The Asbestos Society of Sinners / detailing the diversions of Dives and others on the playground of Pluto, with some broken threads of drop-stitch history, picked up by a newspaper man in Hades and woven into a Stygian nights' entertainment

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged. In particular the spelling of proper names viz. Catharine of Arragon remain.
Morman is almost certainly Mormon or Mormon man.
THE ASBESTOS SOCIETY OF SINNERS
Detailing the Diversions of Dives and others on the Playground of Pluto, with some broken threads of Drop-stitch History, picked up by a Newspaper man in Hades and woven into a Stygian Nights’ Entertainment.
LAWRENCE DANIEL FOGG
MAYHEW PUBLISHING COMPANY 92-100 Ruggles Street Boston, Mass.
Copyright, 1906 by Lawrence Daniel Fogg All Rights Reserved.
Dedicated to JOHN KENDRICK BANGS Who first made Hades a pleasant place of abode and aroused in his reader a desire to go cruising on the Styx
J OHN KENDRICK BANGS, House-boat-on-the-Styx, care The Century Association, New York—Perhaps you, as self-elected jester at the court of the Son of the Morning, will wonder that a newspaper man should deliberately set out on a pilgrimage to Hades. I have often been told I ought to go there, but I pause on the banks of the Styx for reflection ere I rush in where all but fools fear to tread. Yet in mirroring forth the doings of the diocese of Bishop Beelzebub, I shall cast no reflections save on the dead, who can reflect no more, and like that other clown, more famous than I, will “use the devil himself with courtesy.” Having been an iconoclast, and as it is only a step from the breaking of idols to the smashing of trusts, I have had the temerity to dream of ending the monopoly of the particular section of the universe hitherto sacred to Lucifer and Bangs. As you have a copyright on Hades, you could make it hot for me if I invaded your territory without permission, so I ask you for a “dead head” pass. I don’t claim more than my rightful share; there will still be room enough for both of us to roast chestnuts on the other side of the Styx.