ing to know that most of these magazines are sources of
wealth, the money coming from the advertisements, published as a feature
in the front and back. These notices are in bulk often more than the
literary portion, and the rate charged, I was told, from $100 to $1,000
per page for a single printing.

The skill with which appeals are made to the weaknesses of readers is
well shown in some of the minor publications not exactly within the same
class as the literary magazines. One that is devoted to women is a most
clever appeal to the idiosyncrasies of the sex: There are articles on
cooking, dinners, luncheons, how to set tables, table manners, etiquette
(one would think they had read Confucius), how to dress for these
functions; and, in fact, every occupation in life possible to a woman is
dealt with by an extraordinary editor who is a man. Whenever I was joked
with about our men acting on the stage as women, I retorted by quoting
Mr. ----, the male editor of the female ----, who is either a consummate
actor or a remarkably composite creature, to so thoroughly anticipate
his audience. The mother, the widow, the orphan, the young maiden, the
"old maid," are all taken into the confidence of this editor, who in
his editorials has what are termed "heart to heart" talks.

I send you a copy of this paper, which is very clever and very
successful, and a good illustration of the American magazine that, while
claiming to be literature, is a mechanical production, "machine made" in
every sense. One can imagine the introspective editor entering all the
foibles and weaknesses of women in a book and in cold blood forming a
department to appeal to each. I was informed that the editors of such
publications were "not in business for their health," but for money; and
their energies are all expended on projects to hold present readers and
obtain others. The more readers the more they can charge the
"advertiser" in the back or side pages, who here illustrate their deadly
corsets, their new dye for the hair, their beauty doctors, freckle
eradicators, powders for the toilet, bustles, and the thousand and one
things which shrewd dealers are anxious to have women take up.

The children also have their journals or "magazines." One in New York
deals with fairies and genii, on the ground that it is good for the
imagination. Another, published in Boston, denounces the fairy-story
idea, and gives the children stories by great generals, princes of