The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1913-06-19

1t pOlntd out successfully,
that it was in the warm months that
people, otherwise sale and well-baI-
anced, would do the silliest things
under the head of vacations" and
Having a good time" Some of the
things enumerated included cata-
logue of the antics at such places as
Coney Island, and day summer re-
sorts of like kind.
We have developed some since
then, but the silly season is with us
now, as then, but in nothing has 1t
become so virulent as in our light
fiction" and the greater part OF our
magazine literature.
Some years ago-even after the
dearly beloved and characteristic
Victorian age, the fiction which the
young were supposed to read, was
couched in such terms as left great
deal to the imagination; to the girl
who had sweet-hearts and love
affairs, there was much between the
lines which she only could read but
to the innocent maiden, the literal
word was sufficient, and left a de-
lightful air of mystery at the land
they were married and lived happy
ever after" ending, which made her
own romance the more delightful
when it finally arrived.
Now, there has nothing been left
to the imagination of maid, wife nor
widow The writer's of our "best sell
lers," whether in the short story field
or in the longer works, hold mercl-
lessly up to the reader, every thrill,
every thought and every future plan
of the hero and the heroine. We no
longer content ourselves with leav-
ing the here and his beloved at the
altar, safely married-we follow
them to the train for the honeymoon,
we are with them when they have
the first row over the bills, and we
help the bride select the dry goods
for 1.-The expectant arrival" We mark
the young husbands Indifference day
by day; we are present when he
makes Illicit love to the grass or
otherwise widow, and we pace up and
down the hall with him while the
doctor and the nurse are wrestling
with death when the young wife
''goes down into the valley of the
Shadow
This is the new school of fiction
and who can say it has added one bit
to solving the problem of life, or of
MdhluS DeICGI IuSu dIIu WOL1Su!
There is a growing class, notably
that of the higher priced magazines,
which treats in most flippant man
ner the supposed lives of the haut
monde (Which in plain American is
the upper circles,O and if they
really live as the writer's would have
US believe, then the wonder is there
are not more divorces, suicide :, sani-
tariums and general devilment than
there ire.
The plain truth of the matter is
this: with the tremendous fortunes
which have become so plentiful,
there has also grown a mOrbidness
among all our classes-the very rich
want unusual amusements, and are
willing to pay the cost in money and
lives-and the middle and poorer
classes get their thrills in reading
about them. Between the mill-stones,
the young of all the classes are
ground-and we all know the result
in each strata of society.
We need, just now, a censor of fic-
tfon-and we need it badly. Clio
vice is always apt to make it easier
for the human spider to catch the
silly little f1y-and somehow or other
there seems to be no class to the flies.
The mysterious disappearance of
young women seen to happen as Of
ten among the very rich las among
the poor. There are as many UNI
principled men looking for victims
among the rich and supposedly edu-