Chapter I: Front Matter

VOL. XX.—NO. 1009.] APRIL 29, 1899. [PRICE ONE PENNY.]

[_Photographic Union, Munich._]

_All rights reserved._]

OF

_THE_ GIRL’S OWN PAPER]

[Transcriber’s Note: The 1000th number is available from Project Gutenberg as etext number 60565, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60565.]

THE EDITOR feels bound to record, for the pleasure of the general reader of this magazine, some of the charming expressions of goodwill called forth by the publication of the 1000th Number. He has been greatly cheered by them, and he knows so well that the readers will share the pleasure with him that he will unclose to them some of his recent correspondence, the actual letters themselves being sent to the printer as MS.

First, from readers old and young, and from every nation under the sun, he has received hearty congratulations.

One kind girl near London writes:

I must congratulate you on the charming 1000th Number of THE GIRL’S
OWN PAPER. It is a very nice idea, giving the photographs of the
contributors to the paper. I have taken THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER since
it first came out, never missing one week, and I have also every
one of the Summer and Christmas numbers. Although I was away one
year on a sea-voyage, the paper was taken for me. When it first
came out, I was quite a child; my mother took it for me, and I have
always enjoyed reading it. I consider it the best paper published
for either old or young, and would not give it up for anything.
When I saw the 1000th number, I felt I must write and tell you what
an old subscriber you had and one who appreciates THE GIRL’S OWN
PAPER so much. It is not many, I think, could say they have every
week of the paper. Wishing it every success for the future,

Believe me to be faithfully yours, N. H.

Another reader writes:

DEAR MR. EDITOR,—I have just been reading the 1000th Number of
THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER, and I feel I must write to thank you (and
congratulate you) for the pleasures and benefits which I have
received from it during a very long acquaintance; in fact I knew
it in its very first days, and distinctly remember being keenly
interested in the tale “Zara, or, My Granddaughter’s Money.” I
was really a girl then, and it seems, and is, a long, long while
ago. I can but echo heartily Miss Burnside’s wish that it may live
another 1000 weeks, and yet another; and—who knows?—another on to
that. I should think one great reason for its popularity is that it
suits so many different sorts of minds. There is no doubt that when
catering for our mental food, you have remembered the old saying
that “variety is charming.” More, it is also wholesome. With every
good wish for a yet wider circulation of our dear paper, and the
welfare of our Editor,

Believe me, truly yours, A. M.

_Postscript._

I hailed thy birth, dear “G. O. P.,”
With truest joy and pleasure;
I said the gods have given me
At last “a perfect treasure.”

I watched thee grow with loving eyes
Into a world-wide favour;
Small wonder was it girls should prize
Thy teachings of sweet savour.

The years have gone, and thou hast gained
In wisdom, strength, and beauty;
And, best of all, the power retained
To make us do our duty.

Also one from the country:

DEAR EDITOR,—I must write to thank you for presenting to us (to me)
“Portrait Gallery of Contributors” to our dear GIRL’S OWN PAPER.
It is so nice to see their faces, to really know what those that
give us pleasure, profit, etc., are like. Very nice to see our
dear Editor’s face. We now know the one who for so many years has
laboured much for us—your “girls.” No words will come to me to
express all the gratitude I feel to you and all your helpers. God
bless you, and all the others, and richly reward you, even here.
You cannot see the great pleasure with which THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER
is read as each month comes; and re-reading it and all those that
have gone before is just as great; but let this letter just let you
know how one heart is often cheered and encouraged to go on through
its perusal. I did not mean when I began this letter to write about
myself, only to try and express my loving thanks. Forgive all I
have written, and let me sign myself

One of your grateful girls, ELLIE.

Scores of girls in their teens, some of them only recent subscribers, write enthusiastically and in good taste; but as there is perforce much similarity in them, it is not desirable to print them.

