Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1906-07-05
OD-AND-THUNDER
AS A PROFESSION
HOW DIME NOVELS ARE MANU-
FAcTURED.
GREAT PRODUCER DIES
After Writing Hundreds of "YeIIow
Backs" Col. n. X. shackeIford
Observation-Disclosures and Preacher
on the side--Less Blood and Thun-
der Now.

| A brief dispatch in the newspapers
a Few days ago announced the death
|of Colonel H. X. Shackelford Of Balm
bridge, Ca, man known to few by
i this title. but famous among a GER
tain class of readers the country
over as Hal Standish, author of
Fred Fearnot, Old Sleuth and other
stories of adventure. He had for
thirty-fve years welded a pen that
dripped gore and traced innumerable
thrills upon the excited fancy of
American youth morbibly hungry for
tales Of improbable performances by
mythical heroes. When not engaged
IL literary pursuits, Colonel Shackel-
ford on occasion lectured, filled a pull
pit as Baptist minister or delivered
democratic campaign speeches. He
died at the age of SIS.
| What thity-five years of labor in
the writing of these blood-ard-thun-
der tales means can scarcely be ap-
preciated bw the average person. Col
onei Shachelford had penned millions
OF words, aggregating hundreds of
volumes of fiction. While lacking
the merit to entitle them to rank as
literature, his stories were ingenious
in their composition and possessed
the interest necessary to compel their
perusal by large class. Incidental
ly he had slain more men with his
pen than fell in battle during the
Spanish-American war.
The Last of an oId-Time School.
Colonel Shackelford was one of
the last Of an old-time school Of writ
ers that enjoyed its greatest pros
perity twenty years ago. In those
days there were half dozen large
publishing houses in this country
that subsisted almost exclusively up
on the returns from sale of what the
English call penny dreadfuls," hair
raising narratives of Indian fights,
battles between detectives and des-
perate criminals, and life in western
mining camps. There are few mid
die aged men today who cannot re-
call when they carried a ragged
"Beadle & Adams Dime Library" in
their pistol pockets, selling every
opportunity to surreptitiously scan it's
fearful but fascinating pages. Hal
Standish, OF! Coomes, Captain Mayne
Reid, Ned Buntline, Joseph E. Bad
ger, Jr., Old Sleuth, Nick Carter,
Buckskin Sam and Colonel Prentiss
Ingraham were the authors Of that
day whose names on the title pages
OF library were a guarantee of
Nightmares to the boy reader. In
/ a few instances these were the true
names of the writer's. AS time pass
ed death thinned the ranks of the
"thrillers,'" but their places were i'm
mediately taken by imitators and
covers of the pocket novel.
/ The greatest of the old-time pro-
fessional blood-curdlers, and one of
the number that habitually wrote un-
der their own names, was Colonel
Prentiss Ingraham, who died two
years ago. Colonel Ingraham was
an ex-Confederate officer, an adven-
turer in many chimes, highly cultured
and possessed of marvellous imagi-
nation. 1t was his boast that he had
written more than 100 complete
tales of adventure, varying in length
from the conventional short story to
volumes of several hundred pages. He,
more nearly than any OF his contem-
loraries, approached high literary
standard in his work. To the day of
his death he was on the pay roll of a
New York firm of publishers, though
the infirmities of old age had practi-
cally retired him from active service
lseveral years before. One of his last
efforts was to write, in characteristic
dime novel style, an account of the
lexploits and death OF the notorious
western bandit, Tracy, for the New
York Journal
He Knew Of What He Wrote.
Colonel Ingraham was one of the
very few writers of his class who had
ever witnessed such scenes as
wee described and had
visited the localities told of, The
larger number of Wild West writer's
were eastern men. who had never
seen the prairies, and had never seen
an Indian other than the innocuous
variety adjoining cigar stores. One
Iof the most successful writer's of
western tales was New Yorker who
had never been outside Of the state,
and for the last twenty years of his
life never visited any part of his
native city rorth Of Twenty-third st.
BY no mans blind to the peculiar
and somewhat indifferent quality of
the ''blood-aad-thunder" class of read
ing matter. Colonel Ingrahcm de-
lighted in discussing. facetitiously. its
manufacture.
"Oh. no; never run out of ma
Iterial." he would reply to inquiries
lcoaceining his prolific Imagination.
1.-The main idea In writing one OF my