The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1910-08-16

or anOther EeQlcle, or barely misses
running over man, woman, or child.
We see the same thing in the average
won4an's conversation, in which there
is much uncharitable talk but hairs
! breadth removed from serious sland-
er. And the ardor of their nature, so
valuable when properly employed,
leads them to excesses whenever they
go wrong. They are fond of excite
ment; they wish to carry to great
| length whatever they engage in. See
the average maiden in a game Of ten
mis-. She bawls, shrieks. races, jumps,
knocks balls with fury, and is really
dangerous to everybody in reach Of
! her racket. Why, most Of the ''up-to
date" ones can not walk up the aisle
! of a church without stamping, and
strutting, and finging their arms
! forth and back like fails. Hardly any
two of our modern ladies can talk
without idgetting and screaming; ard
| sometimes see two or more of them
! thrown into violent excitement, and
led into actual shrieking, in a discus
sion of Gustavus Lollvpop's perfor
nance in the two-step, Or over the
! cut of a shirt waist. This ardent
! temperament needs to be directed in
! the path of virtuous, clean, pure
thought and purpose To allure it to
extravaganza, luxury, contentious
ness, brazen self-assertion, and self
! indulgence, is to drag down the no
blest nature to the basest life. And
! that is what is going on more or less,
in every section of the American Un-
ion. 1 have been told by persons who
have Travelled in Europe since was
there (several decades ago. that the
average female American tourist is
there considered an abomination, on
account of her bawling and pushing,
her rude speech, her greed, and her
disregard of the comfort and rights Of
others.
Now bad literature is not the sole
cause of these evil consequences, Of
course, but it contributes no little to
them. evil communications
more accurately, evil company
corrupt good manners" We all know
the corrupting influence of vicious as
sociates, and endeavor to keep the
young away from such; is it to be
doubted that habitual association with
evil books will likewise prove in
furious? Is it to be expected that an
impressible girl will not be affected by
"Ouida's" gorgeous paintings of sin!
Or that she shall remain unharmed
by the coarseness of the Duchess
stories? If the cleanness Of Walter
lScott, Thackeray, Dickens, William
Black, Charles Reade, Marion Craw-
ford and our Page we're literally
mixed in young women's reading,
good deal of the poison of the bad
novels could be neutralized; but how
many of them read the fctions OF
those authors, or the works of any one
of them, except Crawford? Very few.
A large majority of the young people
have had their taste so corrupted oy
bad books that they are bored by the
sound sense, elegance and purity OF
good writer's, and crave the exaggera-
ton, the fast living, the glaring char
acters, and the thrilling scenes OF
sensational fiction. And they enjoy
these all the more when favored with
certain quantity Of wickedness.
There being a demand for this sort OF
thing, men and women who write for
popularity or money write according
! ly; and so it goes on from bad to
worse.
There is less excuse for the i'm
proprieties of the Sunday newspaper
than for the improper novel. One can
! let the bad novel alone. But the Sun
day paper hands out its evil literature
along with news and other informa-
ton which We desire and feel need
! to have; and we can hardly get the
one sort without meeting up with the
other. Sometimes, indeed, we see a
story of gambling, or of bar-room
rowdyism, or Of brawls and fsticuff-
ing, following on the very heels OF
an editorial homily or even sermon
from the pulpit. The managers Of the
papers may say that nobody need read
! the bad things. But most Of the
young, and many Of the old, will read
them. It is ineXcusably wrong to Of
fer such matter for reading. Can. a
man Justify his giving drink to his
neighbor and putting the bottle to
him, by saying that the neighbor is