Life — May 21, 1885 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

ee ae Se eee MS Premeey Foe PUSTUN CURES S, Me. Ve MAY 21ST, 1885. 1155 BROADWAY, New York. 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., 50 cents per number ; Vol. II., 25 cents per number; Vols. I[I. and IV., at regular rates. ~" Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. HE selection of Mr. Geo. V. N. Lothrop as Minister to Russia is another of the President's independent appointments that it is a pleasure to record. Mr. Lothrop is not a politician and never has been. Neither has he run after an office nor pulled a wire to get one. He is one of those gentlemen, too rare in politics, whose record places him far above suspicion. Even the New York Tribune may hesitate in calling him a liar and a thief. The millenium will have arrived when men, as in the present case, are selected for responsible positions merely because they are the ones best fitted for the place. It is refreshing that such gentlemen are coming to the front. . . . BOSTONIAN says there is about one-tenth the public spirit in New York that there is in Boston. This Bostonian is in error. If he has ever been to New York and dodged the pitfalls in our principal avenues, and the filth of the side streets and still persists in his statement, he is either a willful and malicious Bostonian or a very un- observing person. The average New Yorker doesn't know what public spirit is. He drinks poisonous water, submits to every imposition a mucker government can impose upon him, is the victim of every conceivable form of monopolistic extortion, and walks and drives without a murmur through streets that would be a disgrace to an Irish bog town, and this Bostonian insults his own village by a comparison! Does he sincerely believe the inhabitants of the Back Bay would go from one year’s end to another with one-tenth the filth and gar- bage that ornament our own thoroughfares? Can he imagine himself driving down Beacon street and thumping through the pits and chasms that compose Fifth avenue? Never! There are many, very many, who look upon Boston as a hot- bed. of snobbery; and there are many who would rather adjourn to 150° in the shade than return to Boston and live there. But those who remain take a pride in their city, are endowed with a decent allowance of public spirit, and use their money and their time accordingly. If the New Yorker can give his wife a thousand dollar diamond, he does n't care for the mud on the bottom of her skirts. This is refinement. . . * R. JOHN ROACH iscertainly a martyr. The hideous requirement on the part of the government that a trial trip is necessary before the boat is paid for, raises par- ticular Cain with the Hon. John Roach and the style of boats he is in the habit of turning over to the navy. It is very inconsiderate on Mr. Whitney's part, as he certainly must know that the Hon. Roach can never realize more than $400,000 profit on a $600,000 boat, if he must prove that she can float and move about before he gets his money. This particular case is especially unfair as the Hon. Roach could not foresee, when he was building the “ Dolphin,” that a trial trip would be demanded. He had every reason to suppose that after receiving his money she was to remain at the pier and rot and sink with the other U. S. ships. It is painful to realize that even the smallest hole may be made in the millions of this incorruptible patriot. But there is little danger in that direction. This particular patriot is not in the habit of losing in his transactions with the U. S.A. . . . HE legislature has at last been headed off, and we submit to the churches that there is in this abundant cause for thanksgiving. The condition of affairs at Albany this year naturally turns the mind to a somewhat new aspect of the derivation of the word legislate. It will strike the etymologist forcibly, when he perceives the number of laws which are too late to be enacted, that the term legis-late would seem to have a new significance. The Freedom of Worship Bill is left in a semi-comatose- ness, and the sensitive religious enthusiast, who finds himself in the strong grasp of justice, must perforce lose his hope of eternal salvation, because he has to receive his pill of spiritual comfort with an heretical coating. Hard, indeed, is his lot! * * . HE week just past was a gala week in criminal circles, and the world cannot but rejoice thereat. Not only was Mr. Rugg removed from his earthly habita- tion, but two notorious members of the gambling fraternity most accommodatingly carved each other up. If all our criminals and hard characters would be as con- siderate as the latter gentlemen, society would be rid of a most dangerous element, and the law would be spared much unnecessary labor. comicbooks.com