Life — July 14, 1887 — page 2: 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.” No, 237. JULY 14, 1887. EST TWENTY-THIRD STREET, NEW York. Published every Thursday, $5.00 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. IT., 25 cents per number ; Vols. III., IV., V., VI., VII. and VIII. at regular rates. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. HE chap who computes what it costs to celebrate the Fourth of July has had a particularly good time this year. It will take more dollars, a good many, than six figures will stand for to represent the damage done by fires. Asa matter of cold finance this journal believes that for half the cost to them of the annual celebration the fire insurance companies could afford to guarantee our independence of Great Britain and every thing else (except the Irish vote) and pay the cost of resisting all attempts to subvert us. With such a policy in his portfolio how sturdily might Mr. Bayard lay down the law upon the fisheries question and bring the Kanucks and Britishers to the scratch. HE Fourth this year was a success. It was territically hot and in most parts of the country very dry, so that many towns which thought they would be content with a few modest fire-crackers had a first-class impromptu celebration on their hands before they knew it. The only conspicuous case of a contemplated performance that failed was that of Mr. Boyle O'Reilly, who took a con- tract to read a poem at Mr. Independent Bowen's celebration at Woodstock, and was forbidden by his physician to exe- cute the job. When we consider the awful passion Mr. O'Reilly must have worked himself into over the iniquities of George III. and all the English before and since, the doctor's discretion will be admired without a question. Take care of yourself, Mr. O'Reilly, dear. In your capacity as Irish patriot this country could worry along without you, but as a poet and a canoer we admire you and have a considerable reyard for you as an Administration Democrat. You did well to drop the poem. Respect your physician's counsel and keep your lid on! dear Boyle, keep your lid on! HE Springfield Republican has been bewailing the de- cadence of the country towns of Western Massachu- setts. It says that they have lost their grip and are going to the dogs. Their best men leave them and they keep only the inferior grades of their population. They have grown poor, actually and comparatively, and are no-longer any better than ordinary villages. This is true, although it is the Springfield Republican that calls attention to it. It is true that the rich when they get rich enough are apt to go back to the country again and spend some of their money, but the disposition in this country is for the rich to huddle together in summer settlements and rub up against each other from July to Octo- ber as assiduously as they doat home from Novembertill June. The Berkshire Hills and Lenox and Mt. Desert catch the money and fashon that ought to be distributed through the deserted villages of New England. The villages don’t get their dues. But they have a powerful friend in the Irish alderman, Bear the news to the Springfield Republican that if there is any existing power that can restore to the villages their old-time importance, it is the Irish aldermen who rule all the big citics and strike us where we live. The Mikes will make us hunt grass if any body does. They know how to make country life attractive. . . . OOR old Jacob Sharp! Sick and in prison, who is there to carry any comfort to him? Certainly not the court that tried him and earned the gratitude of all Gotham by giving him his due, Really the fate of the boodlers and their briber is edifying as far as it has gone, and gues a good way to re-establish the old notion that horesty is the best policy, sometimes, even for vulgar hirelings who have no characters to lose, and no consciences to torment them. How far removed, for instance, from the wretched plight of Sharp is the case of Mr. Jay Gould, who by thrift and early rising having amassed a modest competence, was able a few days ago to come to the rescue of the good Sir Cyrus Field and pull him in out of the wet where he was like to have been devoured by sharks. If Sharp, instead of corrupting his fellow-men, had been a philanthropist like Mr. Gould, how very much nicer he would feel to day. It’s a great deal bet- ter fun to be sitting around on a yacht sucking lemonade (at least) through straws than it is to be live ballast for a dull craft like the Tombs. Be good, dear children, and you will have a clear conscience, and—perhaps a yacht! OOD-BYE, McGlynn! Meet you—(‘scuse us, your Holi- ness). Forgot, McGlynn. Have made different arrangements. Can't meet you hereafter. . . . HE Sua says Volunteer is a poor name for Gen. Paine's new boat. Of course /4e name for the boat was The Bean, but you can’t name a yacht just what you want to any more than a baby. comicbooks.com