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Life, 1891-09-03 · page 4 of 22

Life — September 3, 1891 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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Life — September 3, 1891 — page 4: Life, 1891-09-03

What you’re looking at

# Life Magazine, September 3, 1891 This page contains several satirical commentary pieces rather than a single unified cartoon. The top illustration shows a figure labeled "While there's Life there's Hope," referencing the magazine's title and traditional proverb. The main text discusses the Holy Coat exhibition at Treves (drawing crowds), the Chicago Fair's attractions, and dress-reform debates. There are small decorative illustrations accompanying these sections. A key point of satire concerns women's clothing and social status: the author criticizes how women's dress (particularly skirt length) reflects their subjugation, contrasting uncivilized women who wear pants as "slaves" with European/American women whose restrictive fashion emphasizes male authority. The piece advocates for practical dress reform as a measure of women's liberation. Additional commentary addresses pensions, Oscar Wilde, and the McAllister's social position—typical 1891 satirical topics for Life's urban, educated readership.

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

CA LIFE “While there's Life there's Hope ” VOL. XVIII. SEPTEMBER 34,, 1891. No. 453. 28 West Twenty-tTiirp Street, New York. $5.08 year in advance, postage free. Single ‘copies 10 cents. Back numbers can be had by applying to this office. Vol, T., bound, $30.00; Vol. II., bound, $15.00. Back numbers, one year old, 20 cents per copy. Vols. IIT'to XVIT, inclusive, bound or in flat numbers, at $5.00 per volume ected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and by ery envelope. Subscribers wishing address chi sending old address as well as new Published every Thursday. ged will greatly facilitate matters by Te Holy C Coat now on exhibition at Treves is drawing vast crowds to that place, doubtless with very comfortable financial re- sults to town and cathedral. Hosts of pilgrims go to see the coat, and hordes of Summer travellers go to see the pilgrims, and between them they are numbered by the hundred thousand. erywhere in the world the vagrant emissaries of the Chicago Fair are hunting “attractions.” Unquestionably some of them will go to Treves and see that crowd, and their souls will be stirred within them, and they will have an idea. But it won't work. They may secure the home of Jesse James, and the house where Abe Lincoln was born, and the sources of the Nile, and Valley Forge, and the grave of General Washington's mother, but after an interview with the cathedral authorities at Treves they will begin to realize that some things are not so feasible as others. It may be a useful lesson, even though it is hard to bear. i * * ERE is a suggestion by way of solace : If the ir people could manage to borrow the coffined kings out of the Confess- or’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey it would be a good card, particularly if leave could be got to substitute plate-glass for the stone coffin lids, so that the people could see in. A good round fee to the Archbishop of Canterbury and another to the Dean of Westminster oug to fix it. Any how Chicago ought not tu miss such a cha for lack of asking l* all the discourse about dress- reform that has been prompted by the doings of ¢ usiasts in their Sum- mer conventions, nothing has been said that scems to us better worth remem- © remark of a sagacious contemporary, that the womankind to the male sex seems to be in curiously inverse proportion to the length and complexity of the feminine skirt. Uncivilized women who wear legs and wear them bare, are usually the slaves of their lords. Turk- ish women who wear trousers are their masters’ playthin; European and American women, whose attire is so much criticised by the dress-reformers, are used with such defer- ence and attention as to make it a vexed and interesting question how long men can successfully assume to be their equals. To emphasize these comparisons it is pointed out that of all men there are none who assert their authority in domestic matters with more undisputed success than those lords of the Oriental creation whose prophet is Mahomet, and whose robes are unbifurcated and flowing. In spite of im- pressions to the contrary, there is no power in trousers. . . . “HE stories about Germany's William are over done. The wild sea-story spun by the Paris Ec/azr is un- worthy of French art. We fear this Ec/aér is stuffed with mush instead of custard. ° * * HE McAllister is quoted as saying that his receipts from his book have been much less than his publishers gave him reason to expect. It is intimated that some- thing may be done about it. Mr. McAllister’s disappointment, if cor- rectly pictured, may well move the hardest heart. Oscar Wilde did better when 4e posed as the great- est ass of his day; he was able to gather the pecuniary rewards of his successful monopoly. If Mr. McAllister has been indifferently paid for his great per- formance as a specialist, his case is a sad one; very sad, indeed. . . BJECT lessons, now so numer- ous, of the convenience of having a pension, have not been lost on the community. The gov- ernment clerks and the postmen & have let it leak out that they would take kindly to | a pension system that would secure them the com- forts of life in their declining years without necessitating an ungenerous € awhile. Mr. Frederick Douglas sug- gests that the freedmen, too, being thrown on the world by onomy me; the arbitrary action of the Government, are entitled to be cared for, at the taxpayers’ expense. Nevertheless, in spite of this multiplicity of Barkises, it is probable that the pension system will not be greatly extended for some time to come. There is a certain safety in numbers. When every one wants a pension it begins to. be apparent even to the dullest’ mind that the propriety of taxing Peter for the support of Paul, has its limits, even when Paul is really necessitous. There That United States. is only one practical solution to the pension question child in the is to pension every man, woman, and comicbooks.com