Life — February 21, 1895 — 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. XXV. FEBRUARY 21, 1895. No. 634. 1g West Tuirty-First StREET, NEw York. Published every Thursday. $s.0o.a year in advance. Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $1.oq a year, extra, Single copies ro cents, by a stamped Rejected contributions will be destroyed untess accompanic and directed envelope, Swe write the Gascogne is more than eight days overdue, and there is strong ground for the belief that she will never come to port. There is horror enough in these marine disasters without the sufferings of waiting relatives and friends being increased by the ghoulish propensities of some of our daily newspapers. We do not know just how many dollars and cents of profit there are for a newspaper publisher in the issuing of a so-called “* Extra.” The amount can not be large. On Sunday, the roth, the quiet of the afternoon, all over New York, was broken by hoarse yells of “ Extra! Extra! All about the Gascogne!" To the waiting ones who for a week had been suffering the horrors of suspense, the cry came as a mes- senger of hope. The paltry profit of the newspaper publisher seems infinitesimal when com- we pared with the agony of disappointment which met those who purchased the * Extra" only to learn that all the news about the Gascogne it contained was that there was no news whatever, This “ Extra" fraud is a favor- ite one with some New York newspapers, and when it concerns only a prize-fight or a popular election, it affects only those who are foolish enough notto learn by experience, When it invades the sacred precincts of grief and be- reavement it becomes a disgrace and should be made a crime. * . * HIS calls to mind an effort that is making by the newspapers of the State of New York to have the libel laws changed so that it shall be very much easier than itis for them to escape the consequences of libelling people. ee, As the law stands the redress for a blasted reputation or any of the other evils that disreputable newspapers so frequently and recklessly work is none tooeasy. The present law may bear too hard on the few journals conducted up- rightly and carefully, but this seems one of those cases where the good must suffer with the bad, Besides, if a publisher knows his business, exercises due diligence and inspires his employees with his own honesty of purpose, he would not very often be made to suffer under the law as it stands. The others deserve all they can be made to suffer and more too. * . . THO shall succeed the late Mr. McAllister ? Or is there really no successor needed? New York Society has improved considerably since the days of Sexton Brown and it is quite possible that with the added culture con- veyed by Mr. McAllister it is now able to toddle alone. Most of its members now know too much to eat with their knives, and fewer of them than formerly drink out of the finger-bowls. It might be well for it to make the experiment of going it alone, leaving the duties of its former guides and mentors to various stationers and caterers who are presumably competent. These, with a few policemen in plain clothes to keep out those of us who from choice or necessity are outside the fence, would doubtless enable the experiment to be made successfully, In case LIFE notes any pronounced decadence from the present high standard it will suggest a new leader who will have all the convenances at his fingers’ tips. . . . Le hopes that Mayor Schieren has the power to punish those police justices in Brooklyn who sided with the rioters, and that he will use it to the full extent. Recent developments show that most of the rioting during the Brooklyn strike was done not by the strikers themselves but by \ “sympathizers.” This latter class H.) includes every hoodlum, idler, tramp, Hit criminal and mischievous boy who H)| finds profit or pleasure in disorder. ) They were arrested in large numbers only to be discharged without punish- ment by police justices who care more for their political solidity than for their official oaths or the security of the communities they have sworn to protect. comicbooks.com