Life — October 18, 1894 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

‘LDPE = “While there io Life there's Hope.” VOL, XXIV. OCTOBER 18, 1894. 1g West Tirty: No, 616, “IRST STREET, NEW York. Published every Thursday, $5.00 a year in advance. Postage to foreign countries in the Pcstal Union, $1.0 a year, extra. Single copies, ro cents. Rejected contributio: s will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. OLKS in the South who have been criti- cised for their propensity to lynch negroes; Russians who have been censured for their arbitrary behavior toward political offenders ; Germans and English- men who have penetrated Africa 7 and been unkind to the nations x \ there; people anywhere who have done what they ought not to have done and been sharply rated for it by the New York newspapers, are invited to read those same papers nowadays and see what very evil deeds have been done day in and day out for years past under the very noses of these vociferous denunciators of evil-doing. Such readers are entitled to all the solace they can get from the knowledge that they have had no monopoly of bad behavior, and that the press of New York, at least, has not been impelled to rebuke them for lack of fit objects for censure at home. But especially is it desirable that the New Yorkers themselves should read their own newspapers and learn from Mr, Goff’s witnesses how very vile and venal and brutal some departments of the government of their town have become, and what abominable tyrannies bad men who are usually the base tools of worse men in higher places have exercised and still do exercise over the un- fortunates who fall into their hands. The stories Mr. Goff's witnesses tell are painful, but they are stirring. LiFe will be disappointed if they do not prove stirring enough to produce a moral earthquake which shall shake Tammany down. To beat Tammany in the coming election is the most important political job at present before any community of Americans. New York can never rest comfortably again until she has attended to it. HINA'S experience is an edifying example of the folly of not keeping up with the times. Apparently she is close on to one of the jolliest political smashes that the century has seen. China would not see, would not hear, would not realize. She has been obstinately and imperiously pig-headed. Perhaps when Japan gets through drubbing her she will be willing to learn; willing, that is, if there isenough of her left to take any voluntary action, The business of being wilfully obtuse is easy and even agreeable while it lasts, but it is very hard to make a permanent job of it. Sows HILL, in the réle of a wy Slave of Duty at the "d head of the Demo- cratic State ticket is an affecting spectacle. In recognition of the Senator's persistent hard work and abstemious habits, Destiny seems at last to have put bim in a place where whatever happens he will get ahead. If he is beaten for Governor, he will have- obliged his party, and will still have his Senatorship to fall back-on. If he wins, he will have triumphed over momentous difficulties and earned a big reward. How very, very easy it would seem to be to make Hill President, if only he were not Hill. But, alas, he ¢s Hill. and has been for thirty years past. Poor, dear man. Destiny is fooling with him. When she finally lifts him it will not be with her hand but with her foot. * * * WO ARPER’S MONTHLY” prints at the end of its October number a rather contrite apology to Mr. John MeNeil Whistler for publishing in a serial story certain allusions anda picture in which Mr. Whistler claims to have discovered things injurious to his delicate sensibilities. Itwas pos- h sibly judicious for busi- reasons for the Messrs. Harper to make this sort of sacrifice, since their “magazine circulates in divers foreign countries, the libel laws of some of which give troublesome people opportunities to make much mischief. Moreover, Whistler, by making a great noise over his supposed grievance, has promoted the sale of the story in h he claimed to figure, and has perhaps earned some consideration from its publishers. But so faras he himself is concerned it is matter for regret that any apology should have been made to him. He is a professional snag, who enjoys being run against, and glories in a grievance. If Mr. Du Maurier put him into “ Trilby,” he did him too much honor, and if he wanted to get out it would have fitted his deserts much better to be kicked surely and sternly down the back stairs, than to be shown out with such politeness at the front door. ness