Life — August 6, 1885 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

80 STRAY ITEMS. T HE cotton crop in the South promises the largest yield of the last ten years. This is attributed to the re-en- slavement of the negroes that took place after Cleveland's election. Two black Alabama negroes are turning white, It is thought that they have been coerced into it by Bourbon shot- guns, Mr. ROACH ascribes his failure to Cleveland's election. Sagacious politicians attribute Mr. Blaine’s defeat to the same episode. In fact, the November “incident” is proving very fertile in subsequent results. A Laby visitor at Saratoga changes her dress four times a day. Her husband is staying at home and changes his shirt once a fortnight. Missourt Republicans have discovered an ugly blemish on the record of one of Cleveland's recent appointees. It turns out that when he was a baby he got hold of a ginger- cake image of Abraham Lincoln, bit off the nose and ears, and gave the rest toa pet pig. The details have been for- warded to the New York 7y/bune as protoplasm for a high- pressure, volcanic editorial. THe Commissioner of Agriculture reports that he found his department in a very “seedy ” condition. THE President's enemies say he doesn't know how to bait a hook, and can’t tell a mountain trout from a salt mackerel. LITERAL. Old Gentleman: MY LAD, IS YOUR FATHER VISIBLE? Son and Heir: WELL, YER DON'T SPOSE YER HAVE TER LOOK AT HIM THROUGH A MICROSCOPE, DO YER? LSD RE RETRIBUTION. W HEN a pharmacist mixes a mixture, And substitutes strychnine for senna, He becomes soon a permanent fixture In the pleasant confines of Gehenna. When a burglar a residence burgles, And frightens and threatens the ladies, His beer in the future he gurgles In the temperate region of Hades. When a cashier robs people confiding, I'm sure that good folk will agree all He should be condemned to residing In the warmest department of Sheol. But when one his knife utilizes To eat peas, efcefera, well, Our wrath above new versions rises, We're glad to fall back upon —. Harry B, Smith. THAT EARLY CLOSING MOVEMENT. W HY confine the early closing movement to cloak and factory hands? There is a wide field for reform higher up. The tired politicians in and about the Court House, who put in fully half an hour's work a day for meagre salaries, hardly sufficing to keep them in Delmonico dinners, Havana cigars and champagne, should be looked after by the pro- moters of this movement. As it is, these faithful servants of the people are terribly overworked, and if their season of labor could be cut down to say zero, it would doubtless prove a blessing both to themselves and the city. This class of citizen has always been so zealous in the performance of his duties, and so self-sacrificing when the interests of the public were at stake, that it is high time his disinterestedness received some slight recognition. It is a well substantiated fact that all politicians and mem- bers of the city government are under-paid, and still they labor on without a murmur, refusing point blank to take a rest when urged to do so by a sympathetic public. If they can be gently but conclusively convinced that a rest of twenty-four hours out of the day is absolutely necessary to their health, a great good will have been accomplished by those engineering the early closing movement. The self-sacrificing spirit of the saloon-keeper has often been admired by those fond of taking observations through the bottom of a glass. Never dreaming of rest the saloon-keeper works heroically on, serving his customers for a mere pittance of one or two hundred per cent. profit on his goods, and is satisfied to simply make both ends meet so long as his friend, the dear public, continue happy and contented. Meek in spirit and filled with a kindly feeling for all of his fellow-men, he re- joices far more in the happiness of others than in his own prosperity. So long as everybody about him is having a good time —to his profit—he smiles blandly from above his big diamond, and never dreams of complaining of fatigue. comicbooks.com