On the second floor of 82 Park row there is a circulating library. It contains many thousand books, and it does an astonishingly big business. But it is not a pretentious establishment. It is as plain as need be. Its customers are mostly boys of 8 to 14. Its prices are low enough to bring the books within the reach of all. You can, for instance buy a copy of that thrilling story of frontier life, "Sierra Sam's Secret; or, The Bloody Footprints," by Mr. Edward L. Wheeler, for three cents. You can buy "Crimson Kate; or, The Cowboy's Triumph," by Col. Prentiss Ingraham; "Fancy Frank of Colorado; or, The Trapper's Trust," by the Hon. William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill); "Dashing Dave, the Dandy Detective," by Mr. Charles Morris; "Iron-arm Abe, the Hunchback Destroyer," by Capt. Mark Wilton; "The Crimson Coyotes; or, Nita, the Nemesis," by Mr. Sam S. Hall; "Flush Fred's Double; or, The Squatter's Lead of Six," by Mr. Joseph E Badge; "Cinnamon Chip, the Girl Sport; or, The Golden Idol of Mount Ross," by Mr. Wheeler — you can buy these books and ten thousand others of an equally attractive character at this library for three cents each. You don't borrow them: you buy them outright. The publisher's price is five cents. The reduction in price is due to the fact that the books are second hand. You can buy your book at three cents; take it home and read it; bring it back in fair condition, and you get an allowance of two cents on it on your next purchase. Thus you have a circulating library of unlimited size where you can have all the books you want for one cent a book. Small profits and quick return is the proprietor's motto.

      The proprietor of the library has his picture painted on the front of the building. It is not a very good picture, although it was painted by one of the artists who make the pictures of fat women and skeleton men that hang outside the Bowery museums. If you saw Mr Prowell and then saw the Slcture you would guess off-hand that they were different men. That shows how little the general public knows about art. Mr Prowell is the brigand who owns the library. He started in the brigand business about eight yean ago. He had a big black beard, plenty of pluck, and $4.75 in cash. He invested $4 in cheap song books and five-cent novels. This was the nucleus of his library. He spread his wares on the sidewalk in front of a vacant store about 75 Park row and his first day's business netted him $1.10 clear profit. This was the beginning of his dreadful career. By-and-by he started a library; then another library; then a third — one on Chatham street, one on Park row, one on the Bowery. Next thing one knows he will be nutting un a ten-story building and issuing "The Prowell Library of Standard Two-cent Novels."

      "Ha!" said the brave young reporter, as he strode with unfaltering step into the brigand's cave. "Ha! Claude Plantagenet Prowell. I have caught you at last."

      A dogged scowl swept across the face of the baffled pirate.

      "Too long," continued the fearless interviewer, with clinched hands and flashing eye, "too long have you contrived to conceal yourself from a confiding public, but now your day has come; now you shall be exposed in all your hideous reality; now the secrets you have so carefully hidden for seven long years shall be torn from your bosom."

      "'Sdeath!" hissed Prowell, reaching for his hip-pocket and pulling forth his spectacles. "What want you with Brimstone Bob, the Park Row Paralyzer?"

      "Where are your victims? said the daring youth, in a cold deadly monotone that struck a chill to the brigand's heart. "How many brave lads have you sent out to the wild and trackless prairies to become Indian slayers? How many have you made run away to sea to nail black flags to the masts and become pirates and buccaneers of the raging main? How many to be cowboys in Texas and terrors from Way-up-the-Gulch? How many to be trappers in the Rockies, killing an average of five b'ar a day? How many to be train robbers and imitators of Jesse James?"

      "Not one," said Prowell mildly.

      Mr. Prowell is a mild man after all. He isn't anywhere near as bloody as his library, his piratical beard notwithstanding.

      "Not one," said Mr. Prowell. "Boys don't read much of that sort of thing now. What they do read of it doesn't do them any harm. Once in a great while a boy will start for the wild West to kill Indians. Maybe he will get only as far as Jersey City, or maybe he will get to Pittsburgh or even Chicago. In any case he is glad to come home and get licked for running away, or he wants to be a pirate and gets out on a tug far enough to be half dead with seasickness — that cures his piracy. If he wants to be a trapper ne is content if he traps the cat in the back yard. If he wants to rescue a beautiful maiden from a burning house and goes to a fire to do so, some policeman will cuff his ears and some playful fireman turn the hose on him. As to being a train robber he has no show at all, and has sense enough to know it. But the Indian and train robber and cowboy stories are now played out."

