Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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* * UNWHOLESOME LITERATURE. * * * * By J. F. J. Caldwell. * *1 * * * * * * * * * * * (Written for The Herald and News.) It is strange that neither of the two principal instructors in morality -the pulpit and the press-speaks much or often concerning the corrupt ing literature of the day. Both of them inveigh earnestly and constan-tly against intemperance in liquor or drugs, against gambling, against Sab bath-breaking and profane swearing, against cheating, against the small evils of cigarette-smoking and dissi-. pation in dancng; but we rarely hear a word from the one, or read a line by the other, against the vile reading matter spread before the people. and devoured by. them. The reprehension of the other evils I have mentioned is eminently proper. Hardly too much can be said against them. But why should hurtful literature be spared? Possibly this is because its effects are not so immediate or so apparent as those of the other vices. A man gets drunk. and beats his wife, or los es his health, or his sense, or his money, or his employment: ricl we have unquestionable evidence of the injuriousness of excessive drinking. A boy makes a flabby ghost of him self by over-indulgence in cigarettes; and the evil of that habit is manifest. And so with gambling and some other' dissipations. The operation of dele terious literature is slower and less. conspicuous. It shows no result veryl soon in the reader's body, or in his ac tions, or in his spiritual state, and it must be admitted, that there are per-* sons of minds so well balanced and: principles so well fixed, that they pass safely through a long course of in dulgence in the poison, and that al most any one may venture upon 'he dissipation occasionally. But there is nevertheless deadly poison in the thing; and its danger ousness is all the greater because of its quiet insidiousness. Most other baneful elements are prompt in their action like the material poisons prus sic acid, carbolic acid and strychnine. This one resembles those slow poisons which produce no apparent change in an hour, or in a day, or in a week, yet gradually corrode and waste the system, weakening and depraving all its partse, quietly paralyzing all its healthy energies and engendering mortal disorders, till the victim per ishes, beyond the possibility of res toration. The operation of impur literature is similarly gradual, and similarly sure to produce results. It slowly represses the purer tho'ight and sentiment; it quietly, but stead ily, generates an unhealthy excite ment of mind; it creates and fosters a low, dep.raved taste; it, step by step, engenders and matures an appetite for vicious life by painting that life in gaudy and attractive colors. It is all the more influential when it presents vice, partly veiled; for them much of vice's depravity is concealed. It would be far less dengerous if it ex hibited evil in its nakedness, for then it would disgust any decent taste. Such novels as "Red Pottage," Tolstol's "Anna Karanina" and several of Ouida's do more harm than G. W. M. Reynold's filthiest stories or the bald licentiousness of Fielding's "Tomn Jones;" for the latter offend and re pel us by their grossness, whereas the frmer furnish rotton:iese disguised, nay made inviting by agreeable dressing and flavoring. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." That element-by which I mean the spiritual part of man or woman-is the source, the controlling force, the real essence of life. As we can not gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles, so right living is im possible to a human being of diseased or depraved thought and sentiment and taste. The two antagonists, pur ity and impurity, can not dwell to gether in harmony or equality. Of course none of us can claim, or hope, in this life, to be absolutely free from imnpurity; but the proportion of im purity to purity of thought and sen timent determines whether our course shall be upward or downward, for a human being never travels along a dead level, but must rise to greater height or descend to lower depths. The constant indulgence in impure literature not only excites impure thought and sentiment and taste, but also creates a positive aversion for the pure in thought or in action by engendering a depraved appetite. Macaulay says that Dr. Samcel John son's long study of the bad Latin of the middle ages so corrupted his taste that he lost whatever appreciation he had had of classic Latin-and he adds, just as the habitual drInker of bad wine loses his relish for good wine. So it is with habits of though Works of the kind I am censuring are very attractive and engaging. es pecially to the young. All sin is al-: luring, every vice has its seductions,: for the human heart s inclined to ey arything wrong. The Ih'mani poe zpeaks truly :n saying that thte be ginning of virtue is the avoidance of vice. He might well have added, that resistance of the natural inclination to wrong-doing, is a very, very large element of virtue throughout human life. This attractiveness of evil was properly acknowledged though with rather coarse frankness, by the French woman after a draught of cold water when thirsty "It is