Life — August 13, 1885 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

eS VOL, VI, AUGUST 131TH, 1885. NO. 137. 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. ILI., IV, and V. at regular rates. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. HE August number of the Century Magazine contains among its open letters an article entitled “ What Shall be Done with Our Ex-Presidents ?” in which, after summar- izing all the undignified things an ex-President can’t do, the author recommends that he be permitted to pass the rest of his days in the Senate with a salary of $25,000 a year. This is a beautiful suggestion, and should be acted on at once by Congress; but certain questions of moment must be considered before anything final can be done. There has been much discussion of late between partisan newspapers as to who, beside Mr. Arthur, holds the empty honor of ex-President of the United States. The Democratic press of the land are unanimously of the opinion that Mr. Samuel J. Tilden has that honor; the Republican papers are equally certain that Mr. Hayes is the ex-President, while a large portion of the more independent of our contemporaries concur in the belief that to Mrs. Hayes, and to her alone, belongs the priceless title. Now, if it be definitely decided to place Mr. Arthur and others of his position in the Senate on the desirable salary of $25,000 a year, who is going to settle the dispute between the three claimants to the other seat ? The question will doubtless resolve itself into a contest between Mr. Tilden and Mr. Hayes, allowing the latter, in case of success, to fight it out with the third candidate; but we submit that much delicacy will have to be observed by the arbitrator, as both the great parties in the land will bring every power to bear upon him to award that $25,000 palm to him who merits it. . . . A MUCH better plan, it seems to us, would be to settle upon Mr. and Mrs. Hayes a ten thousand dollar | chicken farm, and hold the remaining fund of $15,000 in trust for Mr, Tilden, to be given to him when he can establish his claim to it upon better evidence than the oft repeated word of a Butler organ. As for Mr. Arthur, it will be remembered that he was Lire’s candidate for the Senate ; but if he cannot get there in the legitimate way, the most acceptable thing a grateful nation can do for’ him is to exempt him from all penalties at- tached to violations of the game laws, and give him a front seat at all the National dinners. . * . S items of interest in England war and politics have been superseded by scandal, and English society seems to be so universally affected by the latter, that it will hardly prove politic to visit social displeasure upon any of the offenders. We would strenuously advise those in power to cut off all communication with the outer world until the developments cease to be so prolific as at present. If something of this kind is not done Pinafore will have to be revised for the rest of the world, and one of its popular songs made to read : It's greatly to his discredit That he is an Englishman, 7 . . . “pHE only man to rise superior to this civil—or more properly speaking uncivil—warfare is Lord Randolph Churchill, who may now be said to be the only able-bodied politic in the kingdom. He is being discussed in a way that cannot fail to please his soaring ambition, and is the envy of all the theatrical people in the country. Beside him Mrs. Langtry’s reconcili- ation with the Prince of Wales and the conferral of the rank of Corporal in the Salvation Army on the Queen sink into insignificance, and if he is not some day Premier of England the prognostications of our political weather bureau are gravely at fault. The moralist may observe in this the influence of the American school of politics. Churchill is a mugwump, has an American wife, and manages to keep solid with the Jrish, which the student of political history is well aware is the proper combination in this country, a partisan press to the contrary notwithstanding. * . . Y the way. Now that English society is being shown up in its true light, is it not a matter for congratulation that some progressive Americans were refused admittance to the London clubs ? . . . OLDWIN SMITH wants the Irish shipped to Tas- mania. It is rumored that this eminent Canadian philosopher has ascheme on foot to populate Ireland with the surplus of American forgers and embezzlers whom Canada cannot ac- commodate, and in this view he has our hearty co-operation with this amendment: that provision, likewise, be made for | such other American nuisances as O'Donovan Rossa, An- | thony Comstock and the New York 7r-d-xe. | BRANCH HOUSES—ta Warren St., N. Y.; 113 Wabash Av., Chicago.