Life — August 16, 1894 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

+ LIFE: “While there is Life there's Hope.” VOL, XXIV. AUGUST 16, 1894. No, 607. 1g West Tuirty-First Street, New York. Published every Thursday. $5.00 a year inadvance._ Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $1.04 a year,extra. Single copies, 10 cents. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied bya stamped and directed envelope. I China and Japan were really imbued with the spirit of hospitality they would invite Christendom to come in and take a hand in their fight. Christendom, especially Europe, bas been aching for a fight for fifteen years. Her nations have a splendid lot of new war apparatus which they want very much to test, but dare not try on one another for fear of the consequences. Even here in the United States we have some ships which we claim can whip almost anything afloat and run away from anything they can’t whip. We would be glad to try them on something if it was only junks, and yet we are not willing to fall out with our neighbors on purpose to make an occasion. But if China and Japan could only say, “ Friends, we have lots of good fighting here; step in and help yourselves,” that would simplify everything, and every one with a piece of war machinery to test might get a chance to try it without hard feelings, or breach of faith, or menace to the balance of power. As it is, the war is not so interesting as it might be. China has the advantage of being in a case where it seems impossible to do her any serious harm. If a few millions of Chinese were killed off, the effect, as it strikes the American mind, would be to make it more comfortable for the sur- vivors. But the Japanese we know better, and they seem to us less like ants and more like folks, and if they should get seriously worsted the draft on our sympathies might be con- siderable. Meanwhile, as Japan for the moment is on top, we look on dispassionately and wonder whether China can send more rats into the pit than the lively Japanese terrier can manage. . . * S LiFe goes to press the itudes of tariff legislation seem to be nearing their end. One day word has come that agreement was imminent, the next that it was im- possible. The immediate prospect is that about the time these lines reach the reader a bill will have been passed and the President will have signed it. If the new tariff proves to be worth what it has cost it will be one of the most valuable measures that any Congress has ever passed. It will be in order as soon as possible after the bill is signed for every one who has had a hand in the making of it to clear right out of Washington and go to a cool place and and for everyone who has been waiting for it to pro- ceed promptly to business. So may business hump itself once more, and coin begin again to accumulate in the nation’s pocket, And then, be the tariff good or bad, let us make it a penal offense far any to suggest changing it. Tariff-tinkering is doubtless an entertaining occupation for congressional gas- tanks, but the pastime is too expensive for the rest of the country. It may be fun for the boys, but it is certainly sure death for the frogs. * * . HE late General Pleasanton, the inventor of the blue glass craze, was a public bene- factor of an unusual stripe. Blue glass never did anyone any harm. It amused and interested people for a time, and —, died mildly out, leaving very little wreckage behind it. Compared with football, free silver, cord- age, the operation for appendi- citis, roller-skating, ritualism, “ The Heavenly Twins,” “Rob- ert Elsmere,” slumming, or almost any of the successive enthusiasms of recent years, the blue glass craze bears the bell as the one that cost the least and did the least incidental damage. It is no small exploit to start a sensation that attracts universal attention and still develops no sting. . . . BS is thinking of going to Congress. How he proposes to get there is not very clear, but if he can he might be in a worse place. Provided there are not too many cranks in Congress it is a good school for them. Con- gressmen with upsetting ideas must either keep still or be , found out. Debs as the (Degeneralissimo of an army of misguided workingmen is well situated to make mis- chief, but Congress is not yet in so bad a case that he could not hope to learn something there without serious expense to the country. At the present time, however, his chances of being sent to jail seem far superior to his prospects of getting to Washington.