delight ful," said she, and addid: "It would be positively delicious, if it only had a little sin in it." Indeed, there would be no merit or strength, or substance in virtue if we had no tendency to vice to contend against. What shall be said of literature which not only gives no assistance against vice, but operates as its ally and promotes by adding to its own inherent attractions those of adorn ment and pleasurable flavoring? Why, Just this: it is poisoned food made sweet to the taste; it is exhilarating wine drugged with fatal chemicals; it is gorgeous clothing reekng with the germs of foulest disease; it is a perfumed atmosphere laden with death-dealing vapors. It not only hinders virtuous thought jnd pur pose, but makes its devotees averse to them. and craving of vicious cours es; it not only leads to vicious living, but renders the spirit vicious in its very essence. The literature I am condemning is that found in novels, magazines and Sunday newspapers. Of course many novels are not only chaste but im proving; many magazine articles are va'uable, and a large part of almost any Sunday newspaper is' proper reading. But a considerable propor tion of the novels of the day display vice, and even filth, invitingly clad and perfumed, and if there is a Sun day newspaper which publishes only proper news and proper stories and sketches, I am not acquainted witb it. And the trouble is that this hurt ful literature is read by the young, who are very susceptible to all sorts of influences, and with whom all im pressions are deeper and more lasting than those received by mature per sons. And the youthful maiden, the person whom it is most important to rear and train virtuously, is most freqently the victim. Our heathen boys in great part escape the conta mination, because the most of them read hardly anything, and most of the readers pay very little attention to the little they read. But it is differ ent with a girl between, say, 14 and 20 years of age. Her nerves are sen sitive, her imagination is excitable, .er sentiments crave occupation, she indulges much in dreams, and plans, nd longings for a larger, fuller, more stirring life. Her spiritual fram is a rich field ready and waiting for use. [f the seed wheat of virtue is planted there, the harvest of a pure and use ul life may ordinarily be expected; if the tares 'of vicious thought and sentiment are sown there, the yield is pretty sure to be vanity, indolence, [1-temper, selfishness, coarse thought, zoarse taste and coarse manners, and ften something worse than any of these. A woman so perverted is at best a drag and a nuisance; as a mother, she is a positive curse to her child and to the community. I do not refer in what I have said to the matter of physical chastity. The white female in the South is rare ly lacking in that quality. The tradi tions of our people, the censorship of her sex, the teaching and example of female parents or guardians, and some other influences which need not be mentioned, keep her from falling In that way. And the custom of hus bands and male relations to kill a woman's seducer commonly deters men from attemptng a woman's ruin. But this same young female is often sadly dist.orted in her development by the constant reading of gorgeously worded stories of bright, bold, dash ing heroines--heroines who ride and drive horses which men can not man age-heroines who wrangle in public with men, and demolish them-he roines who, extravaganYtly dressed, and not much more than half covered, set men frantic by the display of their charms-heroines who spend their days in idleness, and their nights in revelry-heroines, in short, who live lives of indolence, luxury, parade and dissipation, having for their objects the dazzling of their fellow creatures and the capture of men. And the he roes of such fictions are of like traits and bearing--recklessly brave, awful ly fierce, Irresistibly dominating, and proud, athletic, etc., etc.; and1 they generally. are, or have been, terribly fast. The "up-to-date" novelist knows the average young woman's admira tion for a wicked man. There is this trait prevalent among women, and especially among young ones; they love to go to the very verge of sin. There is to most of them a powerful inclination to almost do something dreadfully wicked, just as some persons delight to walk or stand on edge of a precipice. We see this disposition exhibited in their ed when She jusi shares :i e wik l i of another vehicle, or barely misses running over a man, woman, or child. 