A Solemn Appeal - James White

lads, not perhaps positively improper in
themselves, yet injurious in their ultimate effects.
Reading novels, love tales, etc., injurious
" 'The fashionable reading of the day is still
more objectionable. As to its amount, let
publishers, and the editors of family newspapers,
testify. Whose sales are the greatest? Whose
patronage is the most extensive? Those who
publish the most novels, and the best (? worst)
love-tales. Let those weeklies that boast of their
"30,000 subscribers." and claim "the largest
circulation in the world," have a red line drawn
across every column containing a story, the
substance and seasoning of which is love, and more
than half their entire contents will be crimsoned
with the sign of Amativeness! Try this experiment
and it will astonish you. Country newspapers also
must have a part on the whole of some love-tale
every week, or else run down. These stories, girls
are allowed and encouraged to read. How often
have I seen girls not twelve years old, as hungry for
a story or novel as they should be for their dinners!
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