Life — July 31, 1890 — page 4: 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.” VOL. XVI. JULY 31, 1890. No. 396. 28 West Twenxty-tinrgp Street, New York. Published every Thursday. $5.00a year inadvance, postage free. Single copies, to cents, Back numbers can be had by applying to this office. Vol. 1. bound, $39.00; Vol, Ik, bound, Sts.coz Vols. fils IV, V.. Vin VIL, VIILIX., X..X0, XL, NUE, XIV and bound or in fat humbers, regular rates, ‘ejected coatributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. Subscribers wishing address changed will greatly facilitate matters by sending old address as well as new. E VERYONE who can afford it has several homes these days adapted to the several seasons, Uncle Sam is a avell-to-do gentleman, in spite of the demands that are made upon him. He has a very pleasant Winter home in Washing- ton, but what is he thinking of that he should try to live there in the Summer? There has been more or less com- ment because sundry gentlemen in whom benevolence is accused of being tempered by enterprise lately provided a convenient sea-side retreat for the family of the President. There should have been no occasion for either the benevo- lence or the comment. There ought to be an official Summer home for the Chief Magistrate as well as a Winter residence. To move the whole machinery of government away from Washington in Summer might be too serious an undertaking, but that the President and Congress should be expected to stay there is a mistake that time must certainly set right. That select body, the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, goes to Saratoga for its Spring session, and enjoys the relaxation of that retreat in the intervals of business. Here is an example for Congress to follow. Why should it not adjourn on the first of June to a convenient watering place and put in the rest of the Summer's work under the inspira- tion of sea-breezes or mountain air? The effect of the Sum- mer girl, which might be disastrous to younger men, need hardly be a cause of apprehension to the mature gentlemen who make our laws. The President, of course, could go along. Fancy now, as our British cousins would say, how such a movement would ameliorate the work of legislation ; and only think what a magnificent boom would result to the chosen Summer retreat! It need not alw: be the same retreat. It might be Bar Harbor one Summer, Newport the next, and White Sulphur, Richfield, Saratoga, Niagara, the Yellowstone, and so on, indefinitely. Who can doubt that Legislation under such treatment would cease to be “ sec- tional,” and who can estimate the benefit to the country from the increased inducement thus offered to members of our intelligent leisure class toembrace a congressional career ! question of the hour in politics is: What will Uncle samuel say when he comes to overhaul his accounts and observe how much his Republican Congress has spent? ‘There are some tremendous bills for Uncle Samuel to foot, and parties who have had their ears close to the ground report that the old man knows it, and can be heard even now dog-goning his old bones for his folly in discharging Grover Cleveland, and taking on this Hired Man Harrison, who is no check at all upon the rest of the help. Let's see! About how many hundred millions a year would Grover be worth to Uncle Samuel these days ? * . . R, WANAMAKER’S bill to raise the postal rate on periodical paper-covered novels from one cent to eight cents a pound isn’t in all respects so good a bill as one that reduced the rate on bound books from eight cents a pound to one cent. But the principle of putting all books on the same footing in the mails is right, and if bound books can’t go cheaper let periodical novels pay more. The lesser rate must come some time, and might, perhaps, come now, but for the unutterable extravagance of Congress. A ‘ essay in an August magazine by Mrs. Phelps-Ward on * The Decolleté in Modern Life described as “a text from which the writer argues an alarming decay in delicacy in American society, and traces the effects of this decay in our art, in our literature, in politics, and throughout the whole range of American activity." My! this is dread- ful; but can we not hope it isn’t so bad as it seems! Wasn't it Mrs. Ward who abandoned her hired house in Georgetown (D.C.), last Winter, with the explanation that the rush of commerce past her door made composition impossible! And does it not seem likely that the sensibilities of a lady who found the activities of Georgetown intolerable, may be so quickened as to detect an alarming decay in circumstances at which the normal cheek would neither blanch nor redden? Let us take courage and hope that we are not so rotten as Mrs. Ward fears, and that the trouble is merely that she i: not as tough as we are. 2 . . . . . I* all the protracted newspaper reports of the marriages of American girls to titled foreigners, there is not a line, as Mr, Blaine would say, that opens a market for another bushel of wheat or another barrel of pork. Thatis the trouble about those foreign marriages. Reciprocity is not in them. The McKinley bill would be less unpopular if it could get a prohibitory cinch around them somewhere. comicbooks.com