN
sational to satisfy the publisher or to
crafty the morbid tastes of the readers,
who, as time goes OH, yearn. like an
opium eater, for stronger and more fire.
Quent doses. In these stories art is
ignored, probabilities are regarded as
all too weak, and the impossible is pre-
sented i'll the mask of reality.
"As a rule these stories are not
directly obscene, but they are far more
dangerous i'll their insinuating sugges-
tlveneSS; and their effect Oh the charac-
ter of the young, and particularly young
girls, cannot be soverestimated. Nearly
all the writers for these papers are
women, men are entirely too am too
clear-minded, too decent, it may be 10
suit the tastes of our readers. Men
write stories of adventure, or it NAV be
of impossible detectives; l know of such
a man who has a knack for this sort of
detective work, and for nothing else, for
he is uneducated, who makes Sis, 600 a
year. A majority of the men writers,
however, are satisfied with $500 for a
story of 75,0 GOO words. AS a reader
and editor, l have to reject hundreds OF
excellent manuscripts because they
were too good. written on too high a
key to suit out clientele. One woman
who writes for these papers makes not
less than $4,000 a year from her stories
in serial and cheap bunk form, and
there is no estimating the influence of
her work or the characters of young
women. | must coufesS it was to me a
painful revelation to find that the writ
erS who excite and cater to the worst
passions, the writers who impress one
with the belief that they are restrained
from coming out openly, by fear of the
law latliSI ludI llClI OWL llClllldIlOuS,
are women. This is startling to a man
who is inclined 10 regard with chivalric
respect the memory of his mother.
"PubliShers of these papers are max
ing larger Incomes than ten times their
number of brewers and diStillers: and |
do not hesitate 10 say that they are doing
quite as much harm as all the brewers
and distillers combined. You ask if it
is not possible for the government to
exercise a supervision IN this matter,
and | say yes it is possible for the gov
erHment to do many things which it
neglects. There is no law to prevent
specimen copies of these sheets, with
the first installment of an exciting story,
from being flung into a decent mans
doorway. If it is rejected by
the head of the house, it may
gradually work its way down
to the kitchen, but in any event, if it
sticks, the result is disastrous. The
taste for tins kind of reading soon be-
comes u habit. and the habit a mental
emotional disease that lasts through
life. Our boards of health stamp out
contagious disease. but the law entirely
ignores a cause of life ruin affecting
millions of our population. There are
juvenile publications that are fresh aud
beautiful, but unfortunately their cir