The representative., 1899-12-07
RASCALITY IN LITER

RASCALITY IN LITERATURE.
The spirit of this fraudulent age pen
etrates everything. Even literature does
not escape.
Here is part of an interview which
we find in one of our daily papers:
! Bluff and humbug," he said, ARE two OF
the greatest factors in the literary world
You may have noticed, for instance that
every little while new periodical is born.
You may also have noticed that it's stories
for some time, are remarkably good-bear
all the earmarks of genius, in fact-and
yet many OF the names signed to them are
utterly unknown to the literary world, and,
as matter of fact, they are purely ficti-
tious.
Did you ever ask yourself what all this
means? Well. there a variety OF ex-
plantations. Here is the way in which the
presence of fine stories under fictitious
names appeared in one magazine which,
has been alive for a couple of years, and
which is fourishing. The magazine was
started by two young men who had been
for years readers in the editorial sane
tum OF one of the Oldest and best periodi-
calls in the country. These young men were
bright and they were good at what is known
as hack work. Given plot, they could
elaborate it in good style.
well, during their term of service as
readers they had carefully borrowed the
best plots from stories sent in by unknown
writer's, and they returned the stories with
the usual polite printed slip of rejectance.
In the course of time the young men had
whole library of exceptionally good plots.
and then they launched periodical of their
own
Perhaps the commonest form of literary
humbug is the modern custom Of hiring a
man, at small salary, to write articles on
giving man of prominence large check
Tor lending his signature to the story Per-
maps you already know that about three
fourths OF the articles published, which pur-
port to be written by public men, are mere
ly signed by them. There are many men
lending their signatures to the product Of
other mems brains.
Now is this sort of thing to be regard
ed as procuring money from the public un-
der false prtenses, or is it really legitimate
the natural result Of these busy times, when
public men have not time to write their
ideas for themselves? 1t seems to me that
the line between honesty and dishonesty
IN this direction Is Of microscopic thinness.
You Will find that no magazine editor could
be hired to state frankly to his patrons
tnat the article on politics in this issue.
tlthough signed by the Hon. Joseph Smith
and fully embodying his views. was nor
actually written by him, but by a member
of our own staff.' With such a declaration
before them, how many people do you
think would take the trouble to read the
article. and how many would believe in it's
genuineness?
NOW, regarding magazines, as a field for
unknown writer's, I want to say-and I
speak from the most costly and wearing ex
perience-that the unknown writer gets mo
consideration unless he can bring influence
social or otherwise, to bear. The maya
zine Is close corporation. The literary
race Is not a free-for-all' Don't waste
your time in writing stories for the mag
azines unless you have something more
potent than native ability to rely on.
1t may occur to you to ask why the
things which l have been saying are not
made generally public. You might ask vhy
don't exploit the whole matter myself
The reason is simply this. 1 should
harm myself without doing any good for
anybody else. Through influence / man
age to get story accepted now and then.
II give away the inside history OF things
no magazine editor would look at my coDy
again. Moreover. it is quite useless to
publish the story. + would be generally