Life — April 19, 1888 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

Would it not be charming if Mrs. Robinson could ex- press all her friendly sentiments and social information to Mrs. Gay by a sweet smile and the simple words “thorn pot,” and the latter's neat and incisive reply, “speed guest,” should be all that would be expected of her as a hostess? The code could be handsomely bound and would be an ornament to the drawing-room table, too, and it would be consulted during the call by each party. With the conventional remarks thus disposed of, perhaps we should begin to meditate upon the eternal verities, and we might some day have ideas which could not be expressed in a code, and exchange them one with another. HOW THE ROYAL BENGAL TIGER LOST HIS LUNCH. Invalid: OH, ANNABEL, I'M SO GLAD YoU’VE COME; I HAD THE MOST HORRIBLE DREAM LAST NIGHT; I DREAMT I DIED AND THAT I MET THAT HORRID SUSAN DINGLEY WITH THE ANGELS, AND HER HALO FITTED HER EVER SO MUCH BETTER THAN MINE DID ME, AND HER WINGS WERE TOO BEAUTIFUL FOR ANYTHING ! «¢ JM sitting on the stile, Mary,” as he said when he sat on her new Easter bonnet. A PROPOSED CODE OF CONVERSATION. possessed of no other characteristic meriting approval, this is an age of brevity and dispatch. The inventive powers of thousands of men are exercised in rapidly moving people (who might just as well have stayed at home) to another place and in girdling the earth in forty seconds, so that we can read all the details of the Smith-Kilrain prize fight before it has taken place on the other side of the Atlantic. But the modern spirit which haunts the marts of trade and the news- paper offices has not invaded the drawing-room. _Letter-writing has shriveled up before the telegram and the postal-card, and conversation has become a lost art; small-talk still exists, as teasing and time- destroying as in former days. Where there is no thought in the mind, and no originality of observation, words come out of the mouth in conventional patterns ‘of speech, patterns which repeat themselves, and which are produced automatically by the pressure of some person or thing. For instance, Mrs. Plyte Robinson calls upon her friend Mrs. Carroll-Gay. The talk crackles on for fifteen minutes, far into the mysteries of flounces and furbelows. Neither of these ladies wishes her time wasted, and yet they must call in person on each other at stated intervals. To avoid this and to give our ladies more time for meditation and shopping, the suggestion is now made that a Code of Conversation, similar to the cable codes, now in use by merchants, be adopted in polite society. In these codes, one word may be used to cover a whole sentence or more ; and as each party possesses a key to the code, much time is saved, and money as well. To illustrate the condensation which these codes bring about, the sentence “Smithkins, London: Macbeth murders sleep—Tyler,” may mean “Smithkins, Gobson & Smithkins, 17 Bishopsgate Street Within, London, E.C. We advise you to sell New York Central; acut in freight rates is expected —J. Calhoun Tyler & Co.” ur “hs a ith Ae ae ‘“CONFOUND THOSE HUMANS! INVENTING SOME NEW EXPLOSIVE.” THEY ARE ALWAYS comicbooks.com