The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-08-24
PERIODICALS HAVE
TROUBLE LIVING
IN LONDON Town
Strange Methods Resorted to
in the Effort to Subsist-
Some Quee Prizes Offered to
Catch Readers = Gossip of
Foreign Books and Authors.

OsCIStl DOONS OHo
Special Foreign Service.
LONDON, Aug. 23.-There are too
many weekly and monthly periodicals
to the square inch in London, and the
result is fierce competition. one
monthly review which used to be fair
ly well known in the United States
now fills it's pages entirely with the
contributions of amateurs, VINO are
satisfied to see themselves in type
without further compensation. Chap
mans Magazine which used to have
good standing in days gone by,
changed it's name once or twice, and
has lately given up the struggle. An
mother old monthly of high reputation
has been passed on from owner TO
owner, and it now said to be breathing
it's last, and one of the newer and less
known magazines is said to be about
to give UP the fight Not long ago
several thousands of dollars were
spent in preliminary advertising for a
penny weekly which, so far as / have
been able to discover never issued
more than one number.
On the otherpghand, the advertising
methods of some of the more lusty
penny -Weeklies are becoming sensa-
tionaI to degree. Tit-Bits has
hidden $4,000 somewhere in London,
and is running protracted serial
which is divulging clues to the hiding
place. Whoever finds the money can
have it. The: only trouble with the
scheme is that every locality men
toned in the story Immediately be-
comes infested with searchers for the
money to the vast annoyance OF folk
who have more sober business there.
Not to be behind DIN the race, rival
publication, Pearsor,s Weekly, put UP
one of it's editors ina matrimonial
prize competition and has: now Sc
Ilected six of the contestants for the
rash man to choose from. He is now
travelling. around the country making
the acquaintance of each of the SIX
and trying to decide which one he
wants
Habitat sof Gertrude Anterior.
Gertrude Anterior; the novelist, is
expected In England soon after her
| protrac ted stay ins. eAmerica.i . Mrs.
Anterior has no house in London, but
utilities the Writers Club kfersher pernaa-
ment' address. q She goesatoDatop fire.
quently. at her favorite5 lodgings in the
country district of Essex and some
times lives in Hampstead, near the
HEATH u MRS. IcAtherton'ss III best ,sleyed
place for writing novels is, however,
an old convent in Bruges. whittier she
retreats when in the midst Of i'm
portant writing. The convent u was
formerly one of the most beautiful
Belgian palaces, and even since the
nuns took the place much of its
grandeur is retained. Mrs. Atherton is
reeeivedlin the convent zen pension"
as ~ many 81 sladfes 81 are Like an
ti,oo ict nd A rarin
an of letters, John Oliver Hobbies,
Mrs. ,Atherton is a Roman Catholic.
She is generous to. fault, and one
American family now living in Eng
Hand considers her extremely courage
Gus. When a5daughter oflthis family
was supposed to have been stricken
with smallpox, the novelist nursed
the esick girl. AS it happened, the
disease. was not as serious as was
feared, but the courage displayed was
none the less. Mrs. Anterior is COM
monty said in English literary circles
to wear literary hats and otherwise
dress after the fashion of the typical
women novelists. -.H fe-Gsa
Crosby Criticises Lang.
Ernest Crosby writes from New
York to take issue with Andrew Lang
criticism of the interesting charge
| Shakespeare, to the effect that the
bard persistently misrepresented the
working classes. THAT he is unfair to
t.them," says Mr.. Crosby, "is evident
| from the whole drift of his plays
With the exception of two or three
| faithful servants he does not bring a
single individual nor single group of
the lower classes on the stage without
! making knaveS or fools of them. Mr..
| Lang thinks that he has thus correct
ly pictured the yeomanry of Eliza
beth's time, and quotes Oliver Crom-
we'll to that effect. Here is a clear
| issue of fact, and as a descendant of
Englishmen of that day, 1 resent the
| imputation. 7 do not believe that the
common people of the heroic age of
England were poltroons and idiots,
failed altogether to make US acquaint-
| ed with them, and has shown
| us instead a lot of base
! creatures of his own imagination. Just
| as he saw nothing in English history
! from Magma Charta to the Reforma-
| ton but a pageant of royal feuds, just
as he travestied Wat Tyler and Joan
| of Arc, just as he gives US Plutarch's
| Coriolanus without allowing one of his
characters to utter the self-evident
condemnation of his hero's behavior
L
| just so he held up to the lower classes
| of his day mirror which dis
| torted and deformed Them
ToIstoi Is Failing Again.
Tolstoi's health is failing again, and
| despite his remarkable vitality it is
considered unlikely that he will write
much more. Thanks partly to his OBJ
| lection to copyrights and partly to
his genius, he holds all records among
modern novelists for the number OF
| languages into which his work has
been translated. At latest accounts
his books had appeared in forty-fve
different tongues, the first of them in
point of time being modern Greek, a
| translation of one of his books having
appeared in that language thirty three
years ago. The Czechs were also read
! ing Tolstoi in their own language be-
fore he was known in England and
America. Among the other tongues
and dialects into which he has beer
/ translated are Chinese, japanese, Per-
sian and Siamese. not to mention Els.
pernato, which seems to be the mos
i popular of the various so-called uni
-. L., -