GREETING.
Hope leads the builders of this magazine to believe that its explosion can be prevented by filling it with sugar instead of dynamite.
We propose to gather our cane mostly from Southern fields and run it through Southern cane mills and sweeten as much of the world as possible from Southern sugar barrels; but of course our doors are open to Northern bees, Eastern butterflies, and Western humming-birds, and suckers from everywhere.
We believe that sugar is better for the world than dynamite, and we propose to barrel it in bulk so that every boy and girl who loves to read a sweet story may dive into our columns with both hands and shout as the boy did when he got into the sure enough sugar hogshead, “O, for a thousand tongues!” so that every old literary bug who sighs for the sweeter side of life may gambol among our granulated tropes and pulverized similes and dream that he is the beautifulest ant in the sugar bowl.
The journalistic market is glutted with explosives, it is overstocked with poisoned arrows. We believe in the philosophy that “More flies are caught with sugar than with vinegar.”
But while this magazine shall be a colossal sugar lump, yet its management has a whole squadron of torpedo boats, and a huge quiver of arrows for all the enemies of the South and a stupendous tank of vinegar as large as all the tanks of the Standard Oil Company for the spiteful spiders and blue-bottle flies of sectional journalism. But these weapons shall never be used so long as sugar will melt in the mouths of men and persuade unrighteousness to bridle its tongue.
With these sweet sentiments upon our lips we stand on the tallest tower of our castle in the air and with our politest bow toss a large sugar lump of greeting to every one who is wise enough to subscribe for Bob Taylor’s Magazine.