The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-09-12
DECAY OF THE "DECADENCE.n
Passing of the Freai<ish Small Maya
zines.
From the New York Post.


From the New York Post.
Those little freakish monthly publica-
lions which newsdealers call specialties,
but which amateurs have tried to dignity
by referring to them as Journals Of the
decadence." are vanishing now quite as
speedily as they sprang into being. They
began to appear, here and in England, al
most coincident with the discovery by Max
Nordau that men and intellectual products
had entered a process or period of degen-
Grafton. Americans ran this "decadence"
for all it was worth-and more, it now is
evident First came the Chap-Boo1 which,
as the head of one of the great news COM
panies remarked to-day, Succeeded be-
cause it was the first" and also because
it soon trimmed its sails and cargo to suit
the change in the wind of popular favor
Most of those which followed have come
to timely ends, the latest, so far as heard
from, being the Alkahest. None of them,
with the possible exception of the one pub
lished in New York, was "decadent" in
the sense that it was unfit for the young
person to read. One may, no doubt, de-
tect decadence in everything, If so minded;
D1. Nordau. at any rate. suggests that
one may; but, as a matter of truth, de
cadent." as applied to the sort of publica-
tions under attention meant nothing more
than last-decade, and took the place of the
cant phrase fin-de-siecle. AS readers al
ready have observed, young persons were
their chief contributors. So far was this
true that if the periodicals had been re-
ferred to as Journals of juvenilla," the
classification would have been exact eX-
cept that they were not literally journals
but, to use a disagreeable word month
lies"
They were supposed to be the work of
rare minds, too original to find apprecia-
ton among the editors of the great es
tablished magazines. It was alleged that
they contained the literature of the flu
ture, just as Wagner operas contained
'the music of the future" 1t was GU
riOus literature, incoherent when ii en-
deavored to be symbohstic, and decidedly
ngrammatical when it sought to impress
one as impressionistic. Impressionism, as
everybody knows draws the line at rule
and regulations. That is it's popularity,
when practiced by the unknowing. Strange
pictures, with wondrous curves, and, when
competently done, often striking as ara
besques, gave graphic testimony of their
queerness, as well as of the debt they
owed to the Yellow Book and Aubrey
Beardsley of London. But the news COM
panies report that most of this mushroom
crop has been plucked-in the collegiate
sense - aort .lll ..
They 'wers almost all published in pro
vincial cities" said the man in charge of
periodicals in one of the largest distribut-
ing agencies in America. Il don't know
what circulation they had in their home
communities, but could refer you to our
books, if it were businesslilxe, as to the
smallness of the demand for them in New
York when the novelty wore off. i couldn't
say, of course whether those that survive
are making any money for their publish
ers. Those that have suspended within
the last sixty or eighty days found that
the demand for the kind of thing they
supplied had fallen off. Nearly every
state had one of these 'specialties' Most
of them got more notice from newspa-
pers than they did from the buying pub
lie"
No town was too small to issue a "deca-
dent little brochure, published OCCASION
ally, and perhaps not that often" as one
wretched example in Kansas City, called
Pierrot, announced. Aurora, N. T., and
Crooked Creek, Tex, became well known
among fanciers of these curiosities for a
while, as being the address of the printing
office and also of the school" which
wrote for 1T. The Evergreen of Edinburgh,
which gave expression to the ideas of the
coterie which sprang up around Patrick
Geddes, was responsible for this fashion
of having new schools of writers. If
some Of the periodicals had paid by line or
page, or even by the day for the matter
printed, the schools might have put forth
articles more durable and more salable
But that method was Philistinish. SHOULD
one pay for a rose with money? or poets
rapture with a bank check?" The news
dealer who spoke in this tone laughed
scofiingly, and alleged Nothing could
pay for that same poets rapture at a
bank checkr'
Out of respect for the living, he thought
1t would Ill become him to say anything
more of the dead. So the reporter asked
him about other novelties in
periodicals, especially short-story
magazines. "Are they popular?"
was the question. Some of
them" he answered. 1.-THE Black Cat
is doing exceedingly well; so is the Pocket
Magazine. Much depends on how they are
gotten up, as well as how they are edited
The appearance must be prepossessing.
The stories may be good selections, and
the advertising may have been judiciously
placed, but If the cover and the form and
the type are not attractive the contents
won't sell the magazine. An editor with
taste, an advertising agent who Is clever
and printer who knows that printing is
successful magazine of any sort. At the
start one never can tell whether 1t will
succeed or fail 1 have been many years
I'm the business of selling periodicals. But
1 never know, any more than the publish
ers of a book know, what is going to take
the public fancy, ard what is going TO lie
stale and Improbable on the stands"
-s-o-S-