Life — July 31, 1884 — page 2: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

VOL. IV. JULY 31s1, 1884 1155 Broapway, New York. NO. 83. Published every Thursday, $5 a year in advance, postage free. Single copies, 10 cents. Back numbers can be had by applying to this office. Vol. I., 20 cents per copy ; Vols. IJ. and III, at regular rates. Rejected contributions will not be returned unless accompanied by a stamped and directed enveloy OL. GOLOSHES, who for many years has been an im- portant side show in the enterprise of that modest and truthful gentleman, Mr. P. T. Barnum, has lately got himself into seven feet eleven inches of connubial trouble. Twenty- five years ago, it seems, the Colonel, then struggling in his profession as a giant, met, loved, wooed and won the fearless German brunette who acted as serpent-charmer, in the afore- said great show on earth. Now marrying a serpent- charmer, particularly in the southern latitudes, where the na- tive whisky is plentiful, strong and cheap, has its drawbacks. The bridegroom, for instance, coming home after a pleasant night with the boys, and finding the partner of his bosom with two anacondas twined about her arms and a bucket full of rattle snakes in her lap, is plunged at once into a painful quandary as to whether she is having a private rehearsal, or whether he has merely got ‘em again. This, it appears, was the cue to a series of dilemmas which made the honeymoon of the Colonel exceedingly bewildering, and led to a subequent coolness between himself and his bride. Still, however, they jogged along in double harness,—she with her snakes, and he with his height and puzzled look, drawing each a salary and getting along in comparative peace. After five years a new element of trouble loomed in the Living Skeleton, who apparently was also a sufferer from moral ossifica- tion, and who paid such assiduous attentions to the serpent-charmer as to throw the Colonel into a par- oxysm of rage, whisky and subsequent snakes, out of which it took three doctors,a pound of bromides and a straight jacket to get him. This trouble grew and grew and became more lurid for five years. At this juncture the Colonel met a niece of the Fat Woman. She was fifteen years old, had black eyes, raven hair, and a fondness for giants. She looked up and he down, and the result was a tacit understanding. The Living Skeleton, who was the bone of contention, grew more and more aggressive, until finally Colonel Goloshes availed himself of a temporary visit to Indi- = Fs aon ae N ana and secured what is known in that enterprising section as a “cyclone divorce.” Returning then to the South, with the approval of the Fat Woman, he married thé black eyes and raven hair. This was twenty-five years ago. Two months later the Living Skeleton curled up suddenly and died. He was shortly followed by the Fat Woman, who had one of those frolicsome touches of fat about the heart to which she was professionally liable, and in a fortnight the serpent charmer left the greatest show on earth to endow still another happy mortal with her affection and snakes. This should have left the Colonel happy, but it didn’t. It seems that a giant’s fascinations are only temporary. In less than six months the Colonel's peace was marred by his jealousy of the Fire Eater, whose platform was next to that of his wife, who, by the way, was now a Circassian Slave. This unpleasantness was followed by the Colonel's having wild reason to believe that the Wild Man of Brazil was gazing too often out of the bars of his lair, and next he was made miserable by:the Lion Tamer. For a quarter of a century this grew and grew, culminating with a disagreement with Chang, a heathen, nine feet high on the bills, which led to a second divorce suit, now pending. * * * HE depths to which our formerly esteemed contempor- ary, the 7rzbune, has sunk, in conducting the canvass of Mr. Blaine, are simply unfathomable. 7 When the editor of the 7rzbune gets down to the level of forgery and has the shamelessness to publicly acknowledge the fact, then is the time for an insulted community to inflict upon him such punishment as he deserves. If Mr. Whitelaw Reid is responsible for the insertion of Mr. Henry Ward Beecher’s re- marks on Garfield, made four years ago, substituting therein the name of Blaine for that of Garfield, then Mr. Reid is guilty of a most contemptible fraud, and Mr. Blaine, if elected Presi- dent, would earn the thanks of the people by sending Mr. Reid as our plenipotentiary to Coventry, even though the gentle- man himself might prefer the Court of St. James. * * * HE vile slanders recently circulated concerning Gov- ernor Cleveland’s private life show to what straits the Blaine managers are put. Mr. Blaine cannot enter the White House solely on an un- substantiated charge of immorality against his opponent. Let the Republican party be careful lest it find itself brand- ed with as ineradicable disgrace as the Morey Letter brought | upon the Democrats. comicbooks.com