However, the two following are original:

DEAR AND HONOURED SIR,—I can hardly call myself one of the girl
readers of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER, seeing that I am on the shady
side of seventy years old, and a wife of many years standing; but
still I consider that I may take to myself the pleasant things you
say in your article in the 1000th Number. You will think so too
when I tell you that I have read almost every word in the nineteen
volumes, and possess the said volumes all bound. I quite agree with
the critics in what they say of the value of the publication, and
also with them hope that you and your staff may long continue to
instruct, amuse, and advise the “many millions” of the girls of
the world. You see that if I were to subscribe myself “A Constant
Reader,” I should not be telling an untruth; but I will only say

Yours gratefully, R. C. R.

DEAR MR. EDITOR,—Having been a constant reader of your GIRL’S OWN
PAPER for many years, I have long been very desirous of thanking
you and those who contribute to it for many pleasant and enjoyable
hours I have spent in reading its pages; it contains something to
suit all.

I sometimes think I ought to discontinue magazines and books of the
sort, but when I look on my dear old friend, THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER,
I am constrained to say, How can I give thee up? So it comes on as
usual, and is looked forward to and read as eagerly as ever.

May it go on and prosper in future as it has in the past.

Thank you also much for the nice Portrait Gallery; it gives me much
pleasure to look at it and make comments on faces mentally, some
brimming over with loving kindness, and others so thoughtful, and
all good.

Dear Mr. Editor, please forgive me for intruding on your very
valuable time.

Believe me,
Very faithfully and gratefully yours,
One who at eighty-three has never tired of THE GIRL’S OWN.

Another old reader who has every number mentions this with great pride, and adds, “I wonder how many could say the same.” This is also the wonder of the Editor, but he fears that it would be impossible to find out.

* * * * *

From our many and valued contributors, we have received hearty congratulations, but as their letters have a distinctly personal tendency, we can only quote from them.

A quite _new_ writer on our staff says:

Until I received my monthly number of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER this
morning I did not realise what an important one it was. Allow me
to add my congratulations to the many you have already doubtless
received on the success attending your venture. I find THE GIRL’S
OWN PAPER a household word wherever I go, and quite as much
appreciated in Ireland and Scotland as in England. I think you have
solved the problem how to instruct as well as amuse our daughters
and young people most wonderfully, and feel proud to be on your
staff. I have been delayed in sending you the rest of my papers by
fresh bereavement and continued illness. In a short time, however,
I hope they will be in your hands. With repeated well wishes of a
longer life and even more success to the magazine.

A quite _old_ writer on our staff says:

My congratulations on the issue of No. 1000 of our dear GIRL’S
OWN PAPER in her pretty new dress. You must look back on the
nearly twenty years of healthy, useful, and refining life that
your and our paper has passed through with infinite pleasure
and thankfulness, for it has been and it is a blessing both to
the girls and their elders. It was with no little emotion that
I looked at No. 1000, for to my connection with THE GIRL’S OWN
PAPER I am indebted for one who has been from the beginning of our
acquaintance the best and truest of friends to me that I am proud
to call such. May God bless you, and give you in the future to
see more and more abundant fruit for your labours. It seemed so
wonderful for me to be able to say, “I had one complete short paper
and two chapters of another in the second number of THE GIRL’S
OWN PAPER, and the 1000th Number has in it a paper of mine also.”
Didn’t I feel proud when I saw a paper of mine in _the_ number? I
have grown, I will not say gray, but very white in the service of
THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER, and it will cost me a terrible pang when I
am no longer able to write anything worthy of a place in the dear,
familiar pages. I am trying to get new subscribers to our paper. I
got two at the beginning of the volume. If only each reader could
get one more! The paper ought to be a greater favourite than ever,
for it is prettier, and has never been in every way so good as it
is now.

One who has written but very seldom writes:

MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,—Amid the many cries of congratulation from
important people and numerous friends, let my small voice be
heard. It seems to me a great triumph, in spite of opposition, to
have sailed calmly on and made your thousandth port unattended by
serious rivals.

