Life — June 22, 1899 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

I was completely prostrated by a severely strained relationship and found much ina bottio of Vinum Marianum.— Napoleon, For that sinking feoling, Vinum Marianum beats the divil bimsolf,—MceGinty. Dewey's accompanying him on an official jaunt to Chicago in October, Which suggests tho old conundrum about tho tall wagging tho dog. P P F moro fistic arguments were conducted in the fair and manly spirit that characterized tho recent dispute between Messrs, -LIFE- / 53h Joffries and Fitzsimmons, the manly art might in timo regain something like its old-time place in the affections of the Auglo- Saxon race, The modesty of Jeffries in tho hour of victory, and Fitzsimmons’s frank and manly admission that he had been fairly whipped, aro good examples for tho rising genera- tion of prize-fightera, and aro in delightful contrast to the actions of Messrs. Sullivan and Corbett in the same circum- stances, o 8 6 MERICAN communities get about as good government as they deserve. Tho investigations of the Mazet Committee show that the city of Now York deserves about the worst there is, o 8 6 LMOST every literary journal, at come period of its career, starts a voting contest to determino of what literary men should be chosen to constl- ey tute an American academy of letters similar to that of France. These contests are inconclusive, largely because the voters are governed by the fancy of tho passing moment, and we find Laura Jean Libbey, Richard Harding Davis and “Old Sleuth” vieing in the number of votes recolved with Howells, James, Kipling, Fiske and Warner. There is another reason why these con- tests amount to nothing. They set no task for their Acade- micians after they are selected. The French Academy bas a8 an excuse for its existence the compiling of a standard diction- ary. It has beon in existence a great many years, and at last accounts had only reached tho lettor M, but it at least goes through the motions of doing some work. oe 6 HERE {6 a real function for a properly selected American Academy of Letters, This would be to defend our lan- guage against the assaults of the New York Sun, That journal has set itself up as an authority cn the English—or American— language, and ladles out incorrect rulings with a generous hand to anyone who cares to consult it. It insists that our language should be written, spoken and spelled entirely by ear, and that usage is the supreme arbiter. In other words, the Sun believes that in language two wrongs makea right. Wo need a higher authority than tho Sun, 80 that its go-as-you- pleuse methods shall not be permitted to provall. TUREE TIMES IN BUCCESS:ON. comicbooks.com