Life — February 17, 1887 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

“While there's Life there's Hope.” VOL. IX. ~ FEBRUARY 17, 1887. No. 216. 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., $1.50 per number ; Vol. II., 25 cents per number ; Vol. IIT., IV., V. and VII. at regular rates. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. APPILY the immediate responsibility for the White River accident does not rest upon anything more tangible than the spirit of the age. It accords with that for travel to be rapid even at the occasional cost of lives. Rails and axles will break now and then in winter. Human pre- caution seems not to avail to prevent that, and when the break comes at an awkward time and an unlucky place, the consequences are apt to be awful. Some railway bridges are more conducive to car-wheels than others. The White River bridge may or may not have had the latest improvements. We don't know how that is. But there is not the least doubt that these terrible stories of burning cars and roasting passengers have become intol- erably trite, and that the place in the affections of the people that was once warmed by the car stove is vacant. Out on the car stove! Remove it! Pitch it away! Smash it! It is a fiend! Any car company or railroad that will take the necessary pains, and spend the requisite money, can heat its cars with- out stoves. We understand that the Pullman Company ad- mits this fact and has begun to act upon it. There is not a railroad in the country that can afford to carry stoves in its cars after this winter. * * * OMETIMES it seems as if we were really getting nearer the millennial time when the railroads will serve the people instead of bossing them. We do not expect to be hauled without charge as a matter of right, but we hope to be carried more cheaply, more comfortably, and with less hazard than at present. What with plenty of competition and interstate commerce bills, and the high price of legis- lation, railroading is constantly improving in this land of freedom. * * * FAVORITE line in the newspapers a week ago was this: “Mrs. Howells says her husband writes novels as a man saws wood.” That is to say, he humps up his shoulders, perspires free- ly, and makes a loud monotonous noise with his pen. Every body seems to be down on Howells. The Harpers are mak- ing him odious since they hired him by alluding to him as “the greatest living novelist ;” the critics go for him on the slightest provocation like bulls for a red rag; he is continu- ally pouring hot water over himself because he doesn’t know what not to say; and now his wife is after him. Howells needs a defender, and if he would agree not to let.any shop-girls into “ April Hopes,” we think that LIFE would say a kind word for him. Meanwhile, if he gets tired of abuse, he has only to emulate his admired Mr. James and write a story like “ The Bostonians,” and we are pretty con- fident that no one will ever speak of him in print again. * * * HE little Van Zandt girl seems to think she is married to her Anarchist, and the lawyers are not sure that she is not. If marriage with one proxy is good, so is mar- riage between two. Glorious thought! See what possibili- ties there are in it! To serious minded people who contemplate marriage, big public weddings are tedious solemnities that they wish to avoid. Especially is this true of the men who get no glory nor aught else of advantage from such shows except a wife. But “society” demands show weddings. Now, if such peo- ple, and particularly the sober-minded men, could be married by proxy, it would be a great boon, and, if so disposed, they could even attend their own weddings, and sit in a pew and be a prey to emotion without becoming a spectacle. To sit calmly in a church and see one’s self married, without so much as the trouble of tight shoes, is a tempting prospect, and should have influence with the noble army of bachelors, which the newspapers tell us is so much too large. There are a hundred other things that people who affect fashionable society ought surely to be glad to do by proxy, and which could be quite as well done that way: formal visits to be made, dull dinners to be eaten, dances to be sat out, tight clothes to be displayed. It will be a luxury of the sensible rich sometime, to have doubles to live their life of show, and leave them strength and time to live their real life. We cannot have an astral presence, but we may achieve a proxy. * * * OME of our contemporaries are indignant because the Duke of Marlborough is reported to have said that his debts were so heavy there was no resort left for him but an American heiress. Don’t fret, friends. Any American girl that cares to marry his Grace is welcome to him, and he is welcome to her, and we will throw in a year’s subscription to LIFE. & comicbooks.com