Life — July 1, 1897 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

“OMhile there is Life there's Hope.” JULY 1, 1897. st Tuirty-First Street, New York. VOL. XXX. 19 W 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 a stamped and directed envelope, The illustrations in Lurk are copyrighted, and are not to be repro- duced without special arrangement with the publishers. * the late Lord Sandwich of unhallowed memory had seasonably hitched a line to his islands in the Pacific, and towed them home and moored them con- venient to the coasts of Great 7 Britain, he would have saved the rulers and other people of this country sundry perplexities and misgivings which most of us would gladly be spared. The islands grow a lot of sugar for which there is a market in this country. If they are annexed, that sugar will come in duty free. The islands have achieved a debt of four million dollars. If they are annexed the interest on that debt will be regularly paid. Of course the folks who own Hawaiian bonds or plantations want annexation. The rest of us are not so eager. The idea of having an outlying American county two thousand miles off shore from San Francisco does not appeal strongly even to our imaginations. The President, however, thinks we ought to let the islands into our family. His annexation treaty has gone to the Senate, and, at this writing, is under Senatorial consideration, Lire will be perfectly resigned if the treaty hangs fire, as seems likely, until we have further opportunity to inform ourselves as to what perils it involves, and what advantages, if any, it promises. . . * HE gayety of nations has been per- ceptibly overshadowed by the suicide of Barney Barnato, the Kaffir king. ¢\\8->\ If ever a man had what is commonly AS/' called ** good luck,” Barney was that ¢/ oman. He was the Fortunatus of the decade, a man with the golden touch. It scandalizes the money-loving world that such a man should have come to such an end. Apparently the load of his successes was greater than he could carry, His fate teaches us to admire the superior fortitude of some of our own money-getters—our Standard Oil friends in particular—who bear up under a burden of affluence and resulting enterprises and responsibilities that it makes the head swim to contemplate. . . * T is asserted that General Stewart L. Woodford, the newly appointed Minister to Spain, cannot speak Spanish, If that is the case he ought not to have the job. It is little less than 9 scandalous to send a Minister to Madrid in times like these who cannot parley with the Spanish Premier in his own tongue. We have the materials in this country for an efficient diplomatic and consular service. The sooner the spoils system of appointment gives way to the merit system in this branch of governmental employment the better it will be for our credit abroad, and for our home interests. The President has made some first-rate foreign appointments, and some very unfit ones. Any man who can’t speak Spanish is unfit to represent this country in Spain or in South America. Our late Minister to Chili, Mr. Strobel, has just been superseded. He is an experienced and accomplished diplomate and scholar, who has served with distinction at Madrid, in the State Department, and elsewhere. The system that turns such men out of places they are competent to fill and puts green hands in is wasteful and altogether deplorable. . . . MERITORIOUS fountain statue of Pan has been offered to Central Park, but the Park Commissioners say they cannot find a site in Central Park that is suited to it. The sculpture sharps are satisfied with the statue as a work of art, and there is some disposition to think they ought to let Pan in. Maybe so. | Perhaps they will grow some,new shrubbery presently and fix up a bower for him. Meanwhile Lire is not impatient of their hesitation, for Pan, as the sculptor (Mr. Barnard) has expressed him, would not of his own choice stay anywhere in Central Park over night. He has left his trousers at home and has nothing with him except his pipe. If he succeeded in dodging the Park police until nightfall he would surely make a bee line for Westchester County and infest the Bronx River or the Van Courtlandt woods. It is no disparagement of this Pan to say that he is not in harmony with Central Park scenery and associations, The Park Board may be right ; so good a work should have a setting that really suits it.