My own idea of celebrating such an event is a dinner given by “the
staff” to the Editor, and I for one would make a struggle to form
one of such an interesting and pleasing company.

What happy memories for me are included in that span of 1000
Numbers, _quorum pars parva fui_.

Another very occasional contributor says:

This wonderful number of the GIRL’S OWN PAPER will quite overwhelm
you with congratulations, I am sure, for it is a record one! For
myself, I am humbly delighted with it, and I never hope to have a
greater honour than to be associated with so many infinitely more
worthy names than my own.

This number will be treasured in the annals of the family,
especially, too, as I see dear friends’ faces as well therein, and
I am next but one to my father’s life-long friend.

You must have taken such an amount of pains to collect all the
photographs, and our thanks are immensely due to you for all your
kind trouble and taste in doing so. While most heartily echoing the
first four lines of the last stanza of our valued mutual friend,
Miss Helen Burnside,

Believe me, yours sincerely, ——.

An old favourite story writer—we wonder if our readers can guess the writer by the style!—sends the following:

Many thanks for the lovely number! I wish I could live in the
Vicar of Wakefield’s room on the first page. How nice if we could
all dine there on a summer evening!

Is it 1000 weeks ago since you started the GIRL’S OWN PAPER? Old
days come back—I go into Cassell’s and see you for the first time.
And then I think of the old kindness and faithful friendship, and
feel inclined to cry a little! You have done a wonderful work for
girls; you have directed their feet to that narrow path in which
alone they can find peace. It is a path that runs beside the Living
Waters. Because it is so narrow the women of to-day are demanding
a wider range, and so go a-wandering. Yesterday I received a copy
of the —— from the editor, who asks for a portrait and sketch. In
it there is rather a strong paper on the Religion of Women, or,
rather, their irreligion. In my sketch, I ventured to touch on the
true freedom that can only be obtained through restraint, and on
the discipline of the interior life.

I think we can see very clearly that Almighty God has blessed
you in your work, and I feel sure that you will be helped and
strengthened to the end. This is my prayer for you.

One of our musical contributors sends a spirited setting (we have great pleasure in printing it in this Number) of Miss Burnside’s “Success and Long Life to the ‘G. O. P.,’” published in the 1000th Number, with the following kind words:

BEST OF FRIENDS,—I enclose a little memento of the 1000th Number,
over which and its editor we pray for the best of luck.

The enclosed “phrases” may seem rather trite, but equally trite is
fast friendship, ripened affection and a grateful heart, of all of
which accept this token from

YOUR OLD CONTRIBUTOR.

A brother Editor, who has for many years afforded us friendly counsel and encouragement, but who is now, alas! no longer near at hand, sends the following:

I congratulate you on your thousand weeks, and on the promise which
the energy and attractiveness of your thousandth issue give you of
a thousand more. It is no small achievement to have held together
so sympathetic a team of writers, and to have carried forward such
a work so long with general approval.

I miss my chats with you and ——. By way of consolation, the last
fortnight I have been clearing out arrears of MSS. and old letters.
How they gather in the dust! They make me realise how much is past,
and also how much wider and more various is an editor’s work than
the part he gives to the public. This you know well, but for you is
the future! May it be riper, richer, happier in all its years.

From the Editor of an important and long-established magazine, under whom we were trained, comes the following genial letter:

A thousand thanks for your 1000th Number, which is as bright and
genial and clever as its Editor, and that’s saying a great deal for
it. Your greeting does my heart good, but it brings me no sting
of reproach. I often think of you, my dear old friend, and of the
pleasant times we had together in the dear old days. Such is the
force of habit that I still think of you as a youngster, and I
thank your portrait for confirming that impression. Good luck to
you, and to your thousand-week-old baby, and when she scores her
second thousand, “may I be there to see” and to rejoice with you.

Your affectionate old chum, ——.

Last, but not least, we must mention, with sincere gratitude, a letter of congratulation from our painstaking printers. Also great indebtedness is due to the Officers of the Society for their expressions of congratulation, as also to the Committee of the Society who are the owners of the magazine.