      "What class has taken their place?"

      Detective stories? Just look around you."

      The benches were stacked high with well-thumbed five-cent novels. Five-sixths of them seemed to be detective stories. The one on top of the nearest pile was "Lady Kate, the Dashing Female Detective." The front page had a picture of Lady Kate in one of her disguises. She was dressed as a dude of the vintage of '85 — cocoanut hat, short, close-fitting sack coat, white vest, tight trousers, pointed shoes, and a cute little cane. She was in the act of shadowing a lordly villain. Said lordly villain, at the moment the picture was taken, had turned and nonchalantly asked: "Now, then, Sis, why are you on my track?" Lady Kate's reply is not given in the picture, but be sure she had a pat answer ready. The rest of the pile included these:

      Old Transform, the Secret Special Detective.
      Double-curve Dan, the Pitcher Detective.
      Dodger Dick, the Wharf Spy Detective.
      Fox and Falcon, the Bowery Shadows.
      Dodger Dick, the Dock Ferret.
      Dodger Dick's Double; or, the Rival Boy Detectives.
      Dodger Dick, the Boy Vidocq.
      The Two Shadows.
      Old Weasel-top, the Man with the Dogs.
      The Surgeon-scout Detective.
      Pavement Pete, the Secret Sifter.
      The Chimney Spy; or, Broadway Billy's Surprise Party.
      The Outcast Cadet; or, The False Detective.
      Saffron Sol, the Man With a Shadow.
      Old Bombshell, the Ranger Detective.
      Velvet Foot, the Indian Detective.
      The Mountain Detective; or, The Trigger Bar Bully.
      The Boy Shadow; or, Felix Fox's Hunt.
      Rough Rob; or, The Twin Champions of Blue Blazes.
      Judge Lynch, Jr.; or, the Boy Vigilante.
      Webfoot Moose, the Tramp Detective.
      Plucky Phil; or, Ross, the Red Jezebel.
      The King of the Detectives.
      Old Sleuth's Triumph.
      Under a Million Disguises.
      Old Electricity, the Lightning Detective.
      The Shadow Detective.
      Red-light Will, the River Detective.
      Iron Burgess, the Government Detective.
      Tracked by a Ventriloquist.
      The Twin Shadowers.
      The French Detective.
      Billy Wayne, the St. Louis Detective.
      The New York Detective.
      O'Neil McDarragh, the Detective; or, The Strategy of a Brave Man.
      The Yankee Detective.
      Black Raven, the Georgia Detective.
      Night Hawk, the Mounted Detective.
      The Gypsy Detective.
      Monte, the French Detective, in New York.
      Old Keen, the Secret Service Detective.
      The Shadow on the Blind.
      Monte, The French Detective, in Chicago.
      The Forged Draft; or, Two Great Detectives on a Great Case.
      The Man of 100 Faces; or, A Hard Case to Solve.
      The Man in Green Goggles; or, Hunting for a Lost Diamond.
      The Detectives' League; or, The Shrewdest of Them All.
      The Jack of Clubs; or, Tracked by a Card.
      The Clew in the Closet.
      Young Weasel, the Baltimore Detective.
      Room Number 117, A Thrilling Detective Mystery.
      Life and Adventures of Mole, the Detective.
      The Branded Arm; or, Monte, the French Detective on a Strange Case.
      The Broken Chessboard; or, Old Cap Lee's Strange Clue.
      Reynard; or, The Cunning French Detective.
      Billy Bones, the Negro Minstrel Detective; or, A Mystery of the Footlights.
      A Diamond Earring; or, Nina, the Female Detective.
      Little Ferret, the Boy Detective.
      The Mystery of a Mummy; or, Old King Brady and the Cartright Case, by a New York Detective.
      Old Double Face, the Veteran Detective.
      Detective Davis; or, The Moonshiners' Terror.
      Manfred, the Magic Trick Detective.
      Mura, the Western Lady Detective.
      Monsieur Armand; or, The French Detective in New York.
      Hamud, the Detective.
      The Giant Detective in France.
      The American Detective in Russia.
      The Dutch Detective.
      Old Puritan, the Old-Time Yankee Detective.
      Tom Thumb; or, The Wonderful Boy Detective.
      The Skeleton Cuff Buttons; or, The Plot Within a Plot.
      Old Possum; or, The sleepy Detective.
      A Dark Mystery; or, A Detective's Fruitless Search.
      The Torn Umbrella; or, Working a Strange Clue.
      The Leaf of a Book; or, The Page That Was Missing.
      The Night Before Christmas; or, The Mystery of Bedlow's Island.
      An Unclaimed Letter; or, Traced Through the Mail.
      The Point of a Needle; or, A Very Small Clue.
      The Masked Detective; or, The Old Maniac's Secret.
      A Case Without a Clue; or, A Detective's Fight For Victory.
      A Meerschaum Pipe; or. Old King Brady and the Yonkers Mystery.
      The Moonshiners and the Secret Service Detectives.
      The Molly Maguire Detective; or, A Vidocq's Adventures Among the Miners.

