Life — January 19, 1893 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

2 LE DF'E * “While there's Life theze’s Hope.” VOL. XX1. JANUARY 19, 1893. 28 West Twenty-Tuirp Street, New York. Published eve Tharstay.. $5.00 8 year in advance, Postage to foreign countries in the rostal Union, $1.04 a year, extra. Single coples, to cents. ke bers: be had by applying at this office. Single copies of Vols. PSnd Ih out of aged {YS bound, $15.00 to XVI. inclu- 1. and II. out of print. V Gack numbers, one year old, 25 cents per copy. ‘Vols. sive, bound oF in flat numbers, at $10.00 per volume. Subscribers wishing address changed will greatly facilitate matters by sending old address as well as new. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. 10d, $30.00; Vol IFE wonders whether the gentlemen who founded the United States government ever contem- plated that their creation should be turned into an Institution for Providing Decrepit Old Men with Marriage Portions, The project of government aid in providing dofs for poor young girls was once mooted in France but never amounted to much. This function of the United States government has not much to do with the present generation, but as its effects will be strongly felt by our descendants in the next century it might be well to contemplate what we are doing to establish the dowry scheme on a firm basis. To illustrate it in its full beauties it will be necessary to consider a hypothetical case. . . * [5 will be remembered that the Revo- lutionary War closed almosta hundred yearsago. Even now, however, a number of widows of revolutionary soldiers are drawing pensions from the United States government. The War of the Rebellion closed in 1865. Many of the troops mus- tered out were lads who had not yet at- tained their majority. Let us take one of these aged just twenty-one and figure on his possibilities as a pensioner. With judicious care of his physical system and with the expenditure of his pension in securing proper food and shelter, it is not unlikely that he might live to be ninety years old. This would bring him with his mind still competent to the making of a contract to the year 1934. Being so competent and with the good taste which often characterizes aged men in select- ing matrimonial partners, it is not improbable that our pen- sioner would marry a blushing maid of seventeen. The pensioner would be a desirable farts from a financial point of view, and with the increase of prudence among American girls, when it comes to the question of marrying, it is not at all likely that our pensioner would find difficulty in securing a twentieth century maiden of seventeen for a bride. It is a well known fact that women—especially widows—live longer than men. Granting that our pensioner’s bride lived to be one hundred years old, our government would be still contributing to her support in the year 2017, A. D. . . * HE United States Government evi- dently needs a little infusion of artistic blood. From the zxsthetic point of view neither its set of Columbian postage stamps, nor its Colum- bian souvenir coin are to be highly com- mended. In both cases the multum in g a parvo principle has been allowed to prevail to the exclu- sion of possible beauty. . * HE public-ball season is upon us. As of yore the giddy portion of Gotham will become French for one evening and German for another for the sake of a little of that free- dom from restraint which is rapidly being parkhurstized from New York. If things continue as they are going, even these landmarks will soon disappear and the bad New Yorker who really wants to enjoy himself will have to go to Chicago. . . . ” ap Renes no use talking, we do ~ some things in America a great deal better than they are done in Europe. If before starting the Panama Canal enterprise, some of our French friends had asso- ciated with them some of the retired members of the “a Tweed régime, a few ac- tive leaders of the present Tammany Hall, some of Boss Shepard's associates, and a few experts from Commissioner ~-~tuy Raum’s pension office, France "would not just now be on the "verge of internal dissension. fa ‘eee comicbooks.com