Life — December 1, 1887 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

- LIFE: * Yi io THE - POTENTATES’ . THANKSGIVING. HEN the Chum to Poten- tates had fortified him- self with the neck of a sixteen-pound turkey on Thanksgiving day, he mounted his favorite steed and pranced around to the Eden Musee to call on his friends, the waxen monarchs, They were all well except the Sultan, whose nose had been inad- vertently melted off by the attendant in charge of the lighting of the audience chamber, and President Grevy, who was suffering from an attack of cobwebs on the heart. After the usual airy persiflage of the evening had passed, the Chum ventured to sound his friends on the subject of Thanksgiving. He averred that he had noticed that the day had not been universally ob- served, and that the crowned heads were exceedingly conspicuous in their absence from the tables of the thankful. Her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria observed that, for her part, she had crammed as much thankfulness as she was capable of in one year into the Jubilee ceremonies, but she would say that she did feel a certain amount of gratitude to learn that ‘* Leaves from the Highlands” had been translated into Choctaw so as to inoculate the heathen to the terrors of the hereafter, Her Majesty further stated that she was thankful likewise at the prospect she had for a second jubilee—at which assertion the Prince of Wales became so agitated that a visitor to the Musee mistook him for Johann Most. The Czar of Russia stated that it was nothing but an attack of the measles that had kept him from an onslaught on turkey—a state- ment that occasioned much excitement between the Sultan, Bismarck and Queen Victoria, which was allayed by the Czar concluding his sentence with the words, ‘tand cranberry sauce.” This restored the entente cordiale and started the status guo ante off on the even tenor of its way. King Humbert informed the Chum that he and the Pope had dined together in the afternoon, and that both had given thanks that the Quirinal and the Vatican were resuming friendly relations. The King thought that a combination of his government and the Pope's revenues would do much to make Italy a great power among nations. He added that there was a slight hitch in the proceedings, amounting chiefly to a desire of the Pope that Humbert should concede to him the city of Rome, 3 . Florence and the balance of Italy, and that when he came to think over the events of the year he was disposed to render up the most approved pxan of joy because the Pope had not seen fit to demand his trousers and toothbrush. His Holiness, upon being approached, refused to say anything relative to Humbert, but in the course of the conversation he alluded to the fact that, after reading the New York papers, he was extremely grateful that Dr. McGlynn had not come to Rome last winter. He hoped, indeed, that the ex-prelate ‘would not come until the Anti- Poverty Society had done enough for its founders to make the confis- cation of McGlynn’s estates worth His Sacred while. ‘The Sultan was very sulky about the observance of the day. He had nothing to be thankful for he said; U. S. Minister Cox had been taken away from him, and he hadn't heard a new joke since Mr. Cox left; he had been rejected by a cargo of Circassian ladies to whom he had proposed marriage; seven members of his family were suing for divorces, and it took all his income to keep the hazem in cigarettes. The young King of Spain expressed much gratitude that he had cut his royal teeth during the past year, and, with a pleasant smile, remarked that, with the permission of the Cortes, he would assume trousers on the first of January. Altogether, the waxen monarchs were fairly thankful, and if they, with their paste jewels, gas-pipe legs and paper crowns, were on the whole contented with life, I cannot imagine why the real Simon- pure monarchs have been so backward in coming forward at this gay and festive season, unless it be that the lot of the waxwork king is happier in the very innocuousness of its desuetude than the life of a flesh-and-blood potentate with all the perniciousness of its activity. Carlyle Smith, EASY ENOUGH. IFE (reproachfully): How can you come home in -such a condition, John, when only last week you signed the pledge ? HussanD: I know it (Aéc), m‘dear, but's sign nuzzer. hy ‘nough t* M®*: DANA missed a splendid opportunity in the last election when he referred to Mr. Pulitzer as “ Hungry Joe” instead of “ Hungary Joe.” A FEW TERMS IN FOX HUNTING. Taking the Brush, In Full Cry. comicbooks.com