The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-03-20
PERIODICALS READ IN A
 COUNTRY COMMUNITY

Agriculture is represented by two weekiey publications and one monthly:
 The New York Farmer.
 The American Agriculturist.
 Farm News.
 These have a circulation of e5 copies, neardly equally divided among them.
 We now come to publications which seem to have a greater interest and sig nifcance. The publications already men toned savor of life's necessities. The daily paper is taken for its chronicle of events; the weekly for the gossip of the neighborhood. The religious paper is taken largely as a matter of denom- national loyalty and sectarian interest in religion. But when we come to the periodicals that may, with more or less fitness, be classed as literary, we place a different motive on their purchase. One feels that these are a better index to the intellectual life and likings of the people. They are, in a measure, luxu- ries, in that they represent desires and thoughts beyond the everyday need.
 For cIearness I shall divide this class of periodicals into three groups. First I shall put together what I shall call the dollar magazine" in the order of the iargness of their sales: Munsey's, Recre- ation Mcclure's. Leslie's. The Cosmopoli- tan. Everybody's. Physical Culture. The Era.
 These have a circulation of 52 copies Closely allied with these is the Four Track News, with a sale of r copies.
 In the next group are magazines that cost more than dollar. They are named in the order already adopted:
 Harper's.
 The Worlds Work.
 The Review of Reviews.
 The Century.
 Scribner's.
 The Bookman.
 Country Life in America.
 St. Nicholas.
 These have a circulation of 13 copies
 The next group includes the periodi- calls devoted to the interests of women and the home
 The Delineator.
 The Ladies' Home Journal
 McCalrs Magazine.
 The American Woman.
 The Ladies' World.
 Good Housekeeping
 The woman's Farm Journal.
 The Designer.
 The Modern Priscilla.
 I-arper's Bazaar.
 The womans Homo Companion.
 Vogue.
 The New Idea.
 These 13 have a circulation of 119 copies. Of these 119, three of the maga- zines can claim almost half, and these three are pre-eminentIy devoted to fashions.
 The Saturday Evening Post, the Youths Companion and the American Boy seem to fall naturally into a class by themselves. Twenty-Five copies tell the story of their combined circulation. There is only one home regularly receiv- ing a humorous paper.
 We now come to a group of monthly periodicals, with which it Is less agree able to deal. They vary in price from 50 to 15 cents a year, and not infrequently they are sent gratis. They are advertis. ing sheets, with a pretty fair amount of literary hash thrown in. The reading matter in them is not always easy to condemn. Of the advertising matter, the spread of which is the undoubted pur- pose of their publication. nothing good can be said. It is the worst scum of tho advertising world. At best, the influence O. these periodicals is pernicious. both morally and mentally. Almost without exception they go into homes where the better magazines are never found, where there is nothing to counteract their in- fiuence. Ten periodicals of this kind have a circulation in the community of 56 copies, and, unlike the other maga- zines, almost every subscription repre- sents a family.