Life — July 23, 1885 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

VOL. VI. JULY 23p, 1885. 1155 Broapway, 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. III. and IV., at regular rates. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. OW that another “literary feller” has been fined for assaulting a small boy, the advantages of the scheme, proposed by Lire some months since, to form a company to fill this long felt want of the novelist by supplying boys to be thrashed on commutation rates, will be appreciated. Mr. Boyesen’s little seance with the “small boy causing deafness,” was somewhat more expensive than Mr. Haw- thorne’s $40 flogging, but we must remember that the former gentleman was tried in New York City, where the cost of luxuries is higher than on the farms of Long Island, where they manage to have everything in season. . . * HERE is that in mankind, and especially in literary mankind, which makes it necessary on occasions for “somebody to be hurt,” and as the small boy is the only one likely to be hurt without harboring vengeful feelings, it is but natural that on this occasion only he should be that some- body. And, as the literary man seems to prefer the im- ported to the home-made article, it invariably happens that it is somebody else’s boy who is thus brought into prominence. Now, if capitalists are so afraid of their money as to ut- terly ignore the small boy investment, why do not our authors and our possessors of bad boys combine, the party of the first part agreeing to consume all that the party of the second part will supply ? For instance, a Long Island farmer may be possessed of a son, who in turn is possessed of the devil, and a New York Uittérateur may be seized with a desire at least once a week to pulverize something human, but at the same time of so embryonic a degree of humanity that it can't hit back. Then, matters having been arranged beforehand, a word from the author would cause the youth possessed of the devil to be sent to his residence, and that week's accumula- tion of sheol in his system summarily removed, and his peculiarity for causing deafness, if perchance he have it, eradi- cated by the /s¢térateur’s efforts. Some such scheme as this would keep literature out of the courts, and would relieve the Long Island farmer of the, to him, unpleasant Sunday morning’s duty of thrashing all his children. . . * HE Indian war is to be vigorously prosecuted by the Government, but the prosecution, we regret to say, is not to be transferred from the Department of War to that of Justice, The army, in all its present glory of officers who constitute, we believe, about 75% of the forces, is to be concentrated | about the frontiers of Kansas, to protect the defenceless citizens of that State against the depredations of a band of one hundred Cheyennes. In the meanwhile, what is to be done toward protecting the Indians from marauding parties organized on the Kansas side of the. border ? It may be true that the only decent Indian is the dead Indian, but the vilest conceivable criminal has some rights which cannot be ignored, and we have every reason to be- lieve that as between the border ruffians of Kansas, and the formidable one hundred Cheyennes, the former, in the matter of thievery and committing of outrages, are deserving of very little sympathy. . . HAT ancient mariner, John Roach, has furnished the public with a card signed by a few dozen engineers and several brigades of ex-commanders, captains, and lieu- tenants commending the Do/phin, and saying that they haven't seen any evidences of structural weakness, journal- istic torridity, or constitutional sluggishness about the vessel. Perhaps not, and, when we come to think of it, it doesn’t make much difference whether these gentlemen, who are at least not in the Governmental employ, see evidences of these Roachly qualities or not. We suggest that all Mr. Roach can do now to restore public confidence in his craft—sailing craft we mean—is to get Blind Tom to sign a testimonial to the Do/phin’s good qualities, coupled with the statement that, as far as he can see, she is all right. . . HE red-hot Republican organs are unanimously of the opinion that it is shameful that the United States Government should refuse to accept a vessel simply because she can't float in a heavy sea, an’ should utterly ignore the fact that she can ride beautifully at anchor without seriously straining her hull. And they further add that when, not con- tent with this, the legal adviser of the Government stoops so low as to recommend that a poor, defenceless contractor be made to return the money paid for her, ii becomes a national disgrace. This is a matter for the most searching enquiry. comicbooks.com