Life — December 24, 1896 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

a “While there is Life there's Hope.” VOL, XXVIII. DEC BER 24, 1896. 19 West Tuirty- New York. Published every Thursday. $5.00 a year in advance. Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $1.04 @ year extra. Single copies, 10 cents. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. The illustrations in Lire. are copyrighted, and are not to be repro- duced without special arrangement with the publishers. yow the dollars fly. The institu- I tion known as The Holiday Trade, which comes annually to the support of retail business, is fulfilling its office. Now people who have money spend it, and people who have credit run in debt. Now folks buy things which they don’t want and which nobody else wants, in order to give them as presents to acquaintances who will return in kind. Now is the time to sell trash; books that no one will ever read, ornaments that do not adorn, knick-knacks for which no service will ever be discovered. Innumerable properties will change hands this week, and many of them will be in- trinsically worthless ; but with each trans- fer good - will will go, and that is good value always. Fly, dollars, and make glad the mer- chant’s heart. * * % TM news of General Macco’s death has been deep regret, and the report that it was accomplished by treachery and was practically an assassination excites disgust and resentment. It seems impossible that any American should not sympathize warmly with the Cubans in their struggle. They have re- belled against hopeless, stupid, rapacious misgovernment. Spain wants Cuba simply as a thing to squeeze, pluck, and fry the fat out of. Such uses of a colonial dependency as she has made of Cuba, and always will make while she has the power, are as much out of date as Armenian massacres. If England attempted to pursue the policy with her colonies that Spain pursues with those that remain to her, the British colonial empire would tumble to pieces like a house of cards. Spain knows considerably less than England knew a cen- tury and a quarter ago. She is far, far behind the times. Poor Spain; poor, stupid, cruel, haughty Spain, shackled to the middle ages by temper and tradition, that cannot learn, cannot remember, can- not perceive. Cuba will be free. The most danger- ous element in her future is the Spanish strain in her people’s blood. But perhaps so much of the Spanish blood will be drained out of the Cubans in their great fight that when they set up for themselves they may start pretty nearly fair. . * M R. HANNA declares that he is neither a Cabinet maker nor a pros- pective Cabinet officer, and that Major McKinley is concerned with Cab- inet construction, and not he. What, at last accounts, was on Mr, Hanna's mind, was the inauguration ball. He likes balls, and he wants the Major's Ad- NAD ministration to open with a SS tip-top dance. Mr. Hanna had viewed the new Congressional Library, and had been impressed with its fitness to hold his ball, but Mr. Spofford and the joint Library Commit- tee of Congress feared that Mr. Hanna's friends would muss up the new building in their enthusiasm, so there was ahitch in the proceedings and a prospect of friction. Mr. Hanna’s career in the immediate future is matter for curious speculation. It is supposed that he supposes that after the new Administration gets fairly on its legs he will return to Cleveland. If so, he is probably mis- taken. The Scripture has it that, where a man’s treasure is, his heart is also. The Major is Hanna's treasure, and Hanna isn't going to abandon him at the White House door. Pal-at-large-to-the-President is about what he will be, and it will be mighty interesting to see how he fills the place. re * . HE results of the late dispute between Messrs. Sharkey and Fitzsimmons in San Francisco are not flattering to the hopes of patrons of the manly art. There seems to be noreasonable doubt that the fight was given to the beaten man without ex- cuse, while appear- ances, and some sworn testimony, indicate that the whole matter was prearranged by local sports with intent to defraud the visiting pugi and the public. Considering how strenuously friends of fist-fighting like Commissioner Roosevelt maintain the moral value of that exercise, it is surprising what contemptible qualities can co-exist with exceptional fistic proficiency, comicbooks.com