3 We see the same thing in the average j wonau's conversation, in which there s is much uncharitable talk but a hair's c breadth removed from serious sland- d er. And the ardor of their nature, so b va'uable when properly employed, A leads them to excesses whenever they r go wrong. They are fond of excite- c ment; they wish to carry to great C length whatever they engage in. See the average maiden in a game of ten nis. She bawls, shrieks, races, jumps,: knocks balls with fury, and is really dangerous to everybody in reach of her racket. Why, most of the "up-to- T date" ones can not walk up the aisle d of a church without stamping, and strutting, and flinging their arms! 11forth and back like flails. Hardly any two of our mnod(ern ladies can talk without fidgetting and screaming; and. I sometimes see two or more of them thrown into violent excitement, ands led into actual shrieking, in a discus- t sion of~ Gustavus Lollypop's perfor mance in the two-step, or over the. e cut of a shirt waist. This ardent temperament needs to be directed in the path of virtuous. clean, pure thought and purpose. To allure it to extravagance, luxury, contentious ness, brazen self-assertion, and self indulgence, is to drag down the no blest nature to the basest life. And that is what is going on more or less, in every section of the American Un ion. I have been told by persons who have traveled in Europe since I was there (several decades ago) that the average female American tourist is there considered an abomination, on, account of her bawling and pushing, her rude speech, her greed, and her disregard of the comfort and rights of I t others. Now bad literature is not the sole < cause of these evil consequences, of I course, but it contributes no little to i them. "Evil communications"-or i more accurately, "Evil company"- ( "corrupt good manners." We all know E the corrupting influence of vicious as- f sociates, and endeavor to keep the c young away from such; is it to be f doubted that habitual association with i evil books will likewise prove in jurious? Is it to be expected that an i impressible girl will not be affected by j "Ouida's" gorgeous paintings of sin! t Or that she shall remain unharmed a by the coarseness of the Duchess i stories? If the cleanness of Walter j 'Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, William e Black, Charles Reade, Marion Craw- e ford and our Page were liberally e mixed in young women's reading, a r good deal of the poison of the bad a novels could be neutralized; but how many of them read the fictions of c those authors, or the works of any one t of them, except Crawford? Very few. A large majority of the young people have had their taste so corrupted by bad books that they are bored by the sound sense, elegance and purity ofs good writers, and crave the exaggera- p, tion, the fast living, the glaring char- ~ acters, and the thrilling scenes of - sensational fiction. And they enjoy - these all the more when flavored with F a certain quantity of wickedness. There being a demand for this sort of e thing, men and women who write for y popularity or money write according- a ly; and so it goes on from bad to e worse.t There is less excuse for the im proprieties of the Sunday newspaper than for the improper novel. One can let the bad novel alone. But the Sun day paper hands out its evil literature along with news and other informa tion which we desire and feel need to have; and we can hard-ly get the one sort without meeting up with the other. Sometimes, indeed, we see a story of gambling, or of bar-roam rowdyism, or of brawls and fisticuff ing, following on the very heels of an editorial homily or even a sermon from the pulpit. The managers of the papers may say that nobody need read the bad things. But most of the young, and many of the old, will read them. It is inexcusably wrong to of fer such matter for reading. Can- a man justify his giving drink to his neighbor and putting the bottle to him, by saying that the neighbor is not compelled to drink? 'Or would a woman excuse the exhibition of her uaked body on the streets by re minding us that people are not oblig-I ed to look at her? I To bring this matter of newspapers ( near home, I must complain of that otherwise excellent journal, the Char leston News and Courier. I have IE nothing to say about the Columbia!( State, -because I seldom see it. But the Sunday News, for several years, has published very objectionable mat Iter stories of bar-room scenes, stories of gambling,.stories of unseem ly brawls, descriptions of brutal prize fights, and. if my memory does not mislead me, even pictures of JTeffries and Johnson dealing smashing blows, or posing to deliver such. or tower-. ing above a battered, prostrate anta-J gonist. I endeavored, just after the: Jef ris-Johnsn fight, to get publi -hich had appeared in the Sunday 'ews. Being in a mood for what .rtemus Ward calls "sarcassum," I ent to that paper the following ommunication (omitting address, ate and signature): "So the black east beat the white beast. The lat ?r may now conclude his autobiog aphy in the Sunday News with a hapter under the heading, "How I ot Knocked Out by a Nigger," or How I Made My Last Money by Get ng a Mauling." A still more choice iece of reading would be an article y the victorious Jack. entitled, "How h Knocked the Stuffin' Out'n Jim effries." We subscribers to the Sun ay News await with anxiety the ublication of some such refined and ious literature for our religious edi cation on the Lord's day." As might have been expected,. that ewspaper has not published the let ar; its publication might be con trued to imply the concession that ie News and Courier is amenable to ensure for its sins. and possibly, ren for its heedlessness of duty. We have laws which operate to con ne palpably obsceno literature by xcluding it from the mail, and some :hich tend to limit its saL-. We havQ o laws, nor can expect any, to pre ent the circulation of the contamin ting literature I am here condemn ag. Any crusade against it must be onducted by the pulpit, the press and adividuals interested in the young. 