Life — August 12, 1886 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

ODE TO THE VAGRANT SETTER. OW we hear the mournful wailing Of the dog, As the catcher him is haling To the Morgue, Whence returneth ne’er a purplet, For his pretty little chirplet Undergoes a slight extirplet Every Auc. * * * ETWEEN our thermometers and colleges the degree crop is drawing ahead of the peach ditto. * * * ISS FLORENCE MARRYATT has been lecturing to women on how men should be treated. “Sit on them,” says she. We fear this is a Japsus lingua. * * * HE Emperor William isn’t dead again. This Imperial hoax is getting tiresome. * * * HE sad news has reached us that the Infant King of Spain has taken to the bottle. * * * «¢ PQLON-PLON” and his son, Victor, are said to be hopelessly at odds, but it need cause no surprise that such is the case. They are odd fellows by nature. * * * R. BARTOL says he would not abolish Hell if he could, The reverend gentleman has evidently not had the experi- ence that a summer in New Jersey would bring him. * * * ie is natural enough that Brodie, the bootblack, who jumped from the Brooklyn bridge, should be proud of his shining feat. * * HE small boy learning the alphabet is very much like the postage stamp—he often gets stuck on a letter.— Exchange. That ’s true. And then, too, he is not infrequently licked on the other side. * * N exchange notes that a majority of people at summer resorts appear to be prejudiced against going to church on Sunday. This is especially noticeable at Long Branch, where they all go on Saturday. HE anti-silver men are growling because the silver dollar is only worth seventy-one cents. This is characteristic of the bloated bond-holders in this land. As soon as the dollar gets cheap enough to be within reach of the poor they’set up a wail that can be heard from Dan to Dana. * * © * SARATOGA barber has made quite a reputation as a performer on the harmonica. There is nothing extraordinary about this. Barbers have unusual facilities for practicing the mouth organ. * * * A NEW DEPARTURE IN THE “CENTURY.” HE Century is to be congratulated upon having at last discovered a substitute for the war papers. Not that the war papers are uninteresting, but that the soft murmur of Stocktonian gossip is less monotonous than the continued booming of the big guns which have been playing havoc with the Century's pages for the past seven or eight decades. We have admired the warlike tone of the magazine greatly, and we cannot but feel that, in showing us how much mightier our heroes are with the pen than with the sword, our esteemed contemporary has done us a great service. At the same time the articles have had a tendency to water the stock of heroic deeds to a deplorable degree. Countless generals, who have spent the last twenty years patting themselves on the back for what they and the world have considered unparalleled achieve- ments, now find themselves left hopelessly in the rear by whole regiments of high privates who have facility with the pen, strong powers of narration, india-rubber consciences and influence with the old pensioner who edits the war depart- ment of the magazine. It has been shown conclusively that each side in the recent contest gained seven victories to each battle fought, and very plausible excuses have been advanced that the ratio should be so small. One gentleman, we under- stand, who had sent a substitute to the front, found his article so interesting and fatally realistic that he died of the wound he had received on the twelve thousandth page of his manuscript. Now, we contend that while all this makes fairly good reading and superb padding, it is, nevertheless, demoral- izing, and anything that may be substituted for it is for the good of the magazine. We therefore hail the advent of the Stockton papers with joy. With Mr. Stockton telling us about how he came to write “Rudder Grange; ” the publisher putting in his little remi- niscences as to why, when and where he published it ; with the courteous Editor of the Century reconciling all clashing statements in diplomatic foot-notes—the next thirty volumes of our esteemed contemporary cannot fail to be entertaining. GF. K. Bangs. comicbooks.com