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every city in the land, and know them by their sparkling diamonds, their nervous, exhausted fea tures. marrow out of their bones, and heet ie-tlushed cheeks. A fortune is all they have; the red. happy face of the honest farmer or grocer, which is worth more than gold. bringing health, happiness and sat isfaction in death, they do not know, nor can they know. It is unjust to them, it is taking their birthright away from them, to legalize a business in which the\ degrade* and torture themselves. causing them unhap piness ami misery in lift* and frightful horrors in passing from it. RAG-TIME MUSIC AND COMIC-SUPPLEMENT ART. y.-* ■■■ I—■ IHI ra I^——iXCTMi At one of tin* Georgia teachers' associations tin* writer, not many years since, listened to an amusing lecture by a member in which the reading of ’’dime" novels was encouraged on the false assumption that such literature would lead some people, who would not otherwise become readers at all, to develop a taste for good reading and so come to know the dif ference between tin* real and tin* unreal, the pure and the impure—the difference between a bull-frog and a wood thrush. In simple justice to the intelligence of tin* large majority present it should be stated that the sugges tion was not very well received. Intelligent observation, even ordinary common sense, is sufficient to teach anyone that tin* public taste will demand only that which it has been edu cated up to. and no more. It will be. it must be. admitted by al! that some of the sickly, trashy literature of our day has its influence, but this influence is not to raise and ele vate: it is to lower and degrade*. It is not fair, nor is it just, to allow children to grow up on such mind-food. Raised upon such tin- < wdmlesome stuff, how can they have any appetite tor real music, real drama, real art.’ Observe* their flock ini’’ to the average cheap vaudeville performance, which is neither refined nor pleasing. except to those with a taste for horse-play. It is a deplorable sign of the times, this generous appreciation of a sentimental, maudlin literature, of a rag-time music and comic-supplement art. It can have no other effect than to appeal to the mob, to the baser passions of our nature. Those comic supplements of the Sunday newspa pers, those atrocities wherein art* depicted the pleas ing spectacle of somebody being hurt, of children placing hob-naileel jokes upon their elders, the point of the supposed joke being usually a bump on tin* elders' head, may provide excellent meat for the young minds of a nation already famous for its bad manners, but they have no fruits of genius such as Greece carried to mankind in her marble, Italy in her paintings. Germany in her music. England in her law and literature and Ireland in her mirth, laughter and love. America is left alone to boast a proud superiority of producing something which all of these combined could not evolve: Mister Hooligan THE REASON They alone are not responsible. Law-givers must share with them, like and like. Every man who votes against the pending bill emght. and some day shrill. feel tin* heavy hand of retribution on his head. Indeed, it is a question whetln r or not a num who can prevent a crime but doesn’t, is not more guilty than he who actually commits it. We can stop lids robbery of tin* poor and ignorant, if is easier of handling than almost any social problem confront mg us; and it' we do not do it. we have onl\ ourselves to blame for the consequences sure to follow. and Mule Maud. Buster Brown and the Katzenjam mers. '‘hot-time music and iive-cent shows.’ w here the acme of stupidity is reached within the limits of human endeavor. Am! to these delectable performances tin* child ren crowd and learn therefrom considerably more than their prayers. 1 pon the screen before them mama finds in papa s pocket a photograph of another lady, presumably handsomer and more attractive than sin*. Tin* next slide presents mama attacking papa, the inevitable thumps on the head being fol lowed by a lew good kicks as papa falls and rolls on the floor. Or mama deceives papa laughably, papa takes his revenge bloodily, and the* children sit there and drink it all in. Or the precocious brat takes the center of the limelight and performs; or mama has fallen by the wayside and papa's little gur-1-1-1 schreechmgly comments on the sad occasion and brings mama back to the that, where the “plan ner" is plush-covered and the carpet rivals the rain bow. Which is all very delectable ami encourages virtue in t In* young. We have kindergartens and mothers' clubs, and God knows what not; women's (dubs and the study of literal lire. usually out of tin* Encyclopedia Brit tanica ; vet we give tin* chilelren tin* comic supple ments every Sunday that rolls over their heads, and take them into a stiftling hall outside* of which a steam engine nuisance shrieks and brays rag-time “twunes" and inside* of which an “artist" with tin* wit of the* trogdolile and the* humor of a rhinoceros does his st unt; another “art ist " w ith a voice bet ween a tin whisth* and tin* river siren, accompanied by the* pounding of a painful piano, gives a eoon lady's lament about her darlin’ man, or promises to meet his bride by the riverside, or twaddles that “him and her" will spoon, spoon, if you'll hurry out, June Moo-( )-n. A people feel on this sort of slops would demand that William Shakespeare* black his face* and do a turn with the hemes and Beethoven give them a turn on a barrel-organ. They would believe that Plato is a patent knife-polish and Homer a carrier pigeon. Why not .’ Their music has been screeched into them by a steam “pianner." the*ir pictures have been kick ed into them by Mister Happy Hooligan’s Mule Maud. To speak in keeping with tin* subject, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. 5