9 'he two former have much the best pportunities and much the largest eld for operation. But laymen and aywomen (if there is such a word! s the latter) may effect a great deal, specially if heartily encouraged and timulated by the clergy and the edi- en an ors. It is evidently the duty of every I nature person to do what he or she $ an to extirpate the poison that is de- th iasing and defiling the taste and the I ;entiment of the immature. Every stt ndividual may do some good; and oncert of action among a consider .ble number is sure to prove very ef ective. The work will be slow and ifficult; and so, mainly because so ew of the people of our illiterate Pouth appreciate the influence of - hat one reads-most of them fancy ng that the character of one's read- ) ag matter is of even less importance Ca han the kind of dessert that one eats M t dinner, or the flavor of the syrup e uses with his cakes at breakfast. ~ut many parents and others in harge of the young may be enlight ned, and almost every person really nlightened is pretty sure to become " iore or less a helper, by his protests act nd his influence, in the effort to a ard the young against the perni- WI ious diet on which most of them are th~ ow feeding. Tha Got 'Em All, b It is told that a certain lady of a -= restern Kansas town desired to E bow kindness to the captain of the@ >cal State militia company and @ rrote the following invitation: "Mrs. - requests the pleasure of Capt. -'s company at a reception on a Tiday evening." A prompt reply came: "With the xception of three men who are sick g rith measlas, Capt. --'s company f ccepts your kind invitation and will ome with pleasure to your recep ion Friday evening."--Khinsas City ) ournal. RI The Newb NEN At the Close of t) Condensed Fro RESOURCES. .oans and discounts $26 'urniture and Fixtures )verdrafts secured and unse cured 3onds and Stocks ash and due from;Banks 5 $33 40o Paid ( AMES MCINTOSH, President B E T V YOU and SA EXCE] Supply Y( FRI 1) KLE The Fair and! 34 Main Street. iversity of South Carolina. Varied courses of study in Sci ce, Liberal Arts, Education, Civil dElectrical Engineering and Law. College fees, rooms, lights, etc., 6; Board $12 per month. For >se paying tuition, $4o additional. The health and morals of the idents are the first consideration the faculty. 3 Teachers' scbola.ships, worth 58. For catalogue, write to S. C. MITCHELL, Pres., Columbia, S. C. f. B. WELLS' TRANSFER Eauls Anything on Short Notice. -eful and Accommodatinig Drivers. iing Household Furniture a Spec ialty. IUE EUSINESS SOLICITED. )fice. Phone No. 61 Residence Phone No. '. Then the digestion lg all right, the on of the bowels regular, there is atural craving and relish for food. en this is lacking you may know t you need a dose of Cha.mber 's Stomach and Liver Tablets. y strengthen the digestive organs, ~rove the appetite and regulate the els. Sold by W. E. Pelham & Son. SU M MER R AT E SAL.E Thee are new and in bautifu mahogany ese bargains. ORGAN BARGAINS Som recot han rgans ttken in ex e iteod rgans from 45 to 65. sdfr Easy terms-o respons ble parties-wil ianos anid Orga.ns FULLY WARRANTEb. laloe's Music House, Columbia, S.C. ~POR T 01 erry Savi VBERRY, S. te Business Nove m Report to State Ba ,495.25 Capital ,275.00 Undivided I Deposits ,758 60 Notes and I 680.00 ed ,437.65 ,646.50 )n Savirigs I ING VEENM VING MONEY PT TO ur Wants TTNER 3quare Dealer. Phone No. 262 Took All His Money. Often all a man earns goes to doe tors or for medicines, to cure a stom ach, Liver or Kidney trouble that Dr. King's New Life Pills would quickly cure at slight cost. Best for Dyspep sia, Indigestion, Billiousness, Consti pation, Jaundice, Malaria and Debil. ity. 25c at W. E Pelham & Son's. NEWBERRY UNION STATION. Arrival and Departure of Passenger Trains-Effective 12.01 A. IL Sunday, July 17, 1910. 'Southern Railway. No. 15 for Greenville.. .. 8.51 a. m. No. 18 for Columbia.. ...11.57 a. m. No. 17 for Greenville.. .. 2.48 p. M. No. 16 for Columbia .. ....8.55 p. mn. C., N. & L. BaiRway. *No.. 22 for Columbia.. .. 8.47 a. mn. No. 52 for Greenville.. ...12.56 p. mn. No. 53 for Columbia.. .. 3.20 p. mn. *No. 21 for Laurens.. .. 7.25 p. m. * Does not run on Sunday. This time table shows the times at which trains may be expected to de part from this station, but their de parture is not guaranteed and the time shown is sub.iect to change with out notice. G. L. Robinson, Station Master. President. Helps Orphans. Hundreds of orphans have been helped by the President of the Indus trial and Orphan's Home at Macon, Ga., who writes: "We have used Elec tric Bitters in this Institution for nine years. It has proved a most ex cellent medicine for Stomach, Liver and Kidney troubles. We regard It as one of the best family medicines on earth." It invigorates all vital or gans, purifies the blood, aids diges tion, creates appetite. To strengthen and build up pale, thin, weak chil dren or rundown people it has no equal. Best for . female complaints. Only 50c. at W. E. Pelham & Son's. ings Bank C. hmber 16, 1909. nk Examiner LI ABILITIES. $ 50,000.004 ~rofits 27,013.63 250,632.87 3ills Rediscount 6,000.00. $333,646.5e )eposits J E NORWOOD, Cashier.