Life — September 16, 1886 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

hE PE: An annoying incident prevented the Correspondent from viewing the finish, While endeavoring at lunch time to indulge in a little hard tack on his own account, Fido’s presence on the Hornet was noticed by | the Quarantine officials who, fearing there might be hydrophobia | on board, laid an embargo on the whole crew and cargo. It was | chiefly annoying because it prevented our Sport from writing up Thursday’s race, but he feels safe in predicting that the winner came THE MAYFLOWER HAS DIFFICULTY IN HOLDING HER OWN. The Correspondent still languishes in the dungeon fastnesses of Quar- antine, getting three square feasts of virus per day, but he prefers viewing yacht-races to being made over into a porous plaster for the purpose of overcoming his fears of H20. A FIDO WAS NOTICED ON BOARD THE HORNET BY THE QUARANTINE. OFFICIALS. Fido was shot, but this manuscript, after a thorough disinfection, was smuggled past the Staten Island frontier, and saved from the wreck by the special kindness of the apothecary in charge. Carlyle Smith, IS MAN INFLUENCED BY CIRCUMSTANCES? HE theory that a man is what he is, simply because the law of heredity and the influence of his surroundings have made him so, is pronounced by many not only dreary, but false. None the less, the writer is prepared to prove, by his own case, that we cannot always rise above such influence. For instance, to-day I ought to be an Episcopalian in good standing in a fashionable church, with a rich wife noted for the fine tone in which she makes her responses, and for the chéc manner in which she bows her head upon her number five gants.de suéde. More than that, I should live in a large house in New York city, be worth my millions, and be heartily hated, as a Son of Rest, by the Knights of Labor. ‘That is what I ought to be; now for what I am. In the first place, I'm a Baptist and a farmer, and my wife is a country girl and a Baptist, too. We live comfortably on $600 per year. I am aware that my life has no particular interest to any one, but I do want to prove I was not a free agent, and that my future was markéd out for me from the day | was eight months old. On that eventful day I was taken to the church to be christened. It was an Episcopal church and I was intended for an Episcopalian. 1 was car- tied to the baptismal font by my father. Now, I should have much preferred to have had my mother carry me, —I knew her better, —but I was not a free agent, for I couldn't speak. Again, my father was a young man, though I should much rather have had an old man for a father, ; as he would have been more used to handling babies and besides would probably have had more money. Anyway, |-by his careless handling he disarranged my best dress suit so | that a pin stuck into some portion of my anatomy. It gave me pain ; to follow my hereditary instinct I yelled. My father in turn, having inherited a timid nature —note the law of heredity — became frightened and dropped me, forthwith, head over heels into the font, so that entirely against my will I became a Baptist by immersion, instead of an Episcopalian by merely having my hair wet. Thus it is, I attend the Bap- | tist church instead of the Episcopal; thus it is, | married a farmer's daughter of a Baptist instead of a lovely Episcopalian ; : thus has my life been blighted by the laws of heredity and GREAT FEAT OF THE WORLD ARTIST. | circumstances over which I have-no control. — C/arence S. comicbooks.com