Life — August 20, 1896 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

> LIFE: man of wealth, and will immediately engage in the manufacture of electrical men on a large scale. CHESS TERMS. 141 We cannot have too many of them. In case of military conscription a better substitute can hardly be con- ceived. Should we become embroiled in a war with any European monarchial effeteness, it would only be necessary to send an Cueck MATE, ~OME men have a kind of individuality which, like that of a sore thumb, only makes its possessor uncomfortable. WHAT'S IN A NAME? requires courage to swallow a platform that you have already denounced, for the sake of upholding a candi- RHEE date who represents a party i ye in name only called Demo- te cratic. This is the kind of bravery 3) <% that Tammany Hall has to spare, and from past records is what we might have confidently expected. Politics is a game far removed from the cheap sentiment of pa- triotism, and as long as the boys are ‘out for the dust,” they may be relied upon to display any amount of courage in any given direction which seems to offer the most promise. AN IRON CONSTITUTION. GENIUS in Tonawanda, New York, has constructed an electrical man. It is made of steel, and furnished with a storage battery capable of holding electricity enough to run it twenty-four hours at a time. Of course, it isn’t alive, and yet for all ordinary purposes it can fill the office of a man. In some respects it will be an improvement on the ordinary man. It wont swear, steal, nor talk finance at the store while one’s wife does washing and kills potato bugs at home. In fact, it doesn’t talk at all. This quality would have made it an excellent Presidential possibility in the earlier part of the season. The inventor of this modest and unassuming creature is a army of electrical men against them. Such troops would need no overcoats; neither would they be susceptible to sunstroke. No matter what confronted them, they would trudge right ahead. The Six Hundred that undertook to drive Russia out of the Crimea, and whose foolhardiness gave Tennyson such a nightmare of metre and rhyme, wouldn't stand a ghost of a show in the race for fame along with a regiment of freshly charged, steel-ribbed electrical men. Here is your ideal soldier. The electrical man can be put to many practical uses, such as plowing for the farmer and doing odd chores eround the house. Several of the eastern states have a surplus of women. They will be unable to find husbands without going west. Of course, no one will claim that asa husband an electrical man would be preferred to a man of flesh and tobacco. But when a woman finds herself slowly slipping down the decline of spinsterhood, she’s not apt to be squeam- ish about her partner having such superficial accomplish- ments as a talent for music, a flowing penmanship, or the ability to use cuss words. Every family will undoubtedly soon have an electrical man to take care of the bees, arrange the line fence with the adjoining neighbor, and be interviewed by book agents. Dress one in petticoats and a more desirable chaperon could hardly be imagined. Let us all extend the hand of fellowship to our iron brother. de 4 IRST CLERK: She's a married lady. Seconp CLerK: How do you know? “She ordered two hammocks.” THE KING's PAWN, comicbooks.com