Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-08-24
..N,cke,. Novels Were Good Prophets.

unerring foresight That truth IS
stranger than fiction is an old saying
that might we'll be transposed to mean tina.
fiction, however wide OF the seeming
mark it may be is almost sure 70
be verified by fact if we can walt iohe
enough for facts to appear. Or we may
take the view that in the last quarter OF
century's advancement it has been SHOWN
that nothing is impossible, and that even
the most unlikely things predicted thirty
FIVE or forty years ago have come to pass
and more, too.
The nickel novels that in our youth we
we're compelled to sneak off IN the at',c 10
read safely out of sight of father or mo'ner'
with the consciousness that we were COM
mittinp an objectionable sin for when we
were likely to call down the wrath OF 'he
parental rod with stinging emphasis nave
been vindicated in full, and instead OF the
brain twisting they were supposed 70
cause, they WERE indeed, the early-day
prophets which we were unable TO COM
prehend or interpret, because they were
beyond the ken of mans blunt, she o"-ine-
in-advance vision. :,
Jules Verne's thriller. Around the
World in Eighty Days was the nrs'
story of its kind to be fully proven as a
fact--in truth, modern convenlences anu
facilities for travel show that the famous
author was very modest in hls preoicuoi's
for the round-the-world trip was MADE
many years ago in considerably less ''''ie
than eighty days.
A regular nickel-thriller of thirty years
ago, under the title of 'Six Weeks ID .ne
Great Whirlpool; or strange Au.
ventures in a Submarine Boat, 'oiu "a
the achievements Of the present day
underseas warships in detail. Senareis'
the author Of the ''Noname" }" series' wrote
almost a thousand books or stories tha'
were at once taboo" in every family as
too improbable for realization. I'M.
world champion of prolific writers was no'
a scientist in any sense OF the "oro, ne
was. on the contrary regarded as VIM
brained and his stories as the very hieh-
water mark of sensational hction, l1hpos-
sible mere sensational stuff, or IN uhe
yenacular of the street, downright mes
He. however. despite this bad repute' pre-
dicted the automobile, the u-ooat' lhe
airplane. the dirigible as well as the oa.'ie
tank. all Of which came into active pias
in the late war.
The "Cover of the Mystic Brand" and
Lost in the Land of Fire, also Richei
novels of forty years ago. pictured ,he "ai
tank as stage coach armoured perhaps IN
defense against the Indians, and descrioeo
as vehicle by which one might Yoss 'he
continent without fear of stage ROBBERS OF
hostile red men. Experiences with tanks
four decades later, invented under 'ne
stress of necessity, indicates that there
would be no fear from any foe to tra'eieis .
who patronized such armored and steam
driven fortresses. The drawing would
seem 10 have some claim to being the
original forttanks used in the war
"The Steam Man of the Plains, Tor a
nickel, possibly might have been the carry
prototype of the automobile. instead oi
the car being in its present shape, the
motive power was centered IN steer man
who was the steam engine of the horseiess
carriage in the model. as shown Oh 'ne
cover Of the booklet.
"Around the Arctic Circle, likewise
- .~4zr.. g.
priced at a nickel, depicted the incidents
of Frank Reade, Jr. Is trip to the poie Il, a
d;r;g;ble balloon. a ''hot sir ship as the
author called it. !,
Itwould seem that Senarens anticipated
all of the important inventions oi 'ilese
later days. and one re-reading his STORIES
and seeing that in thirty or forty years
many of the most improbable OF them
have come true makes them almost un-
cannv The author does not claim any
sunrenatural clairvoyance or inspiration,
and in view of the fact that ne mas no
oco,,aintance with science eandlittleunder-
standing of mechanics or knowledge OF the
oo;nus ON in the world, his achievements
become more and more wonder. he sun
lives at sixty. despite the fact that ne
wrote almost a thousand stories, and ms
weekly output was set at more than iorty
thousand words. never falling below that
average, using lead pencil and rushing
his COPY off to the waiting printer VINO
strove to keep a new nickel thriller on the
ways all the time. !,
1t would appear that our parental
canton and the not overmiled ehast7se-
ments so many Of us received were not de-
served. for we were drawn to these
phrophesies by reason of the graphic
language the author employed and because
the fctson seemed so much more remark
able than truth. Perhaps because 1T was
the truth-even though we did not sus-
pect il as SUCH then-we read 1T so hum
grily and absorbed its meaning, until now
we know that the despised literature OF
our boyhood was real substantial stun,
for the cravings Of youth. and may have
turned the thoughts of thousands into the
inventive fields. Who can tell what ire
rnendous influence the nickel novel had on
the inventive talent of this nation-a
talent that has placed America IN the
lead Of all countries.