print. These tales, says the editor of the series, are abridged, but not mangled;' and if we cannot quite admit the entire accuracy of this claim, it is fair to say that a dash of the author's original sparkle in word-painting now and then appears, and a gleam of the author's broad fun in Peter Simple,' though not, as he fondly imagines, all the cream of that rollicking story.' But if he fails here, where failure was inevitable, the editor is far more successful in dealing with The Confessions of an Opium-eater.' In a series of well-chosen extracts we have the glowing, impassioned words of De Quincey himself, in which he tells us the touching story of The Misery of his Early Life,' his Wanderings in Wales,' his forlorn and destitute condition in London, and, above all, The Pleasures and Pains of • Opium.'

Nor is he less happy in his treatment of 'Odd Stories about Birds, Beasts, and Fishes,' from Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne,' which, being mainly told in the author's own graphic words, yet retain much of their original quaint freshness and charm of style.

•

Lastly, to our utter amazement, we come to a volume for whose presence but as an advertisement it is hard to account among the Penny Dreadfuls.' This is no other than Goethe's Faust,' in a hundred and twenty-eight pages of good print, on good paper, in a neat cover, and not so badly, if roughly, translated. No such volume could possibly be printed for less than sixpence a copy. The mystery, however, is explained by the fact that at the foot of each page, in staring capitals, is printed the legend of somebody's Incomparable Pills '-words that seem to haunt and desecrate every scene in the mighty drama. Mephistopheles himself could hardly have invented a bolder instance of the cruel irony of poetic fame.

These few final volumes, it is clear, are but chance exceptional specimens of wholesome diet in the wide expanse of dreary poison through which we have toiled. Of these, some are beyond the comprehension, and many more beyond the reach, of the thousands of children who revel in their weekly feast of fiery romance, and care not to look elsewhere for amusing fiction. Our task, therefore, is nearly ended. The object has been to show our readers the nature and extent of one great craving want which assails these thousands at an age when they most need help and guidance; and the absolute necessity that exists for providing some means of swift and wholesome relief. They ask for bread of some

kind; it will not do to give them a stone. That which they now eat with ravenous appetite is of adulterate, poisoned, flour, and no other is within their reach. There is no need to give them hot rolls or cheesecakes; but there is every reason that justice, common sense, and morality can possibly urge for providing them with an honest penny loaf.

That a nation like England, which spends millions on the education of her children, and boasts of teaching every poor boy and girl to read, should provide for them no fiction but of an infamously worthless kind, is at once a disgrace to our boasted civilisation and a blot on the fair fame of Christian society and Christian work. If it be not one express business of the School Board to prevent such a disgrace, for what purpose, it may be well asked, does the Board, with all its enormously costly machinery, exist? Surely it is not to be for a moment tolerated that the poor children of our great towns and cities should be trained and fed on mental diet specially adapted to lure them into a course of crime, or be driven to find their only amusement in the exploits of thieves and assassins, and the lying chronicles of scoundrelism at sea or on shore. If Dick the errand boy and Mary Ann the shop girl, the maidservant, the milliner, or the factory girl, thirsts for a tale of tender love and romantic emotion, a plot of mystery and a dénouement of fierce and exciting sensationalism, it is hard to condemn them to a course of sham sentiment and brutal ruffianism in the pages of the Newgate Calendar.' To do this is no less than to deliberately poison the springs of a nation's life, by leaving the future fathers and mothers of the next generation of the working class in a worse condition than that in which we found them.

In a word, why should there not be a library of Penny Romance, of wholesome, sound, and healthy fiction? The free libraries of London are six in number; the working men who might use them, if within reach, will before long amount to a hundred and fifty thousand. There may be no Armadas afloat nowadays, but there are ample records of the brave men who fought in the golden days of the Virgin Queen. Valour of the noblest kind still abounds, and every year adds to the number of heroes worthy of the Victoria Cross. Why should there not be Penny Lives of such worthies as these? For boys, the dramatis persone should be real, living, human beings, not outrageous caricatures as Despo and Polenipper. Their books should teach them what are the temptations, follies, faults, heroism, and true work of life.

These may include tales of history, love-making, adventure, crime, and fairyland, as true and as wholesome as 'Tom 'Brown's Schooldays,' as real as Robinson Crusoe,' as astounding as Sindbad the Sailor,' and as mysterious as 'The Moonstone.' In such books as Marryat's Pirate and the 'Three Cutters,' Cooper's 'Pilot,' 'The Last of the Mohicans,' 'The Treasure Island,' Dasent's Norse Stories,' and a score of other such and well-known favourites, there is an unfailing storehouse of healthy amusement for the young of all ages; and half a dozen such men as Mr. Besant, Wilkie Collins, Black, Stevenson, and Henty, would suffice to keep up the supply. But, if they are to reach the classes in direst need, there must be no preaching, or even direct religious teaching, though the whole atmosphere of the fiction must be clean and healthy, and the men and women in it true to life. The books must be books of downright amusement, or they will not be read. The elements of wonder, mystery, and the wildest adventure may be freely used; but the heroes need be no such scoundrelly ruffians as 'Lije,' nor the heroines tiger-cats like Joanna, or gaolbirds as Miss Somerville. The adventures of such seadogs as Walter Raleigh, Drake, Hawkins, Collingwood, and Nelson; such soldiers as Napier, Gordon, Wellington and Edwards, Warren Hastings and Clive; of such heroines as Joan of Arc, Jeanie Deans, Flora Macdonald, and Mary of Scotland, might surely be so written as to win thousands of young hearts.

