book be after some goody-goody had expurgated it of evil and left it
sterilized in butter and sugar? Let no ignorant paternal Czar, ruling
over cottage or mansion, presume to keep from the mind and heart of
youth the vigorous knowledge and observation of evil and good, crime and
virtue together. No chaff, no wheat; no dross, no gold; no human faults
and weaknesses, no heavenly hope. And if any gentleman does not like
the sentiment, he can find me at my usual place of residence, unless he
intends violence--and be hanged, also, to him!

* * * * *

A novel is a novel, and there are no bad ones in the world, except those
you do not happen to like. Suppose a boy started with Robinson Crusoe
and was scientifically and criminally steered by the hand of misguided
"culture" to Scott and Dickens and Cooper and Hawthorne--all the
classics, in fact, so that he would escape the vulgar thousands? Answer
a straight question, ye old rooters between a thousand miles of muslin
lids--would you have been willing to miss "The Gunmaker of Moscow" back
yonder in the green days of say forty years ago? What do you think of
Prof. William Henry Peck's "Cryptogram?" Were not Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.,
and Emerson Bennett authors of renown--honor to their dust, wherever it
lies! Didn't you read Mrs. Southworth's "Capitola" or the "Hidden Hand"
long before "Vashti" was dreamed of? Don't you remember that No. 52
of Beadle's Dime Library (light yellowish red paper covers) was
"Silverheels, the Delaware," and that No. 77 was "Schinderhannes,
the Outlaw of the Black Forest?" I yield to no man in affection and
reverence for M. Dumas, Mr. Thackeray and others of the higher circles,
but what's the matter with Ned Buntline, honest, breezy, vigorous,
swinging old Ned? Put the "Three Guardsmen" where you will, but there is
also room for "Buffalo Bill, the Scout." When I first saw Col. Cody, an