Life — July 25, 1901 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

“ While there is Life there’s Hope.” VOL. XXXVIIL JULY 25. 1901. No. 977, 19 West Tatery-Finst St., New Yors. Published every Thursday. vance, $5.00 0 year in ad. . Mostaxge to foreign countetes In the Postal . $1.04 4 year extra. Single carrent copies, ‘s. Back numbers, after three munths trom f publication, % cents, No contribution will be returned unless accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. The illustrations in Lure are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced without special arrangement with the publishers, Prompt notification should be sent by sub- seribers of any change of address, #H OW different things 2-~* look to different per- sons, or to the same persons in different moods or under different conditions. It may be recalled that our good friend, Professor Charles Eliot Nor- ton, spoke to the girls of Radcliffe mp College at their com- <F mencement last month of the great need that they should do all they could to ameliorate the defects of the “vulgar, semi-civilized America,” in which they were destined to live. But here is another gentle-mannered con- temporary, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, just back from eight months in Europe, who, declaring that nothing he saw abroad looked so pleasant to him as the coast line of New York, goes on to say : “T could not help noticing while away what good manners Americans have asa rule. They are the gentlest, kindest, best-mannered folk in the world.” They might be all that and still fall short of Professor Norton's high standard, but that doesn’t explain the disparity between these conflicting impressions, Either the common run of Americans whom Mr. Page has seen abroad behave better than the common ran of Americans whom Dr, Norton sees at home, or else Dr, Norton and Mr. Page receive different impressions from s al Dr. Norton un- doubtedly wants to think as well of his countrymen as he can, and it would be a benevolent action in Mr. Page to make a pilgrimage to Ashfield and tell -LIFE- him all the reassnring things he knows about American manners. Mr. Page has recorded before now his stout belief in the soundness of the American head and heart. It was he who ven- tured not so long ago to declare that the example of fashionable Newport was not important to the people of the United States, because the common run of the Americans behaved so much better than the people of fashionable LOVIO & ‘THERE was general satisfaction, widely expressed, in the reversal by the Appellate Division of the Su- preme Court of New York of the jadgment of the trial court in the suit brought against Mr. Howard Gould by his valet. The trial jadge compelled the defendant to answer a long series of questions put to him by the plain2iff’s attorney about concerns which seemed irrelevant to the question at issue, and the apparent purpose of which was to damage the reputation of the defend- ant. It was the general opinion at the time that the trial court’s rulings were more in the interest of the black- mailing industry than of justice, and the Appellate Court’s opinion that the trial court ‘abused its discretion ” demonstrates that the contemporary opinion in the matter had due basis. The public has no special kindness for Mr. Howard Gould, but it was scan- * dalized at the treatment he got, and admired the grit with which he met it. Inanother matter the same honorable Appellate Court will have thesympathy of the public. It has sustained, without comment, two judgments of lower courts dismissing actions brought by the Colonial Dames of America against the Colonial Dames of the State of New York and the National Society of the Colonial Dames ef America to pre- vent the defendants from using the words ‘Colonial Dames” in their names. The disposition of all the courts seems to be to avoid unnecessary implication in the wars of the militant Dames. * Least said soonest mended ** seems to have been the feeling of the Appellate Division in the matter. When the Dames have had all the litigation our institutions can afford them, maybe they will get together and form a Colonial Dame trust. Their quarrels do not seem profitable to any- one, and are too much like squabbles not to be a detriment to the societies which maintain them. VERYEODY knows tbat at Buf- = falo there are exhibitions of manufactures, jewels, steam engines, electrical contrivances and other prod- ucts of human industry and talent. Likewise, there is a very satisfactory and instructive collection of pic- tures by modern American artists, besides the most impressive gathering of American sculpture ever shown. The buildings are a marvel of coloring, and Buffalo also has on exhibition its delightful summer climate. Every- body knows it because it is matter of record. Everybody has read that such things are there, and enough persons have seen them and borne testimony to their existence to make belief in them general and confident. But so far as one may judge from the discourse of persons who have been to the fair, all these things bear very much the relation to the Pan- American that the big squashes and fat steers bear to the agricultural horse trot at a country fair. What one hears about from returned visitors is the Midway and its shows, the electrical illumination, and a certain German restaurant where persons who have all their money with them can revive their energies with palatable food. Contem- porary American taste in fairs seems to bo very much like contemporary American taste in literature. “Give us something that is e and enter- taining!" Thatis the cry, and Buffalo seems to have heard it in time and made a_ satisfactory response, St. Louis, which has planned to have a big world’s fair presently, keeps close watch, of course, of the Pan-Ameri- c What will be the issue of her observations? Will she think it worth while to have any in- dustrial exhibits at all, or will she find her chief glory and her chief profit in offering the nations the most fun for the money they ever had? comicbooks.com