The Sunday Papers

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"THE SUNDAY PAPERS."

The Sunday press constitutes a species of literature eminently peculiar and sui generis. That it exters no little influence on the masses, and that its conduct is distinguished by a very considerable amount of judgment and ability, will be a sufficient apology for a brief review of a very suggestive topic.

We have lying before us copies of the Sunday Times,¹ Dispatch,² Mercury,³ Atlas⁴ and Courier. We do not mention the Herald,⁵ as the Sunday issue of that delectable sheet does not differ from its ordinary daily issues. Perhaps the Times⁶ may be selected as the most favorable specimen of those we have named. Its editorial and critical departments entitle it to rank among the first-class literary journals, and the prestige which that able journalist, Major Noah,⁷ gave it years ago, has been creditably sustained until the present day. But the other journals depend mainly for their circulation on what are called "sensation tales." They are immense on blood and thunder romances with alliterative titles and plots of startling interest.—These stories are curious productions in their way, and the cultivated reader on the look-out for amusement may enjoy a hearty laugh at any time over such sanguinary tales as the "Bloody Burglar of Babylon"; the "Maniac Maiden's Fate"; or the "Red-Headed Ragamuffin's Revenge." All these unique publications have second and often third titles of the most mysterious, thrilling, harrowing and altogether insane description—calculated to impress the uninitiated reader with awe and to inflame his curiosity for the "coming events" that cast such portentous shadows before. These things are to literature what the Bowery melodramas are to the stage, and are read by the same class that would hang with rapture over the latter. When the pirate-chief drinks the blood of his victims in the largest of gory goblets, and with a burst of savage laughter flings the cup at the head of his trembling prisoner, the appreciative news boy who reads the eloquent account is impelled to shout "Hi! hi!" in a transport of enthusiasm. When the virtuous young mechanic rescues the lovely but unhappy milliner's apprentice from the base violence of the fast young aristocrat, what delight thrills the reader's breast! When the heroine has been stolen in infancy from her Fifth avenue father, who is possessed of princely wealth, and when in chapter the last, after years of unheard of privations she is at length restored to the paternal arms, what Sunday-paper lover of any sensibility but must feel a sympathetic throb when that venerable man falls upon her breast in a burst of confidence and a shower of tears, and ejaculates:—"Ke-ind Heaven, I thank thee!—it is—it is indeed my long-long che-ild!"

To say the truth, these productions, which obtained the acme of their popularity in the Ledger, are not the choicest in composition or conception of plot and character, but after all, we doubt very much whether the outcry raised against them in some quarters is sustained by common-sense. It may be said with tolerable safety that a large portion of the admirers of this kind of literature might do worse if debarred from the enjoyment of their favorite mental pabulum. No doubt the reverend editors of "Zion's Trumpet" or "the Borioboola Banner" would prefer that those excellent publications should be perused in their stead, but with all respect to these well-intentioned gentlemen we doubt if such a substitution would be altogether successful. The public for whom these tales are written require strong constrasts, broad effects and the fiercest kind of "intense" writing generally.

Not that we would wish to insinuate any lack of higher ability displayed by the Sunday press than is displayed in their miscellaneous love stories and "sensation" tales. Their editorials are written with ability and fearlessness and a certain catholicity of feeling not a little refreshing, at times, to the reader who has been restricted during the week to the more conventional and straight-laced daily journals. There is always plenty of talent "lying around loose," in a great city like New York, and this is always sure to gravitate, especially if it be of the brilliant but irregular sort, to the Sunday papers. The genuine literary "Bohemian" is here in his element. Politics, social science, music, the drama—anything and everything that will bear discussion—flows freely from his facile pen through these, his favorite organs. The Sunday press, with not a few absurdities and with all its license, is a power in the land, not without great significance in its way, and very deserving of more careful consideration than has hitherto been accorded it.

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