Life — December 14, 1899 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

VOL. XXXIV, DECEMBER 14, 1899, 19 West Taiery-Finst § Published every $500 a year in nds ¥ vatage to foreign countries in the P- stal O4 a year e: Single current copies, Fn. 1 Back numbers, after three months date of publication, % cents, No contribution will be returned unless accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. New Youe, rom The illustrations in Live are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced without speciat arrangement with the publishers, Prompt notification should be sent by sub- seribers of any change of address, HE mu- tations which have lately come to the old pub- ) lisbing house of Harper and | Brothers have given concern to thousands of American ry. readers. Its alliance 4 with the sprightly firm of McClure, which befell last spring, seemed a put- ting of old wine into == new skins, which the most hopeful observers could not regard without some fear that the old wine's excellent flavor might be unfavorably affected, It has lately become evident that that expedient was tried not as a casual stroke of enterprise, but as a remedy for a grave internal disorder, and that it failed to have the expected effect. Since then the disclosure of the financial embarrassments of the house has dis- tressed its friends, but with it has come evidence of such consideration from persons nearly affected, of such strong eneral public sympathy, and of so pg a plan of reorganization as give good grounds to anticipate that a name that has been a household word in our country for three generations will continue to mean as much to our children. as it has meant to us. Weall want to see Harper and Brothers go on, and go on, not as something else, but as its old self, at least in all that *LIFE- concerns the public, and is, under public observation, We have liked it as it was, and we hope to like it better still as it is to be. Good luck to it! We 4 ’ oO x T is proper to note, with regret, that in a recent paragraph in Lire (No. 888), wherein notice was taken of sundry trivial and obstructive economies said to be practiced by the Comptroller of the State of New York io connection with the State charities, the Comptroller was named as Mr. Roberts, Mr. Roberts was Comptroller up tolast New Year's, but the present Comptroller is Mr. William J, Morgan, of Buffalo, and it is his cheese- paring, not that of Mr. Roberts, thut is criticised, There is probably both justice and injustice in the criticisms. The Comp- troller stands between all the managers of the State charitable institutions and the State Treasury. It is his business to protect the taxpayer by secing that the expenditures for the care of the State's charges are kept within bounds. He must check both the selfish intercet of some managers in the expenditures of large sums, and the absolutely disinter- ested solicitude of others for institutions to which they give time and thought without pay. First-rate men are very loath to give their time to the manage- ment of the State institutions, if they are to be humiliated by overmuch haggling at Albany over petty expenditures, and yet both rapacious persons and others who are merely overzealous need often to be restrained by a judicious hand. Evidently the successful discharge of the Comptroller's duties calls for great patience and a fine discrimination, What is averred as to Mr, Morgan is that his discrimination is not good, and that he annoys and disgusts some good men by making it necdlessly bard for them to discharge properly the services which the Governor has asked them to render. Itis evident that Governor Roosevelt has the State charities a good deal on his mind, He is undoubtedly doing his best to have them better administered than they have been. To that end he is trying divers experiments, and especially the substitution of managers living at a distance for local managers in the care of some important institutions, Some developments, such as the recent rising at the Woman's House of Refuge at Hudson, have seemed to indicate that some changes which have been made were ill-advised, but new systems should not be judged before they bave had time to work themselves out. The Governor's experiments in this direction are being watched with a great deal of interest. There are few harder tests of civilization than the administration of public chari- ties and penal institutions, To have them well administered takes ceaseless vigi- lance, and the gratuitous and persistent co-operation of able men and women, HE British have not yet been able to demonstrate to the satisfac- tion of all observers that their view of their duty in the Transvaal was correct, but they are giving their whole mind to the subject and are pressing their side of the debate with high courage and the most zealous assiduity, The disinclina- tion of the Boers to be either persuaded or convinced is as stubborn as ever, and every British advantage seems to be bought at a prodigious cost. The Lon- don shops, we are told, are completely sold out of mourning goods, while their gayer fabrics have been left on their hands, Ball dresses are being put away in camphor, the prospect being that there will be no balls worth dressing for in England the coming season. All this is gloomy.news, which is far from pleasant reading to Americans, Yet the fecling is by no means confined to Lire that it is better for Great Britain herself, as well as for all the world, that she should find ita very serious business to overthrow republics established by white men,' who have shown fair capacity atleast to take care of themselves, however far short they may have come of showing due political hospitality to all comers. In so far as Boer courage may check the vogue of Jingoism, it may do the world a good turn. England had hier choice whether to fight the Boers or to get almost everything she wanted without fighting. To have her pay so dear for war as to make her more tolerant of rivalry and readier another time to agree with her adversary before blows begin, may, in the end, be neither hurtful to her, nor to the world, nor to us, with whom of late her example seems to be so influential, comichooks.