YOUR OWN CHILDREN MAY BE AMONG THEM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 7, 6 June 1884, Page 23

YOUR OWN CHILDREN MAY BE AMONG THEM.

(New York Freeman i Journal.') The influence of the " thrilling" stories printed in the periodicals intended for young people is becoming more and more evident. 8-) fl.igiant have the evils resulting from it grown, that the daily papers each day offer examples of them. Iti* noticeable that the victims of theciaze for exciting reading are found principally among the pupils of the public schools. The Philadelphia Times recently published an account of a love affiir between a girl pupil and a boy pupil of the schools. * The boy bad " loWl his love* in speeches out of the story pipers. The girl, used to living in a land of .dreims, listened eagerly to the bosh, and when the boy lejt her and forgot all about her, she tried — following tho example of one of her' favourite heroines — to poison herself. She probably discovered that the work of resuscitation with the aid of a stomach pump was not so romantic as the suicide's death as described -jy the story- writers. Her father wrote to the boy, accusing him of treachery and baseness, and threatening vengeance, after the manner%hat the more foolish father of a foolish daughter might be expected to act. • The idea of "spanking' 1 the young female maniac does not seem to have entered the father's head ; he at once elevutud his daughter into the position o£ a martyr, instea I of whipping the maudlin sentimentality out of her. This type of the American father is not rare. !Kot long ago, another boy, one of a coterie of gay youths of Flatbush, L. I , was accused of gross immorality. His lathtr went into roais of laughter an each revelation of the young dog's viciousness. It was only the " smartness "' of the youngster that had gjtttm him in'o trouble, and this type of father is always willing to wink and chuckle over smartness ; he U of that class which buys aud laughs at the compound of immorality and coarseness which make up the publication called Peck's " Bad Boy." If his boy is "smart," he does uotcure how vicious he may be. The grandsoßS of such men as this will be fitting citizens of the Sodoms and.Gomorrah-< yet t-j be destroyed. We published last week a sketch of the doings of a band of little ttrievus wno wvre inspired by the teachings of the ttory pupeiß ; and faxm Quint y, Mass., comes an account of a band of lads whose '• profession ' was burglary. They belonged to the '• Ooddiu,eton " Grammar School. In another school in the same I lace h«d been organised another baud known as the " Billy the Kid " Prang. Brought into court, the members of th? first band confessed tieiA rimes and admitted that they had been led to commit them by tbe reading of dime novels. The purpose of bo h bands was to rob dwellings in the town. Very few instances of the horrible effects of bad reading get into print. The poison is circulated so quietly, through the schools irom hand to hand, that its existence is barely noticed by careless parents and teachers. And the American humourist has such a funny way of treating suicide, murder and sudden death, treachery, aud theft, that the public mind is more inclined to be amused than

horrified by the examples of youthful depravity and parental idiocy set before it. As a model of the disgusting frivolity and immoral lightness with, which th? popular humourist' treats serious subjects, we mention again •• Peck's Bvi Boy "—a series of sketches that, in the beginning, had some of the elements of honest fun. In the end, there is nothing but demoralization for young and old in them. The habit of treating- tin most important subjects as m-Utera lit for jests has becomj a popular vic3. A nation whose "organs" usi a hinging, a divorce suit, ot a visitation of God, like the recent floods, as a subject for strained humour, cannot have sound pnbhc opinion. - This plague of bad literature muet be considered seriously. Boys and girls are taught that reading and writing are necessary to life in this country, and they learn to reid when very young. It is ' natural that they should at once attempt to utilise their new accomplishment. Taj news-stands invite tham to enjoy all kinds of adventures by sea and land. Flaring pictures tempt them, by exciting their interest and curiosity. The tneatre comes with its enticement, and children who ought to bs leading pure and simple live? move through their day 3 wrapt ia dreams as stupefying as those of the confirmed opium eater. It has been said over and over again that only alarmists take a gloomy view of the cousequences of the reading mania — that it sometimes results in undue excitement under which boys do absurd things, but that it is a phase of their life which so in passes away. A phase of life in which boys ara at heart, and so far as lies in their power, in action, little murderers and thieves, is not to bd considered lightly, however humorous the professional paragrapher may try to make ie seem. We have met men penniless and desperate who traced the greatest of their sins and misfortunes to the mental excitement which had been induced in youth by the continual reading of novels* prepared "'expressly for boys. As to the women;- the number of wretched and hasty marriages into which they have been led, through false views of life given in popular works of fiction are innumerable. The frequent divorces so lightly regarded by public opinion have their cause in thoughtless marriages, or marriages founded on false ideas of life and *' love." What can b«s hoped of a country whose children are brought up in schools without religion, and fed from their earliest years on romances far more objectionable than, those Cervantes ridiculed in " Don Quixote ?" M. Paul Bert, the blatant prophet of the secularisation of schools in France, is credited with having said that "secularised schools would softly detach children from religion." The public schools here are gradually detaching the people from the high standards of morality erected by Ckristainiiy. M. Paul Bert has only to study the effects of an educational system without morality to be thoroughly satisfied that his statement is correct. A child whose parents are busy, and wno care, or find fault with, it, according to their humour, is sent to school. It learns nothing of God in school, it seldom hears His name at home ; but it reads of adventures, of splendors, oE the delights of the man who is "smart" enough to kill, lie, ami steal ; and of the woman who commits suicide for "love " and becomes an "angel." It grows into manhood or womanhood a wretched creature, without principles, 'with a diseased imagination, a weakened memory, and an insatiable craving for constant excitement. .The boy or girl " educated "ia this way is the typical American boy or girl ; and the typical boy or girl is moulded by the " glorious"' public school system and ihe a«-t of reading —novels. The " dime novels " of twenty years ago were harmless compared with the stories of the popular youths' papers in vogue to-day. They were generally plagiarisms of Cooper and at the worst condensations of Mayne Keid. Leather Stocking, under various aliases, stalked through them. They were full of iighting and tomahawking. The American hero was invariably pursued by a Spanish rival tor the hand of the transcendant Donna Koline ; t but they were less immoral in their tendency than •♦ Oliver Twist," and the American boy of '6i may regrut the loss of time and the neglect of solid studies, yet he has now »o conception of the evil wrought by the very different kind of readiua in which the boys of '84 delight. Prudent parents forbade the " dime novel," with its attractive yellow cover, and carefully trained children looked ou it as evil ; yet the literature that produces '• Btlly-the-Kida" and. "Jesse Janus'" is a tbousaud limes worse. It consists of stories of sneak thieves and women of evil character ; its scenes are laid in the lowest hauntsof vice ; its language is a vile blaug ; in it the most degrading lust masquerades as '• love." On certain days in the week, children of all ages crowd to the news-stands, to feed upon it. Ie is horrible— ana your own children may be amoug them.