The record-union., 1898-04-24
MODERN MACHINE LITERATURE.

the steadiness and relentlessness of the
sausage mill. The new method is not
confined to America; England has its
full of it. Merit may go beg and starve
for all the promoters of these grind
machines care. Cultivation of the pub
lie taste 90 promotion of the literary
art 90 advancement of scholarship CD
stimulation of the studious habit o.
why, what do these tread-mill oper-
ators care for these questions.
Authors Bureaus "Writers' Or
ganizatfons," Literary Syndicates," >"
and a whole procession of that ilk are
writing-it is. amazingly cheap, in truth
sold by the yard and cut to order.
The worst of it is they are encouraging
a whole brigade of pretenders who
should never touch pen to paper in
composition.
1.-The Authors Circular" is the Of
fetal organ of these grinds in England.
1t represents the men who advertise
to furnish any kind of matter wanted
on shortest notice, anything from a So
called scientific essay to a yellow-cov-
cred story, or a padded historical
sketch-cyclopedias are handy.
In the want column of such Jour
mails" one can find anything offered he
may wish, from a sermon to a law
brief, from a wild and woolly story to
a lascivious tale; reading for children,
or fashion articles for women; serials
by the rood or mile; poems % sonnets
and so on. As for correspondence, why
that can be furnished from any part
of the world 1t is so easily Cheap
JOINED from foreign papers that resi-
dence or travel by the writer is not
at all essential AS the New York
Tribune" well puts it, it would seem
that Pegasus has caught onto the
times and harnessed himself to a de-
livery wagon.
Here is Beatrice Blank, who can fur
nish love stories and novelettes" with
as much regularity as any other wom-
an ever furnished table board. A
young man who offers adventure
stories and travel sketches" makes
goods ito order only" an advertise
ment which suggests an established
trade or a need that somebody supply
raw material. Another person offers
"short stories or articles" and has evil
IDENTIFY adopted the ready-made cloth
ier's ideas. He can fit any size, and 1t
is no trouble to show goods He has
them "on hand or to order" and of
various lengths. Another desirable of
fer is ''sea stories, good, any length,
by writer we'll acquainted with modern
seafaring on steam cargo boats. Terms,
two guineas thousand words.
But really this is no matter for
laughter; it is all too serious when we
reflect upon the kind of intellectual
bone and muscle the consumption of all
this unnatural and debilitating rubbish
must produce, since so much of it finds
lodgment in reading stomachs, through
nickle magazines, poverty stricken
papers and niggardly Journals" the
pIOpllSlOIo VI NIlINll NO IlOls CFRiA PNt
themselves to so much labor as is
necessary to pass upon the merit OF
matter of this order, or any other, sc
long as it is "'fillin'."
But the offerers are not the only
hucksters in the business. It seems
that there are middlemen and whole
o1a 11,,,
dred short stories of adventure fol
boys, fifty tales of the sea full Of ex-
citement and dash and perilous adven.
ture, ten serial stories of 100000 words
each at a shilling a thousand, and sc
on the advertisements read. And the
| woe of it is that there are found those
to meet the demand of these dealers
But pity is to be felt for the consumers
And yet there are consumers, or there
would be nothing in the business"
Many theater-goers have heard Mil
ton Mobiles on the stage-himself {
most prolific grinder out of dramatic
! fodder of the cheap order He has on'
| play, and his best, in which he give
us a picture of the concocter O.
the sort of literary trash to which w
| have had reference. The fellow is dis
! closed in the act of dashing off a stor!
| to order, and the method of the com
position we should Judge to be littl
exaggerated, for whenever he is shor
! on thoughts he finishes his chapte
with the words And the villain still
pursued her-To be continued in ou
next" Mobiles satire unhappily hold
in small compass a monstrous truth
/ Some of the agencies through whicl
! the cheap literature indicated is car
ried to the public are the very cheal
story papers, the ten cents a yea
sheets; the papers published mainly t
| bring to attention class of adver
tising that cannot find place in stand
ard papers, and the great mass o
which is indueement for suckers t
come and be taken in. OF this class o
papers millions of copies are annual,
scattered over the land, and they al
have readers, unhappily, and despit
the ,fact that meritorious literature i
to be had so cheaply in these days o
machine printing, free libraries an
open reading rooms.
The Springfield Republican, deal
ing with this "subterranean literature,
as it styles it, manufactured on tn
sweat-shqp principle, and thus solilo
Fquizes:
Augusta. Me-, sends out magazine
L. illiar, d1a ri