The sun., 1919-10-19
By MARTHA McCULLOCH-
WILLIAMS.


strong, sweet and plenty of it" Witness
Esop and his congeners, the rowing min
strels and chrouiclers of the Middle Ages,
the outworn troubadours, the intermina-
BILE romancers of the seventeenth century
the Grand Cyrus ran, I think, to some
thirty yolumes-and coming down nearly
to our own times, the story papers that
were broadsheets Of delight throughout
these United States.
The earliest of them within my nowl-
edge was the Saturday Eve''ing Post,
generous broadsheet, fimsy and slimsy, but
80 well printed it was easy to read by tai
low candle light. The post Office was
eight miles off-mal came to it three
times a week, as it was off stage route
A DELAYED or missing Post was In the ma
ture of a calamity, since it was read aloud
to the assembled family after supper, to
the saving of time, eyesight and candles
Snug in my trundle bed, listened to
the most thrilling stories. Cowboys had
not been invented, but Emerson Bennett
didn't in the least miss them-he made
thrilling shift with emigrant trains, from
tier settlers and Indians-always and
everywhere Indians. Mixed judiciously
with a mild love interest and accented
generally with stage Irishmen or negroes,
they made you cry or laugh, holding
breath the while. Sea stories, OF whale
sh;ps, pirates and privateers, were less
impressive to us inland folk, yet ! make
no doubt better reading to people OF the
seaboard States / recall no pictures,
and of poetry, which was sparse, only its
different look in print 1 might perhaps
have essayed to read it had not our Post
become itinerant as soon as we were
through the stories. 1t went all round
the Northumberland very rarely came
back
II.
About the middle SOS the NeW York
LedoeY came to hand. Robert Bonner
did wonders with tit outgrew Jonah's
pourd. he had fair for what was called
later '1the edge of the futuren-and GER
tainly peeped over to his own exceeding
profit He was, think, the first to marry
and capitalize Patriotism and Celebrity
by paving Edward Everett $40, 0O0efor an
undermediocre lot of essays styled The
Mount Vernon Papers. The Mount Yer
non Association had just acquired Wash
ington's estate from his granddaughter,
John Augustine, and those elect ladies
were vexing heaven, earth and their men
folk for money to pay for it. Mr.. Everett
turned over to them the price Of his es-
says-with q result of advertising to him
self and the publisher as generous as the
price and the bestowal thereof. The les
son was not lost on the publisher; con-
trariwise, he took it to heart and check
book. As happy convert thereafter he
often made prices so liberal they more
than paid themselves in publicity.
Henry Ward Beecher wrote editorials
for while; also and further the Ledger
corralled the alliterative bunch-Grace
Greenwood, Fanny Fern ct Id genus omne.
Rhymers of degree degrees-had
likewise a look In. John Godfrey SAKE
was of them, first among equals. But all
said and done and planned,.i was stories,
many stories, yet more stories, long, short,
grave, gay, lively and severe, that made
the Ledger The world was their parish;
they might happen any time, anywhere,
provided the happening had brass band
quality Indeed, in some of there the
quality might have been characterized as
jazzy-only jazz and all its works had
not then been discovered.
The imperative story requisite was to be
Interesting, also, if an American story, to
ignore the existence of social distinctions.
Evidently the Ledger's readers agreed