Life — April 11, 1895 — page 17: what you’re looking at

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

A MASQUERADE IN THE JUNGLE. which prompted his fellows and produces the actual nude. He shows “ statues” instead of “ picture and the device he uses is really decent compared with the other. In the hands of real artists living persons might be made to imi- tate bronzes faithfully and beautifully. But because he dares to use for the basis of his entertainment the actual human epidermis, disguised in an unrecognizable bronze instead of in suggestive pink tights, our police, urged on, perhaps, by some over-super-hyper-modest and retiring persons like Mr. Comstock or the W. C. T. U, proceed to arrest him. . . . HIS is not intended as a defence of any theatrical man- ager nor as suggesting that either “ living pictures " or “living statues" are a desirable form of public entertain- ment open to any one who has the price of admission. It is meant for an arraignment of a hypocritical public—of a public that hasn't the courage or sense to be truthful with itself. The truth is, dear public, we've all pretended to be Puritans so long that we are in danger of going to the other extreme and becoming devilish, not because we want to be, but because we think it’s smart and are afraid our neighbors will know more wickedness than we do. And our clever theatrical managers are quite alive to this tendency and are ing it to their own advantage except where they are not just clever enough to escape the traps which the boss hypocrites lay for them. Let us be wise. Let us circumvent both the debauching manager and the people who make a living or notoriety out of our hypocrisy. Let us refuse to these individuals our encouragement or financial support. There is enough real art and enough honest art and enough nude art, if you will, needing support to take all the money that ignorance will spend on either “ living pictures " or “ living statues.” And let us on the other hand refuse to relegate into the hands of ignorance or fanaticism the power to say where real art becomes indecency. Let public opinion, as expressed through the public prints and the people’s courts, not through a salaried employee nor a fanatic society, be the definer of what is or what is not decent in art. Metcalfe. comicbooks.com