The Daily News TUESDAY, MARCH 2. SOME MODERN "LITERATURE."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 31, 2 March 1909, Page 2

The Daily News TUESDAY, MARCH 2. SOME MODERN "LITERATURE."

There is 210 doubt that iu all ages the written word of those curable of expressing eternal truths or infernal lies have inlluuiiued the multitude. In the days when it was the privilege uf but a few to be able to read the people were hilluenced vastly by the written word, for the ignorant are always more impressionable than the wise. The ignorant man who has spelled liis way with dilficulty through one book ill a lifetime has so great a grip on that booK that he probably remembers the whole of "it to his life's end. Nowadays when some sort of education is to be obtained by everybody, everybody reads very great deal and forgets most of it. It is just as well. There is a tremendous sale for the most colourless! of conventional reading matter, but when a mental decadent with enough powei of expression to write something parti culnrly beastly arises and writes he oi she (but niastly she) has a followin; that further unsettles his or her mind the result being that the wrctchci "problem" novel, and what is wiekcdl; called the " sex" novel, becomes more and more vile. I But it is the public lilting for this kind of sensual stuff that makes its issue such a grave matter. The enormous sales of any especially bad book is au indication that an enormous nuuiVM.". of people revel in the details of vileness. Host of these books rail against conventional decency. The obvious reason for the union of the sexes in the i peopling of the world is always lost sight of, and those things that the noinial ' person has always regarded as sweet ulid J of good savour are denounced. The per- : son who rails against normality is a maniac, and tile publisher who publishes the book aids and abets crime. In tho future, supposing there should be a revolt against indecency in alleged literature and the people again become normal, the oifender who is guilty of writing vile books will be looked upon as a moral leper with a mania, aad will b« treated as a patient in a mental hospital. A great crime always drives people who arc weak-minded to the commission of crime in imitation of their heroes. One vile book is the forerunner, and so the minds of weaklings are sapped and incalculable harm is done. We are distinctly opposed to the naming of bad books by the clergy. Some tactics not only advertise the clergy but the book, and if a prelate informs the people that a work is a vile work, the prelate is doing more for the publishers of it than if he kept quiet and let the public conscience awake without help. The extraordinary iulluencc of writing on weak minds has been lately suowa in our courts, and in one particular instant a mere boy-not perhaps having criminal instincts before he steeped his brain | in villainous writing— Decame a burglar of a pernicious description. The books he had read informed him of tlio methods by which crime could be acr eomplished, and he immediately began to practice the lessons he had learned. In our opinion, the author of such books and the authorities who permit their Bsale are infinitely more to blame than the weak-minded person who takes their advice.

It is a bad sign when the public of what is wholesome is so dulifAf that it permits the existence of sex novels, the vile penny dreadful and the periodical which records only the worst phases of life and refuses to deal with anything that is natural and normal and sweet. The danger to the Empire is abnoriualitv. There is no doubt that New Zealand lias its share of this abnormality. and anything tending to increase it is* to be deprecated. There are too many mental patients in New Zealand, too many criminals of the sexual type, and too little is being done to counteract what is really a phase of national decay. The evil is deep-seated ill the hearts of the people and it is no use whining about it or preaching about it. II is only to be hoped that as evils run in cycles' that the cycle of bad books and'the abnormalities of the people will die away like other epidemics. In tile meantime much could be done to counteract evil influences and tendencies. The strong word is not so potent as tile strong action, and New Zealand in this matter simply docs not act.

ON THE FOURTH PAGE, Commercial. District News. Correspondence. Kami and Dairy. Kissing tlie liook. "Slars'' in Revolt. Herman liule in Samoa. Dairy Produce Shipment. Tiiraufiki Comity Council. The SnliunV Treasure-house.