Life — October 16, 1884 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

ocr. 16TH, 1884. 1155 Broapway, New York. Published every Thursday, $5 a year in advance, postage free. Single copies, ro cents. Back numbers can be had by appl ing to this office. Vol. 1., 50 cents per copy ; Vols. II. and HI, regular rates. Rejected contributions will not be returned unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. | . progress which has been made in meteorological ience is one of the most gratifying results of civiliza- ‘Twenty years ago the entire weather was owned and controlled by Ayer’s Almanac, and no appeal against that monopoly could hold water for an instant in one of the courts. | Frosts, hail, snow, wind, rain, thunder, lightning, hot waves, blizzards, tornadoes, cyclones, earthquakes, torchlight pro- cessions and other evils went and came exactly in accordance with the programme set down on the page devoted to liver pills and cough syrup ; this led to many disasters. Sometimes. the printer would forgetfully insert a snow storm right in the middle of July, and play snakes with camp-meetings or make | another and give us a torrid wave in Christmas week, which | would spoil all the sleighing and keep the girls from airing | their new furs, Once the almanac went to press there was. no helping the matter, and more than ever did the unfortu- nate alcoholic enthusiasm of the proof reader result in a mid- | summer crop of chillblains or a January epidemic of sun- | stroke. Of late years, however, this has all been changed. | The principal Lowell monopoly has been broken, and now we have Hazen, Devoe, Wiggins, Tice and thirty-eight al- | manacs to arrange the phenomena for us. Take the 7th of October, this year, for example. Hazen said it would be stationary, rising or falling temperature, followed by wind or calm, for the Middle Atlantic States, and for New England | the reverse. This was a very daring prediction for Hazen to make, but he is in authority and cannot be interfered with. | Following came Devoe. He saw there would be cold or | m weather, preceded or accompanied by local rains or otherwise. Then Tice swooped down and declared we would have a frost if the temperature fell low enough; and if it did | not, we wouldn't. Finally, Wiggins announced that a cy- clone on that day would start from the Southwestern corner of Japan, and take a westerly course through Moscow, Na- ples and Louisville, Ky., bringing up in Long Island City about 7 P.M. Other phenomena of greater or less import- ance were contracted for by the thirty-eight almanacs, so that the 7th of October safely be tion. wa could set down | as being pretty well stocked. On the 6th, naturally, every citizen prepared for the tumult of elements which was to come off, and laid in a stock of overshoes and fans, ulsters and seer- sucker coats to last through the day. But an unexpected complication arose. Devoe's warm wave encountered Tice’s snow storm near Weehawken, and the local row which fol- lowed left both incompetent to carry out the plan for New York. Simultaneously, two of Hazen’s variable winds went wrong and broke loose in New Jersey where they had no busi- ness at all, and Wiggins’ cyclone got mixed up with several miscellaneous phenomena emanating from sone of the un- scrupulous thirty-eight almanacs, and arrived at Castle Gar- den in such a pitiful condition that the Signal officer took it home and put it to bed. The consequence was, that not one of the phenomena got in on time, and we had a clear morning, a warm afternoon, a rain at six Pp, M, and a sultry evening. At nine o'clock the fag end of Tice's blizzard swung over from the West Shore sta- tion and nearly froze to death a 34th St. cat, which had gone as usual to sleep on the roof under the early evening impres- sion that we were going to have a hot night. Meantime, be- fore morning, the remnant of the 38 almanac phenomena got in their fine work and gave us all the climate which could have been desired. The new system has trifling drawbacks, to be sure, but at least it is consoling to know that in any case we are bound to have plenty of weather, such as itis, and that the hideous monopoly, under which the country has so long groaned, is broken. . CIGAR-PEDDLER in San Francisco has fallen heir to $3,500,000 left him in England, and the Chronicle alludes to him as the “ well-known, enterprising, migratory tobacconist.” T is to be hoped that Mr. Bergh and his society will pre- fer charges against those persons who behaved so bru- tally to the agent of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at Jerome Park last week. Mr. Evans was there on an errand of humanity and having paid his way in was going about his business as became one in his position and the attack upon him by Messrs. Withers and Munson was entirely uncalled for. ‘o say the least a Racing Club which passes rules pro- hibiting the agents of Mr Bergh’s society from performing a work so thoroughly in'the interests of humanity, is guilty of a gross violation of those unwritten laws which are more than all others the guides of human action. For shame, gentlemen! icbooks.com