      And there was pile after pile of the same sort of stories. All of them had a hair-raising front-page picture; all of them had passed through the hands of many readers; all of them could be bought for three cents each.

      "Have you noticed," said Mr. Prowell, "that a great many Tascotts have been arrested all over the country?"

      The reporter thought he had heard that somebody named Tascott had been arrested.

      "Somebody named Tascott!" echoed Mr. Prowell hotly. "Why there's been a million Tascotts locked up. I mean nearly a million. Why? Because of the preponderance of detective stories in our standard literature. Somebody named Tascott is said to have killed a Chicago millionaire named Snell. A reward was offered. Mysterious case. Police helpless. Detectives baffled. Young Fearless, the Boy Detective, gets on his trail. Arrests him. Claims reward. But, unfortunately, its the wrong Tascott. It is always the wrong Tascott. Do you know, between you and me, I think Tascott was like Marjorie Daw. I think there never was any Tascott. It was all a put-up job to fool the boys of America. Maybe you don't know George Hubbard, the big Chief of Police in Chicago? No. Well, it would be just like George to put up a fool scheme like that."

      "Is there no demand for Indian-killing stories now?"

      "Some, but not a great deal. Nothing like what there was three or four years ago. There is always a demand for rattling stories of adventure and bloodshed, but at present the detectives are on top."

      "Don't you think these sensational stones are injurious to the young?"

      "Certainly not. In these stories virtue invariably triumphs. The hero is always brave, truthful, chivalrous, and strong. He rescues oppressed maidens at the risk of his life, exposes villainy, fights duels with bogus Counts, discovers plots to rob a bank or blow up an ocean steamer, kills border ruffians, snakes, bears, Indians, and wildcats; is reckless and playfully mischievous, sings rollicking songs, and falls in love with the heroine the first moment he sets eyes on her. And as for morality, why, these books preach morality from top to bottom. Is bloodshed immoral? If so, don't let your boys read history. Why, there's more bloodshed and immorality in a history of England than in 5,000 sensational novels. And our girls — that is our heroines — are all pure and virtuous, and as pretty as a new three-sheet circus bill. The gentle ones are all pronounced blondes and the daring ones all decided brunettes. I'm sure I don't know why. But they are all as good as gold."

      The reporter squandered six cents in literature and three cents in a splendid detective story entitled "Old Buckeye, the Sierra Sleuth; or, Against Desperate Odds," and three cents in a tale of romantic adventure, called "Old Avalanche, the Great Annihilator; or, Wild Edna, the Girl Brigand."

      Old Buckeye opens with the attempt of a backwoods desperado to sell a beautiful girl at public auction in a barroom. Just as the cowering girl was about to be knocked down to a brutal ruffian named Capt. Trackless, there was an interruption:

      Fighting Frank had pistols, but later on we find he disdained to use them. This is how he knocked the ruffian out:

      In the last chapter Fighting Frank is married to the girl, who turns out to be a long-lost heiress who was stolen in her infancy.

      Old Avalanche is even a more interesting tale. The heroine is Wild Edna, whose picture is on the front of the book. She rides her horse like a man — there are no side saddles on the Sierras — and she carries a gun and several pistols. Behind her as a lot of ferocious-looking men with anarchistic beards. The picture doesn't tell what her complexion was, but the author does:

      The brigands, headed by the girl, waylaid a party of English noblemen and their attendants.

      Thirteen chapters further on one finds Sir Harry and Wild Edna alone together, going on like this:

      Of course the curtain falls to the music of wedding bells.

(THE END)