Life — June 7, 1900 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

*LIFE- 491 and in enterpiise the smallest. Its taxes correspond with ts area, but what, {t lacks in population 1 makes up in fleas ; so tt may be said to he on the Jump. * Its city councit ta larger than most State legislatures ; lobbyists say that they don't come high, but they “come so d——d often.” It is the paradise of cranks; everything In the rellgious Ine from “Mominated Minds” to “Hook-and-Eye Baptists’; and everything in politics from Fentans to Gold Bugs. In winter the business consists In fleecing tourists ; in summer, trading Jackknives and swapping dollars that were left by the visitors. ‘The principal amusement of the inhabttants consists of * running down ** thelr neighbors, backliting, spreading scandal, and “skinning” one another, When not busy with thts, they are watching for rain—that never comes. Once tn a while # cloud looms up that seems to promise ratn, and occa- stonally @ boom starts which seems to Indicate business, but they are juvartably false alarms, ‘Now und then, a man by chance—never by Industry—makes a living, but the others soon “get onto it” and spoll it; the spirit of equality 1s too rampant to allow any such state to long extst, San Diegans are firmly convinced that there 1s only one way to climb the IFE’S Meanest City Contest closed on the Ist of June, 1900, no manuscripts received after that date having been considered. The multiplicity of the manuscripts received has yendered it necessary for the Editors to select only those for publication which came nearest to the con- ditions stated. Announcement of the award will be made in an early number of Lire. SAN DIEGO, CAL. I sing of the place renowned for “ bay nnd climate"; a place justly famed, for nature has provided nothing to drink but salt bay water and nothing to eat bat climate. The town, like a squab pigeon, was bigger at its hoom-birth than tt ever : i . has been since, In area it ts the second largest city in the Cnited States, “* BY GUM,’ SOME GAL'S NEW BONNET, WHAT A JOKE.