The Washington herald., 1910-10-06
Passing of the Dime Novel

In Germany, where they so a good deal
further in the direction of parental"
care Of the people than we are willing
that our government should, they have
put in motion a plan to discourage the
SALE and so prevent. the reading OF that
class Of literature which we know as
the dime novel" Curiously enough,
many publishers and booksellers have CO.
operated with the German government in
the movement. so that It bids fair to be
success.
We do not need any such governmental
censorship in this country. because. curl
ously enough. the dime novel seems 10
have died a natural death. When, as
sometimes happens, a messenger boy, in
comedy on the stage, is depicted as
hating with his message because he is
absorbed in the pages of a dime novel
the joke seems 10 have lost its point
No longer do we see their gaudy covers
in the shop windows. or their soiled
pages sticking from the pockets Of the
youth of the land. II is probable that
the dime novel has passed away before the
advent of the cheap magazine. the rapid
multiplication of the low-priced illustrated
weekly; to say nothing Of the daily
newspaper. with its recital OF incidents
quite as startling as any that were
known by the heroes of the old dime
novels. Even the mysterious Beadle.
whose name appeared so often as the
writer Of lurid stories. could hardly vie,
in his best days, with the actualities Of
our time Not for q mere dime could
an author be expected to imagine such a
tragedy as the Crippen ease. for instance
with its chase of the murderer, by wire
less telegraphy from one continent 10
another. What dime novel could have
beaten the case of the loss Of the
steamer Republic, with Jack Binns. the
dashing wireless operator franticauy
ticking out his call for help. or the
aviation meets. which are of daily oc-
currence; the men who go a mile high
into the air and drop sham bombs
onto the decks Of imitation battle ships
these things are the realities of to-day.
and they beat the imaginings of the
dime novelists all hollow
And yet. after all. the question of cen
sorship over what youth shall read is,
we believe. a question for individual
parents and guardians, rather than for
government. Undoubtedly, some healthy
boys. with too ripe imaginadons. were
led. through the old-fashioned dime
novels. to run away from home to night
Indians, or even, in extreme cases. TO
hold up trains in emulation of Jesse
James; but we doubt if even these es-
capades did the boys much harm They
were only make-believe. after all, and
even the scientists are not wise enough
to tell US Of the strange workings OF the
mind OF an average American boy. OF
course. the dime novel was a great slim
ulator to the imagination. We have the
testimony of so great a literary artist
as Robert Louis Stevenson that when
he was mind-tired from writing his
beautiful and thoughtful essays. nothing
gave him so much relief as reading such
trash as ''The Robbers of Bloody Gulch"
or Jack Harkaway's Last Case"
But the enormous spread of education.
no less than the general improvement in
public tastes. has sounded the knell OF
the dime novel OF the olden kind. IN
stead of trash written by Underwriters
whose sole object was TO get thrill in
every chapter. there can be purchased
now, for a dime, the best works of the
greatest writers-and they are being
bought largely The modern boy can get
Treasure Island" or The Arabian
Nights" or Cooper's Misunderstanding
Tales" for dime. So we do not need to
do what Germany is doing. BY natural
process. by the law OF the survival OF