Life — September 12, 1895 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

“While there is Life there's To, VOL. XXVI. SEPTEMBER 12, 1895. 1g West TuiRty No. 663. rst Street, New York. Published every Thursday. $5.0. yearin advance. Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $t.o¢a year, extra. Single copies, 10 cents. Rejected contributions will be destroyed untess accompanied bya stamped UROPEAN travelers are homeward bound, the oyster has got back to town, 4. and the summer girl begins to think about returning. The calendar does not say so, but the truth is that the real com- mencement of the year isat hand. Noth- ing begins in January. Bills come in then to be sure, and interest is due in some cases, but everything that has the capacity for motion is in full swing long be- fore New Year's, and rides over that date with a scarcely perceptible jolt as a flying wheel runs over a pebble in the road. In September things really do begin. School opens, and families come home and get ready for it. Houses are hired and nebulous plans for the winter begin to harden into facts. The shadows of the fall elections darken and the vague outlines of the candidates begin to be recognizable. ‘The population of the seashore falls off, and what begins as a defection swells rapidly into a stampede. Hotels in Boston and New York are overrun with travelers ; railway trains and steamships are overwhelmed, and baggage men and expressmen work day and night and all day Sunday. The inertia of the dog days oozes away, and the first mild symptoms of energy replace it. Business that was so sluggish in August begins to be brisker, and presently it will hum. The advertiser begins to be less coy, and the heart of the newspaper proprietor gladdens accordingly. Everybody is beginning the year, except, to be the farmer and the summer-hotel keeper and their myrmidons and dependants. * * * ERE’S a-hoping that it may be the best of all years; that the summer girl will make up her mind and announce her engage- ment; that the vacant houses may all be rented to prosperous tenants who can pay their rent; that the shopkeepers may ma t sales ; that sure, all the people who went to Europe may eventually find their way back and find new stores of money to spend at home; that the corn crop may find a good market; that the silver question may be forever settled, and the greenbacks retired ; and that the gold reserve question may take care of itself; that the autumn football may be humane and civil; that the horse show may be the greatest of all horse shows; that American securities may find favor in British eyes, and that Tammany may be thrashed again in New York. We have turned the corner of a new twelve- month. Prosperous, kind heaven, make us rich and help us to pay our debts, and give us money to spend, and we will try hard to be good. Only make us happy, and we will make a personal matter of being virtuous, and if any China- jays an unfriendly finger on a tissionary let him look man out for us. UR cousin John Bull has two jobs on hand in the execu- tion of which his relati here take an interest. One is the regulation of those Chinese who have been killing his missionaries. His interest in that matter is so closely allied to ours that the curi- ous and unusual possibility pre- sents itself of seeing Bull and Brother Jonathan actually join in the accomplishment of a common purpose. There is no more glory to be got out of disciplining the Chinese than out of pounding a lump of dough, but there is justice to be done, and it will be inter- esting to watch its accomplishment. Mr. Bull's other job is one in which we have no immediate concern, but which all decent people are stirred up about on general principles of humanity. It is his business to settle with those nasty Turks for their inexpressible abuse of the Armenians. We want to see you tackle that job, Bull, and tackle it in earnest. It is in your line of business and you are under express obligations to attend to it. Don't shirk! Clean out those Kurds! The earth ought to be big enough to hold not them and you at the same time. * * . HETHER the America’s Cup is safe or no may be known to the readers of this number of Lire, but at this writing it is not known, In either event, what we all want is that the better boat may win. If she is ours we shall be delighted, but if she proves to be Valkyrie, Lord Dun- raven will be one of the most popular victors that ever climbed into the American eagle's eyrie and plucked a feather out of his tail. If history should repeat itself and this adventurous earl should be licked again, LIFE hopes that he may be licked entirely to his lordship’s satisfaction and under such conditions as shall dispose him or some other British yachtsman to build and come again.