Evening star., 1925-06-08
Honors for Tom Sawyer
And Huck Finn Acclaimed

Once more the boys of yesterday
welcome an opportunity to acclaim
Tom Sawyer and Huckelberry Finn.
1t comes in the news that Mr.. and
Mrs. George Mahan of Hannibal, Mo-,
who several years ago presented Mark
Twain's home to Hannibal as a me-
mortal, now are financing monument
to the immortal youngsters.
Tom and Huck are foremost among
the few American literary characters
who could fittingly be honored with a
commemorative monument, is the en-
thusiastic comment of the Waterbury
Republican, for they ARE in all prob
ability the most widely cherished
household characters that American
literature has created" The Repub-
lican is also pleased with the proposed
location of the memorial on Cardiff
Hill, which it says was their chosen
sanctuary of repose from the burdens
of being educated" 1t was there that
THE Widow lived and Miss Watson of
acid memory; Tom Sawyer's fearsome
gang of robbers started from there for
its rendezvous In the recesses of In
jun Joe's cave by the Mississippis be-
low the town; 1t was on the Cardiff
Hill that Tom and Joe Harper thrill
lingly enacted the duel of Robin Hood
and Guy of Guisborne with wooden
swords"
Cardiff Hill is now part of the city
and Hannibal's principal business
street leads up its gentle slope" ex-
plains the Anaconda Standard. "It is a
place of romance and adventure no
longer. Urchins of the size and age of
Tom and Huck frolic no more on it's
grassy sward, emulating in childish
vlo he Of a
and Friar Tuck" This paper de-
scribes the location as it was in the
days of which Mark Twoin wrote
Cardiff HILL" back of the schoolhouse
on the way to the mysterious and
beckoning woods, fianked by the ceme.
terry, where terrible deeds of blood
were perpetrated at midnight in the
dark of the moon, what a wonderful
place 1t was"
"Of course, Huck and Tom will be
immortal without a monument" says
! the New London Day. They repre-
sent American boyhood and no num-
Der Of memorials will take precedence
in the public mind over the mental
images that were built by Mark
Twain. Still 1t will perpetuate the
! atmosphere of realism which the pub
lie likes to see even in romantic books
about boys"
y X X
The erection of such monument
| lis an attractive idea" declares the
| Erie Dispatch Herald. for there
are characters of famous authors who
continue to live in the minds of read
ers quite as much as do the mem
cries of real people"
The hold these boyish charac-
| ters have on the hearts of Americans
| is emphasized by the editorial de-
scriptions of them. ''The ingenious
and lovable deviltries of those i'm
mortal scalawags," should be sug-
gested in the pose chosen for the
statutes suggests the Elmira Star
Gazette. The Jersey Journal thinks
| that eff the cold marble under the
taps of the chise1 catches the spirit
| of the cynical Huck and the schem-
ing Tom, 1t will be a work of art in
deed, care free, buoyant irrepressible.
| irresponsible, and frankly joyous"
For its laurel wreath the Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin takes leaves fl om
the whole world, as 1t says: "Huck
and Tom have circled the globe In
gaining the delighted suffrages OF
universal boyhood, and are as well be.
loved In England as in America. in
! italy as in Australia, In France and
Germany as In. Canada.