Life — August 6, 1896 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

> LIFE: “Bile there is Life there's Hope.” VOL. XXVIII. AUGUST 6, 1896. No. 19 West Twirty-First Street, New York. Published every Thursday. $5.00 @ year in advance. Postage to foreign coantries ip the Postal Unioo, $1.04 a year extra. Single copies, 10 cents. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanted by a stamped and directed envelope. The tllustrations in Live are copyrighted, and are not to be repro- duced without special arrangement with the publishers, 7I0. is an appalling thought & I" that if we had woman suf- frage all the women in the country, as well as all the men, might be talking and think- ing about the silver question and nothing else. As it is, there is some relief for the mind harassed with fiscal and political perplexities and fears. The women of the country, though few of them have been able to keep ignorant of the merits and otherwise of the silver question and of the chances of general smash and other prevailing topics among male voters, have still retained in com- - forting measure the capacity to think of something else. Their interest in the ordinary affairs of life is still lively; their necessities are still imperative. They feel the effects of bad business, but for all that . they go on with their concerns, and are working their way through the summer just as though the world was not in danger of coming to a sudden stop early in the morning of the eleventh day of November. It is surpris- ing how they bear up. Mothers are almost as solicitous that their children should have a change of air and healthy surroundings throughout the summe: though it was an ordinary year. The summer girl is about as active as usual, and sails and swims, and turns the heads of college boys on their vacation quite as though school would keep as usual in the fall. No one need be at all surprised if the fashions in women’s clothes undergo some radical changes be- tween now and election, for the interest in clothes, though perhaps it does not find as complete expression as in more fortunate seasons, is really as keen as ever, There are even rumors that the big sleeves on frocks are subsiding and that the Horse Show (it seems that there is to be a horse show whether Bryan or McKinley is elected) will see a prevalence of Z costumes ‘‘with sleeves that wrinkle like a long suede glove, though topped, it is true, by big round puffs.” It is almost worth while that we should have critical times now and then to make us appre- ciate what a very happy thought woman was, and how exceedingly astute and far-seeing it was of the Creator to make her just different enough from man to make the i twain of them suitable companions. by Go away, suffragists! We intend to j] remember the experiences of this sum- mer against your projects. When you demand again that women shall have votes, we shall ask you how it would have been in the summer of '96 if women had been vot- ers and all America, female as well as male, had worried over the contest of the precious metals from July until November. We know this year as we never knew be- fore the value of a woman who does not have to vote and who can continue serene amidst alarms and normal in the thick of political bedlam. R. DRAPER, who happened to be with Mr. Cor- nelius Vanderbilt the other day when he was suddenly taken ill, has thought it proper to deny the story in the New York Journal that Mr. Vanderbilt's seizure was the immediate result of a stormy interview with his son, The story bore so many of the ear- marks of a fake that it hardly needed denial. Still it is surprising how many sensible people will continue, after repeated experiences, to let themselves be gulled by sto- ries which have no discernable authority except what they get from types and printer's ink. The attention given to improbable tales published in newspapers of notorious carelessness and mendacity is aston’ g. For the purposes of sensational jour- nalism a lie thoroughly circulated seems just as good as the truth. If it is contradicted the next day it does its circulator no apparent harm, and the whop- per that follows on its heels is swallowed with undi- minished voracity. The big penny papers seem ready to pay liberally for everything except truth. That they take no pains to furnish, either because it costs too much or because their readers do not demand it. comicbooks.com