Life — June 18, 1891 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

LIFE “While there's Life there's Hope.” VOL. XVII. JUNE 18th, 1891. 28 West Twenty-THirp Street, New York. No. 442. Published every Thursday. $5.00 a year in advance, postage free, Single gopies re cents. Back numbers can be had by applying to thisoffice. Vol 1. bound, $30.00; Vol. I1.. bound, $14.00; Vols. TI IV. V1 Vi. VIE. VHT, IX. X. XL, XML, Xd, Nie KV, and XVI, bound or in fa numbers, at ie rates, Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by astamped rected envelope. aTSpacribers wishing address changed will greatly facilitate matters by sending old address as well as new. course the significance of the baccarat scandal has lain in the Prince of Wales's connection with it. Sir Wm. Gordon-Cumming may have been a large figure in English society, but the world outside of England hasn't been reading the details of his trial out of violent interest in Aim, What becomes of Gordon-Cumming interests him- self and his friends; but the world at large is interested in the Prince of Wales, and very willing to read columns of testi- mony that throws light on his manner of life and the character of his amusements. But the Prince, dearly as the gossips love to read about him, does not stir up all this curiosity as an individual, so much as because he is accepted as the official representative of that large and socially important class of Englishmen whose profession is amusement. It is a class of which no equivalent counterpart as yet exists in this country. There are Americans who have nothing to do and make it their business to do it, and as wealth increases the number of them increases, but they have not yet attained to importance. Public opinion frowns upon them here. . * . I is not yet considered respectable for an American to neglect to istence by some attempt at usefulness. But in England men who do not have to work for their liv- ing and who devote their conse- quent leisure to recreative and purely ornamental pursuits are very widely envied and re- spected. It was to Englishmen of this sort that Tolstoi alluded the other day in conver: of an American newspaper. His mentary. In truth he spoke of them a justify his ion with a representative allusion was uncompli- “manure.” There is nothing in the report of the baccarat trial that is of use to contradict his estimate. The whole story of Gordon-Cum- ming’s misconduct illustrates the truth of De Watts’ affir- mation that Satan finds some evil still For id!e hands to do. Gordon-Cumming seems to have been a man of decent instincts whose character rotted through the misapplication of his natural energies. His case is by no means the only case where corresponding results have followed a similar course of life. It was proposed the other day to change the rules of the House of Commons for greater convenience and celerity in getting rid of members who had fallen into hope- less disgrace. Truly these are hard times for the idle English Fortunatuses. The only imitation of work that they can be put to is fighting. But of late} years in England there has not been war enough to go around, and “the puppies” keep getting into mischief for lack of it. There are two important bodies of Englishmen who sorely need an honest job of work. One is the submerged tenth, and the other is the fashion- able leisure class that includes the Prince of Wales's set. Let us be thankful that_our leisure class is still unimpor- tant. * . . HE story that lately came from Cambridge of how an under- graduate club was “raided” and its. members compelled to pay fines for violating the excise law, gives re- assuring evidence of the interest of the Cambridge police in Harvard morals. There are no > thousand citizens of Cambridge whose welfare is more concerned in the enforcement of the local no-license law than the Harvard undergraduates. And of all the under- graduates there are none who are less likely to contract un- wholesome habits of abstemiousness through the enforcement of the Cambridge municipal regulations than the men in the undergraduate clubs. + ar this paragraph should reach the notice of George Martin, who swallowed a thermometer, and if the thermometer is still in him, this is to suggest to him not to make too great a sacrifice to recover it. A surgeon regards a thermome- ter in a boy’s stomach very much asa fisherman regards a speckled trout in a dark pool. The surgeon will suggest that a thermometer in the hand is worth two in the stomach, which is true, but not to } the point. What is to the point is that a stomach with a thermometer in it, is worth two stomachs that have been slit and won't hold food. Let the surgeons wait outside, George, and be careful not to take your coffee too hot, nor your ice cream too cold. comicbooks.com