Boys

Griffith Ogden Ellis, a Mason and clubman, is Senior Vice President of the Bank of Detroit. For seven years he was president of the Detroit Street Railway Commission. Another job, however, is really his most important one. He, head of the Sprague Publishing Co., has since 1908 been editor and publisher of the largest magazine for youths, the American Boy. Last week Mr. Ellis further increased his tasks by purchasing and merging with his American Boy its biggest rival, Youth's Companion.

Besides adding to the Ellis duties, the merger will almost double American Boy circulation, already well past 300,000. Youth's Companion, started as a Sunday School weekly in 1827, grew slowly, steadily, was bought out by the Atlantic Monthly Press (Little, Brown & Co.) in 1924. Changed to a monthly to celebrate its 100th anniversary two years ago, last year it included some 250,000 U. S. boys on its subscription list.

Pleased were those boys last week to read of a statement from Mr. Ellis, which said: "Subscribers to Youth's Companion will continue to receive American Boy until their subscriptions run out. The best features of both magazines will be retained in the joint magazine, and the price will be the same as before."

Briefly, the sale of Youth's Companion was explained last week by its publisher. Donald B. Snyder: "We got a good price. The consolidation is particularly effective because the juvenile has a thin market and it was inevitable that one of the big two should take over the other. It so happened that American Boy met our price."