Life — December 5, 1889 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

* LIFE: DREADFUL! ETIE: We had a howible wow at the club, don’tcher know, CHOL. What was it? Petie: Why, Dickey tore Dol- ly’s boutonniére out of his coat, and Dolly bwoke Dickey’s eyeglawss- It was a scene of awful violence! CHoLLy: Did—did either of them die? EMOCRAT: This has been a pretty hard year for the Republicans in the United States. REPUBLICAN: Yes; but we carried Brazil. THE RIGHT PLACE FOR THE WORLD'S FAIR. ~HE almost disgraceful way in which certain cities have been insisting on their right to be chosen as the site of the World’s Fair especially enhances the value of a sug- gestion which Lire is about to make in connection with this subject. If our readers will take their maps and gazetteers they will find that on the borders of Lake Michigan, and in the State of Ilhnois, there is a city which has some very marked nat- ural and artificial advantages as a site for the World's Fair in 1892, The name of this city is Chicago. So far, we have been able to find only one valid argument against Chicago being chosen, This objection is the extreme modesty of Chicago and its citizens. The fact that Chicago has been sitting quietly Mr, Oldboy Fly (professor of electricity and practical mechanics): COME RIGHT 18, ALARMED; IT’S ONLY A LITTLE POOR OLD FATHER'S. YOU SET IT OFF WHEN you OPENED THE DOOR. I THOUGHT YOU WERE MISTAKEN WHEN YOU SAID YOU WERE IN THE HOUSE EVERY NIGHT BEFORE TEN O'CLOCK, AND I WANTED TO BE SURE. MY son. Don't BE INVENTION OF YOUR by while other cities have clamored for the Fair might seem a sufficient reason for entirely disregarding its manifest advantages. In the very face of this we assure the people of the United States that this admi- rable modesty is only that which often makes true merit shrink from demanding well-deserved recogni- tion, We propose to take Chicago by the hand as we would a beauti- ful, blushing, bashful girl at her first party and lead her out to face the admiration she deserves but dreads, Primarily, Chicago is the centre of American culture. No foreign visitor to the Fair would get anything like a good idea of our culture unless he went to Chicago and observed it in its native lair. This exhibit would be by all means the most interesting on view, and the one which would most astonish foreigners. More than that, if the Fair should be held in Chicago it would be thoroughly cosmopolitan in its character—a World's Fair in every sense of the word. We may be sure that it would be neither Western nor wooly, and that the most exacting foreigner, whether he came from Paris, London, or far Cathay, would at once feel himself thor- oughly at home. And in Chicago there is no danger of the Fair being turned into a mere advertising scheme for local merchants and manufacturers, The same modesty which has characterized Chicago's action heretofore would make this an impossibility. What- ever money has already been pledged by the people of Chicago has been in the form of voluntary contributions, made solely with the idea of shedding glory on the great country which Columbus discovered. It has bzen subscribed without any selfish or local motives, and the promoters of the Chicago movement are under no obligation to give tothe Chicago subscribers any better treatment than to other exhibitors, Therefore, we say to those cities that are so brazenly pushing them- selves to the front, levying assessments on their citizens almost by comicbooks.com