Life — January 16, 1902 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

_Lubiished every Thursday. $500 year tn ad: Vostage to foreign countries in the Postal Tear extra. Single current copies, Hack numbers, after three months Gate of publication, Scouts, No contribution will be returned unless accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. The illustrations in Lire are copyrighted, and are not to be reprodioed. without special arrangement with the publishers, Prompt notification should be sent by sub- soribers of any change of address, A NENT the question of Sunday beer for New York, the Governor says that it won’t do to let New York make Sunday laws to suit itself with- out the consent of » the rest of the State. He thinks that if the “question whether the © saloonsare to be open on Sunday is to be settled by each locality for itself, a majority of the people of the State must first approve of that sort of local option. There never has becn local option as to Sunday obsery- ance before, and if it is to come the Governor wants it to come with due formality. But for his part, he thinks the Raines law, properly administered by a chastened and penitent police force, will give New York as much Sunday beer as it needs, and he does not recommend new legislation to that end, Bishop Potter says the Governor has changed his ground out of regard for the views of the country members of the Legislature. Dr. Rainsford says an election is coming, and that the interests of the city have been sacri- ficed once more to the interests of the State. Maybe so; and yet thero is a good deal to be said for the Raines law properly administered, and it seems fairly open to doubt whether a law would be devised that would give, on the whole, any better satisfaction. Bishop Potter suggests that by closing the front doors of our saloons on Sun- LIFE day we nurse hypocrites and open the way tocontinuance of police blackmail. But there isn’t any special hypocrisy about going into saloons by the side door on Sunday, The reverend clergy, as arule, get into their churches by a side door, but we don’t call them sneaks, It is largely a matter of con- venience. Closing the front doors of saloons on Sunday makes tho streets quieter, and that, as far as it goes, isa merit. A better measure than the Raines bill for the distribution of drinks in New York on Sunday is doubtless possible, but worse measures are also possible, and no Jaw that has been suggested since Election Day has seemed surely better than the law of ‘BISHOP POTTER says that Prohi- bition is an impudent fraud and an impudent failure, that the law is too easy on tho drunkard, and the public—misled by the fallacious elo- quence of the late John B. Gough—is tooready to put blame on the rumseller, That is all true, or so largely true that Mrs, Clara Hoffman, the Recording Secretary of the W. C. T. U., will seem to most persons to go to extremes in declaring that the Bishop is a law- breaker and the equal of criminals who frequent the saloons, Dr. Rainsford seems to have been caught saying that the W.C. T. U. ladies are good women doing the Devil’s work. He says that saloons are a necessity in New York, and wants the bad saloons closed and the good ones bettered. Neither Bishop Potter nor Dr. Rainsford seems likely to get the nomination for President on the W. C. T. U. ticket, but it will be some time yet before the W. C. T. U can elect their nominee, so that doesn't matter. Former Governor Evans, of South Carolina, has views that seem to agree neither with Dr. Rainsford nor the W. C. T. U. He says the dispensary system in South Carolina is a great success, Without making drinks unduly scarce or dear, it has killed off the barroom system with excellent results to the morals and habits of the people of the State and especially of the negroes, who spend, he says, very much less money for drink than they used to. ® eng ® N° new building in process of con- struction anywhere on the earth has excited so much public interest as. Mrs. Gardner's second-hand Venetian palace in the Boston Back Bay Fens. Everybody who reads newspapers has read about it, and most readers havo wanted to know. It seems that Mrs. Gardner and part of the palace have been incorporated asa museum for the exhibition of works of art and the in- struction of the public, so that mankind is likely in due time to know what the inside of the Back Bay Mystery is like. Mrs, Gardner is entitled to be ad- mired, not only as a public-spirited person and a collector of enterprise and discrimination, but as a rich widow who is able to havefun. It takes a great deal of force—energy, brains and gumption—for a rich widow to have much fun. Mrs. Gardner has had lots; especially with this palace. One ad- mires her for the fun sho has had even more than for her spirited uso of builders’ junk. Go R. WILLIAM J. BRYAN says he likes being an editor, and proposes to own and edit the Commoner as long as he lives, It is a justifiable intention, for the paper is said to have jumped into a large circulation and to be making money in satisfactory quan- tities. Word comes that the editor has already built himself a barn and has a handsome and commodious dwelling well under way. There seems nothing but prosperity ahead of Mr. Bryan. His views aro in request, and he has plenty of them, such as they are. A man who buncoed a great party with a cross-of-gold brick has every reason to expect to keep himself and his paper in tonch for a long time with a profit- able public. Mr. Bryan is great as a politician. As a patent-medicine man he would have been magnificent. Hehas talent, industry, assurance, health, a great voice, and acredulity that enables him to believe in his own remedies, comicbooks.com