Life — March 31, 1898 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

A Scrap of History. HE first revolver ever made Outdates the human race; For it appeared when this old earth First whirled away through space. Can a Yellow Paper Blush ? N March 19th, Assistant Secretary Roosevelt paused long enough from the transaction of public business to state that an alleged interview with him that had ap- peared in the New York Journal was an invention from beginning to end, and that he found it ‘difficult to understand the kind of infamy that resorts to such methods.” He says: “I never in public or private commended the New York Journal.” Ashort note sent by him on the same lay to the Journal's Washington corre- spondent in reply to a letter requesting that the Journal's story should not be THE LAND OF FALLEN NATIONS.—A NEWCOMER. denied, winds up with these words: “In your final paragraph you say that you trust you will not bave to change your opinion of me. I can imagine nothing which would be of less consequence to me.” So apparently the Journal printed a lie about Mr. Roosevelt, and threatened to “change its opinion" of him if he denied it! Another, and delightful, case of waking up the wrong passenger. The Rise of Richard. J’ was a dark January afternoon. The street was filled with two great crowds surging in opposite directions. A cold wind blew sharply, and from the sky dropped occasional flakes of snow. Little Richard stood at the crossing, sweeping aside the slush with his broom. His tattered garments were poor pro- tection against the cold. He paused to touch his cap from time to time as a richly-dressed woman passed him, and to remark, ‘Good day, guv‘ner,” to the men in tail hats. As one of the most flashily dressed of the women approached the crossing, a diamond pin fell from her dress to the crossing-sweeper's fect. With a sudden sweep of his broom, Richard pushed it to one side so quickly that no one noticed; then, clutching it in his grimy fingers, the boy gazed at the stones. Was wealth within his grasp? Mince pic, and the theatre, and abull-pup? And, better than all, medi- cine for his crippled father? A second's indecision, a second look at the stones, and he sped after the woman and thrust the pin into her hand. A tear was ready to fall from the lad’s eye, and a lump was in his throat, but Virtue had tri- umphed. In that short second Richard had made up his mind that those dia- monds were paste, To-day Richard is a Customs Inspector.