Now thank we all our God,
With heart, and hands, and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In Whom His world rejoices;
Who from our mother’s arms
Hath bless’d us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours to-day.

O may this bounteous God
Through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts
And blessèd peace to cheer us:
And keep us in His grace,
And guide us when perplex’d,
And free us from all ills
In this world and the next.

WHAT THE PRESS SAYS:

“THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER—the most successful paper ever published for girls, alike from the pecuniary point of view, and from the point of view of supplying girls with literature equally wholesome and welcome—has just reached its thousandth number. Long may it live.”—_The Queen._

“With the thousandth number of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER, dated February 25th, is given a detached “Portrait Gallery,” containing the likeness of 105 contributors to that excellent periodical, among whom are the Queen of Roumania, Princess Beatrice, and (as it is fairly claimed) ‘many queens and princesses of prose, poesy, and music’—not to speak of princes.”—_The Guardian._

“Without any trace of mawkish piety, it has always set before its readers the ideal of first things first, and has never descended to the depths of sensationalism to secure a wider circulation.”—_Methodist Times._

“I congratulate THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER, which celebrates its thousandth birthday. It still leads.”—_Sketch._

“The idea of its publication was a very happy one, and it has been thoroughly well carried out with sense, with catholicity, and with quickness of perception.”—_British Weekly._

“The Editor says—‘Success shone upon us from the very first.’ That that success may never wane will be the hope of many thousands of present readers and of past readers who are no longer girls—women who realise that their lives were not only made brighter and happier by the Magazine, but better, fuller, and more useful.”—_Brighton Herald._

“Let us congratulate the Editor and the Publishers of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER upon the success which is indicated by the G. O. P. (as its readers affectionately call it) attaining its thousandth number. As the interests of girls have widened—and between the years 1880 and 1899 they have widened greatly—the scope of THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER has correspondingly enlarged, and there would appear to be no subject which young women can present to the consideration of the Editor of this favourite organ upon which they will not receive the most sympathetic and judicious advice.”—_The Queen._

SUCCESS AND LONG LIFE TO THE “G. O. P.”

_Words (in the 1000th Number) by HELEN MARION BURNSIDE. Music by M. B. F._

1. Suc - - cess and long life to the “G. O. P.”
As she starts on her voyage a - gain;
Let us speed her forth with a three times three
O’er a sun - ny and tran - quil main.
A thou - sand times has our gal - lant ship
Her course sped o - ver the seas; . .
Thro’ win - try gales sped the sil - ver sails,
Or hap - ly the sum - mer breeze. . .

CHORUS

Then suc - cess and long life to the “G. O. P.,”
’Tis with hands all round, and a - cross the sea,
That we speed her forth with our
[1]three . . . . times three! . . .

2. A thou - sand times have her sails been set
O’er a car - go of gold - en grain;
A thou - sand times may she bear it yet,
And a thou - sand to that a - gain!
For her freight has ev - er more pre - cious grown,
Each time we have watch’d her start, . .
With the va - ried cheer that has grown so dear
To ma - ny a home and heart. . .

CHORUS

Then suc - cess and long life to the “G. O. P.,”
’Tis with hands all round, and a - cross the sea,
That we speed her forth with our
[1]three . . . . times three! . . .

3. Suc - - cess and long life to the Cap-tain staunch,
May his hand, so kind - ly and strong,
Yet for many a year the good ship launch
He has guid - ed so well and long.
Suc - cess and long life to her faith - ful crew,
Long, long may they ral - - ly round, . .
And one and all, at their Cap - tain’s call,
Be “rea - dy and will - ing” found! . .

CHORUS

Then suc - cess and long life to the “G. O. P.,”
’Tis with hands all round, and a - cross the sea,
That we speed her forth with our
[1]three . . . . times three! . . .

[1] Signal for the waving of over 43 millions of girls’ pocket handkerchiefs.—M. B. F.

SHEILA.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

BY EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen Sisters,” etc.