Life — May 30, 1889 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

TO THE WILD VIOLET. ELL me, thou gentle flower of lovely hue, Why live you here a modest, lowly child, Possessing beauty naught but Heaven begets? Was it that ancient hymn, ‘‘ Sweet Violets,” ‘That shattered faith in man, and made you wild? Perhaps that is the reason you are blue. * * * es TO ” PLATT’S writing an article on Civil Service Reform for a paper under the management of “Russ” Harrison, suggests the propriety of the Devil’s writ- ing an article on the different brands of Holy Water for the Police Gazette. * * * ROMPTLY, as is its wont, the customary corps of idiots has surged to the front with sug- gestions for the gentlemen who have charge of the sub- scription for the arch in Washington Square. The committee have raised, so far, more than thirty thousand dollars to build a certain arch in a certain place. The money has been subscribed for that distinct purpose and for no other, Nevertheless, ‘these scribbling persons have been pointing out in the columns of the daily newspapers how much better it would be if the arch were to be constructed of pea-green brick instead of white marble; if, instead of using the present suitable design, the design should be chosen by a competition, with the president of the Amal- gamated Society of Stonecutters as referee, and if Mulberry Bend were chosen as a site instead of Washington Square. Notwithstanding the fact that these contrary suggestions give some people an excuse for declining to subscribe, the fund grows rapidly, and there is an excellent prospect of New York's acquiring an ornament of real artistic merit. CERTAIN Mr. Kemmler, of Buffalo, not long since, amused himself by butchering his wife. This is a pastime which is gaining in popularity with a certain class of people, and Mr. Kemmler omitted none of the usual gory adjuncts. When arrested, he remarked with nonchalance that he supposed he’d have to swing for what he’d done. Doubtless there danced before his vision pictures of a public occasion, in which he would be the central figure, long newspaper accounts of the same, including his portrait, and winding up with the statement that he “died game,” and possibly an intervening period of visits, flowers, and luxuries from morbidly sympathetic women. Later on he learned that he would be executed by electricity, without any crowd or hurrah, and his bravado turned to abject terror. The practicability of electrical execution has not yet been demon- strated on a human being, but Mr. Kemmler’s case would seem to indicate that the new system has its advantages. * * * IFFEL is said to have gained the first idea of the tower which bears his name from sitting behind an Ameri- can woman in an American theatre. * * * EN BUTLER says that his enemies have called him everything except——what he was, to stir up Admiral Porter. It is doubtful, though, if Ben really has any enemies. He is a phenomenon, like Jumbo’s skeleton or the Falls of Ni- agara, and men do not hate phenomena; they merely ob- serve and wonder at them. * * * AMES tell sometimes. It is a fact that a person named Kuss has been locked up in Chicago for brutality to a woman. * * * PROPOS, not of Ben Butler, but of {Proctor Knott Sun thinks “we may consider that beauty and great- ness have no connection, direct or inverse.” comicbooks.com