Judge — April 22, 1911 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

EDITORIALS. Outrageous Comic Supplements. HE comic supplement,”” said Mr. Herbert J. Gunnison, managing editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, at a meeting of the Colonial Club, ‘‘is doing more injury to the children of to-day than did the dime novel of a few years ago."’ He could have presented no better argument for the support of a paper like Jupce, which depicts the light and humorous side of life, but only in a clean and elevating way. Every member of the family, from the child not yet able to read to the head of the household, will find something in it every week to interest and entertain, and all of it wholesome. The Lament of the Drug Clerk. HE SOURCE of his unhappiness is not long hours or difficult prescrip- tions, but lime drops, postage stamps, and toilet articles. He who devoted years to laboratory work and scientific study, who is supposed to know how to read Latin names and the name of the doctor at the bottom of the prescription, and to have scientific knowledge of all drugs, is mainly engaged in the lofty pursuit of dealing out cigars, candies, soap, ete., with a prescription once or twice a week. To be engaged in tasks so trivial may be hard on the dignity of one so highly trained, but let the drug clerk remember that is the ‘‘side line’ that largely pays his salary. Protection from Unfit Novels. ERHAPS it is too much to ask the average bookstore to exercise the same degree of censorship that we re- quire of the public library, but a writer in the Idler takes reasonable ground when he says, ‘‘Have I not the right to assume that a book which is publicly offered for sale in a respectable book- store is fit for decent people to read? Is it right that I should be compelled to require an assurance from the bookseller that the book is decent before buying it?’ English peers, prelates, and schoolmasters have taken up the same problem, addressing a circular letter to the London press protesting against cer- tain novels issued by publishers of repute which are ‘‘not only unfit for perusal by a modest girl or a right- minded lad, but are likely to do harm to the moral character of all readers.’’ The titles of novels are so often color- less and misleading that one can form no opinion of their nature until they have been read. When one purchases a book from a respectable bookstore, it should carry with it the assurance that it is fit to put into the hands of a child or for any decent person to read. ASCUSATION of shipping to Venezu- elan revolutionists shells that would not explode has been brought against a New Orleans house and tried in court. The verdict was against the house. This is a discouraging climax to what might have been an effort to secure a fraction of world peace. A LITTLE CHANGE THAT MAY SOON BE IN ORDER. Caustic Comment. ENATOR LA FOLLETTE ambition which he thinks he is nur- turing and maturing by attacking Presi- dent Taft and the friends of the latter. The Senator is misleading himself if he thinks that celebrity and notorie'! the same. He was successful in his home State by getting on the popular side on local issues, but he will find him- self sidetracked on the national course if he does not broaden. He cannot take rank among our great men by indulging in indiscriminate attacks on Republican leaders, while at the same time taking care to keep himself in the Republican ranks. If he has reason, argument and logic on his side, he can get a hearing from the public and due reward; but in committing assaults on other public men, for the sake of getting rostrum engagements and of keeping his name in the papers, he is toiling for his own undoing. has an British naval estimates call for $221,- 962,500 for the coming year. Add to this sum the expenditures for military purposes, and Great Britain will spend at the rate of a million a day for war preparations in a year of peace. The expenditures of the British government on this account are four times as much as they were twenty years ago. The end is not in sight. Germany and other nations will feel impelled to make simi- lar increases, Under present conditions no government would feel justified in retrenchment. The sequel must be world-wide bankruptcy or general dis-- armament, or both. If the billions of dollars that are now annually expended for war preparations could be diverted by the different countries to outlays for interna) improvements, this would be a happier and a better world. Hobson has also declared war against intemperance. Alone and unafraid, he has been conducting hostilities against Japan for several years. If his new di- version shall engage his attention wholly, it is possible that hereafter the Japanese will sleep peacefully nights and that the demon rum will be fought to a standstitl. comicbooks.com