Life — August 23, 1894 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

“QOKie there is Life there's Hope” 23, 1894. 1g West THirty-First SYREET, NEW York, No, 608. Published every Thursday. $5.00 a year inadvance. Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $1.04 a year, extra. Single copies, 1 cents. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. HOSE sleepless reform- ers, Lady Henry Som- erset and Miss Frances Wil- lard, whose heads are forever getting together over some plot for curtailing the privi- “ leges of men, or amplifying + the dimensions of woman's sphere, have resorted it seems to strategy to get women into trowsers. Why “they want to do it is not quite clear, but they do, and being conspirators of intelligence, they have perceived that their only chance to bring it about is by indirect mea Itis a newly discovered fact that women who are entirely satisfied with skirts for ordinary uses, no sooner get upon bicycles than they begin to long for knickerbockers. Re- marking this, the conspirators have organized in England a sort of Women’s Bicycle Trowsers Union, ostensibly for the encouragement of bicycling among women, but really for the promotion of trowsers. Report says that this new society sells bicycles to women on the instalment plan, and has established convenient stations around the country in charge of matrons, where women unattended by men can put up. But the condition on which these aids are available is trow- sers, and report says that it a condition with which the English women are complying in increasing numbers every day. . Now, there is no sound objection to women riding bicycles in the most suitable costume that can be devised for that purpose. If that costume involves knickerbockers. by all means let knickerbockers come. On the right sort of women knickerbockers are a joyous sight, and no wise person objects to them. There is just one disquieting thought about the adoption of them by women, which is that it should strike such promoters as Lady Henry and Miss Why these ladies should yearn so earnestly to get trowsers on other women is a mystery, unless, as seems too probable, their ultimate purpose is to turn all womankind upside down, to which consummation trowsers would of course be indispensable. Frances as a move of such importance. I seems a pity that society, and especial- ly the news- papers, should not BSE come to some justifiable conclusion 4 about the proper use of the prefix “Mr.” It is an honorary prefix that should imply that the man whose name it dignities has the ordinary claims to respectful consideration. In its use, however, it is by no means confined to such per- sons. A good instance of its abuse was in the recent case of the man Debs. While that person was lately busy with both hands making all the mischief he could, stirring men up to rebellion, blocking railroads, and getting thousands of comparatively innocent people into direful scrapes, he was respectfully spoken of in the average newspaper as “ Mr. Debs.” It is understood that personally Debs has claims to consideration ; that he does not beat his wife or abuse his children, and that his friendship is prized by some discrimi- nating men, Ordinarily, then, and while he behaves him- self, there is no impropriety in calling him ** Mr. Debs,” but while he is as deep in mischief as he was not long ago, plain “ Debs” is the proper name for him, and “ Mr.” associated with his patronymic is grievously misapplied. In a news item in a contemporary journal it is recorded that “Mr. Walker was very drunk yesterday, and knocked his wife down with a blow of hi: perversion of politenes: Wars s There, of course, is another Walker may be “ Mr. Walker" when he is sober, but plain “* Walker” identifies him more suitably when he is fighting drunk. LiFe has even observed that some newspapers lately spoke of Senator Gorman as “Mr. Gorman,” notwithstanding that for many weeks he had been steeped in devilment. It is by such abuses that our language is stripped of that nice capacity for discrimina- tion that should be its glory and its strength. Gorman is “Senator Gorman” as long as Maryland permits him to stay in the Senate, but he is “* Mr. Gorman” only while he behaves himself. Of late he has been plain Gorman, just as Senator Smith has been “Smith,” and Senator Brice “ Brice.” ° . . E have to thank the bicyclists, by the way, for a pleasant thought. They planned to send a message from Washington to Denver by relays, and applied to the President for a few words of greeting to the Governor of Colorado, But it turned out that there was nothing that Mr. Cleveland desired to say to Governor Waite. The pleasant thought is the message he might have sent if he had cared to express his real sentiments. It is doubtful if there are more than six men in Washington who would care to send Governor Waite a message that it would be any satisfaction for him to receive, and out of those possible s three are representatives of Colorado in Congress, and Senator Peffer is the others, comicbooks.com