And if stronger and more full-flavoured diet be needed, let them have Baron Munchausen,' 'Gulliver,' The Thou'sand and one Nights;' all of which could be so revised and edited as to tempt and satisfy the keenest appetite. Many, too, of our older standard favourites, even "The 'Castle of Otranto,' the 'Tales of the Genii,' and 'Udolpho,' might, by dexterous management, be transformed into modern shape and life for a place in the penny library. Such accomplished artists as Mrs. Oliphant, Miss Edwards, Mrs. Riddell, Miss Braddon, and Catharine Saunders might well supply enough romantic love-making to win captive the hearts of all the sentimental maidservants in Babylon. Nor need the elements of pure fun be wanting. From the hands of a careful editor might come penny and readable editions of 'Pickwick,'' Nickleby,'' Boz's Sketches,' Harry Lorrequer,' and Charles O'Malley;' many of Carleton's Irish stories, 'Handy Andy,'' Rory O'More,' and a host of others equally full of humour and the spirit of genuine laughter.

The scheme is wide, bold, and comprehensive, but not too wide or too bold to be practical. It will demand time, thought, care, and money to carry it out. But if trash of the worst kind can be printed and sold at a profit, there can be no valid reason why an article of a better quality should not be equally saleable and with equal profit. If it be objected that such a Penny Library as we have described would not reach the hands of those who need it, but overshoot the mark, the reply is obvious. Carry the war into the enemy's camp; flood the market with good, wholesome literature instead of the poisonous stuff to which the hapless purchasers are now condemned. The battle must be fought out by the purveyors of fiction, and it must be made as easy and profitable to provide a dainty, harmless, and wellseasoned repast as a dish of poison. If such atrocious pages

The Police News,' a weekly record of crime, outrage, and horror, cannot be put down by the strong hand of the law, something surely can be done to lessen the evil, as easily as the police can suppress the traffic in indecent prints; and the former evil is the greater of the two. The lovers of pure indecency are comparatively few; not to be found among the children of the streets who can read, but for the most part among older and viler sinners—the lazy, the idle, with money at command, whose minds have been polluted long ago. Throughout the whole legion of worthless pages to which we have called our readers' attention, we can recall no one single indecent phrase or allusion. This may be partly owing to fear of legal penalties and the risk of actual suppression; but far more is due to the fact that the intended readers have no special relish for printed impurity. In scenes of ruffianism, bloodshed, crime, bombast and sham sentiment they take a fierce delight; and, to the shame of a great and enlightened people, no other adequate means are provided for their pleasure, amusement, and instruction.

How long is such a state of things to continue unchecked and uncared for?

The ability to read (a gift now so widely diffused), and the power of the press, which is all but unrestricted, are mighty factors in the progress of every nation, and both have to be well weighed, guided, and guarded. It would be difficult to overestimate the future harvest of good or evil to which they may give rise. If the chief newspapers of the day be taken, as a whole, to represent the voice and wish of the people, interpreted and uttered by able and upright men,

and in a great degree to influence and guide that public opinion which they claim to indicate, it is obvious at a glance how profound and important their power must be. And never has it been greater than at the present time. Add to it the myriad army of books, and the power is increased tenfold. It may be said not merely to guide the mind of the nation, but to sway the whole domain of modern thought. The hopes, the interests, the progress, the destiny of the people more or less depend on the mighty voice that day by day speaks to, advises, warns, and encourages them on every topic that concerns their true welfare. Hence rises the supreme importance, nay, the vital necessity of maintaining the dignity and honour of the press untarnished and above suspicion-dignity of aim and honourable intent, freedom of expression and purity of motive. As long as these are maintained, amidst whatever differences of opinion on minor points, the lifeblood of the nation will be sound, and beat with an even and temperate pulse. Abandon them, and disease slowly but surely invades the whole framework of society.

If evolution be, as it would seem, the great law of moral and physical life, infinite peril lies in forgetting that the developement may be for evil as naturally, as inevitably, as for good upwards to the stars, or downwards to decay and death. One or the other it must be; and the progress in either direction is silent, unceasing, and certain. Silly books may be written and attain the brief honour of print, but only to go the way of most other silly things. Even if as unwise and mischievous as silly, their sphere of action is limited, and they for the most part perish of their own unwisdom and worthless aim. They may snare some hapless disciples of ignorance and folly, but the victims will be comparatively few. But the broad sheet of the daily paper commands an audience of millions, who more or less think, speak, and act as their guide may direct. English journalism, taken as a whole, holds a position of which it may well be proud, won by fearless independence, honesty of motive, and unqualified regard for truth. If we have ventured to point out a distinct blot on its fair fame-in one small and obscure section-we have done so because the blot is a canker of poisonous leprosy, and has in it the essence of contagion. It not merely defiles the unclean hands that produce and foster it, but contaminates thousands who merit no such intolerable ruin.

'Immedicabile vulnus

Ense recidendum est.'