Life — February 11, 1897 — 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 Hope.” VOL. XXIX. EBRUARY 11, 1897. 19 West Tirty-First StReET, New York. Published every Thursday, $5.00 a year in advance. Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, $1.04 a year extra. Single copies, 10 cents. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by @ stamped and directed envelope. The illustrations in Live are copyrighted, and are not to be repro- duced without special arrangement with the publishers. SAGE'S warm Doctor Rainsford’s protest against ostenta- tious expenditure is, on the whole, the most significant as well as amusing that Doctor Rainsford's opinions have called out. The dis- cussion of the economic usefulness of large expenditures for luxuries has been timely and edifying, and though Doctor have received no more JPROTHER RUSSELL commendation of comment Rainsford’s views than their fair share of support, the com- obligations to him for bringing before it a subject that was worth thinking over. Several results have followed the discus- sion, the most conspicuous of them being that a ball which would have been pretty thoroughly talked about has gained a much greater publicity than would a much munity is under otherwise have befallen. It has been, however healthier sort of publicity than the social achievements of New York's Four Hundred usuaily attain, since this particular ball has been even more talked about as‘an s a gathering of fashionables or an occasion for display. economic function than THe respected New York, protection, has declared that pulmon- ary tuberculosis, better known as consumption, is a communicable disease and dangerous to the public health, and that all cases of it which come to the knowledge of physi all be reported to the sanitary bureau of the Board, Of Health Board of in its zeal for our course the reports are not ordered 3 for nothing. The Board is credited ¢ with the purpose of supervising the and movements of the con- sumptives on its lists, and of putting them under whatever restrictions may seem expe- dient. It is accused of a desire to build a huge hospital and keep them all in it, but if that wish exists treatment its realization is not imminent, and perhaps even the listing plan may fall through, for it would not only raise a vast amount of popular opposition, but very many of the doctors are opposed to it because they think it unjust, because it creates for them a distasteful duty, and because they are by no means agreed as to the precise degree in which tuberculosis is communicable. The truth is, as the Board ought to realize, that we are all used to dying of consumption, and don’t mind it excessively; but being ordered about, and constrained to do this and that, and live under such and such restri tions merely because we happen to have a few tubercles about us, is a thing we are not used to, and which, of course, we won't endure without violent protest. L OCTOR LYMAN ABBOTT'S fellow preachers of the Con- gregational denomi- nation have been much exercised over opinions, in part expressed by him, in part erroneously at- tributed to him, as to the cal verity of the Bible story about Jonah. Doctor Abbott thinks that the record of Jonah’s adventures is valuable and highly interesting, but he doubts if it is sober, sure-enough history, and thinks every reader is entitled to form his own conclusions as to that without prejudice to his religious standing. seems to LiFe that in a world where good ior is difficult, duty perplexing, and truth prone to go abroad in disguise, there is ample room for two opinions about the story of Jonah, and that even if an otherwise exemplary person should change his opinion of that story as often as twice a week, it ought not to be imputed to him as anything more serious than an indiscretion. Te chairman of a recent meet- ing of the Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society, held in Boston, was directed to send a telegram to Major McKinley, urging the appoint- ment of the Honorable John D. Long as member of his Cabinet ‘‘in the interest of the extension of total abstinence throughout the nation. It was hard on Governor Long, but he is an able man, and the chances scem to be that he will get into the Cabinet in spite of it. Which portfolio he is to handle in the interest of total abstinence is still uncertain, but no department seems any better adapted to serve as a field for his gifts in promoting abstention than the Navy.