Life — October 6, 1904 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

Nonsense Rhymes. AT @SOPUS FARM, LTON PARKER packed a peck ot pickled porkers, A peck 0° pickled porkers Alton packed, If Alton Parker packed a peck o' pickled porkers, About one hundred and sixty-seven reporters, to say nothing of ninety-three photog- raphers, would be on hand to give to the great reading public full particulars concerning The peck o* pickled porkers Alton Parker packed. Parker AT OYSTER BAY, ROUND and ‘round the ragged rocks the rugged Roosevelt ran—and_ the newspaper men still pursued him, Good for Busi- ness. HE foremost claim of the Repub- lican party at present is that it is good for business, That has been a sound claim for the past eight years. To be bad for business is no recom- mendation for any party, and Bryan was so obviously and notoriously a menace to trade, that there was nothing to do but to beat him. But now that the Bryan menace has. been removed, it is again the open season for inquiry whether Republican services forthe nourishment of business are worth what is charged for them. It costs something over half a billion dollars a year to have business pro- moted according to current Republican methods. Judge Parker thinks the Democrats could cultivate prosperity at more reasonable rates than the Republic: do. Certainly it ought to be cheaper to board the jackass than the elephant, The hitch comes in persuading voters that the jackass can do the elephant’s work as well as the elephant has been doing it. It is not perfectly easy to convince the voters of that; but the champions of the jackass insist that the elephant’s present mahout does not know his place nor his job, and gets a lot of work out of his charge that does -LIFE- not help business any, and had better not be done, That is about the situation this year, and the betting is two to one on the elephant. Rules for the New Subway. L {ues will please remain standing until all the gentlemen are seated. Do not breathe too hard. While there may be air enough for all, don’t squander it. Always take off your hat to the guard as you enter the car. It is a mark of respect. In case of accident, remain where you are, if possible, and look pleasant, But under no circumstances blame the officials of the road. They are doing the worst they can, If you get tired of carrying your life in one hand, remove it to the other. Never forget that you are in New York, so that when you lose your temper you can always advertise for it in the Herald, Whenever you can share your strap with a pretty young girl, do so. But if she is fat and forty, give her the subway stare, Mr. Morgan and the Cope of Ascoli. HAT is Mr. Morgan going to do about that cope? It is a peerless cope, marvelously embroidered, at least seven centuries old, not to be duplicated. Mr. Mor- gan appreciated it, coveted it, and bought it for sixty thousand dollars. It is now on exhibition in London, It turns out that it was stolen in 1892 from the cathedral of Ascoli, in Italy, and the Italian Government wants Mr. Morgan to return it. The request has been made through the Italian Ambassadors in London and in Washington. Mr. Morgan is thinking about it. He is certainly entitled to due time for meditation. We think he will have to give the thing back. But to whom? Why should the Italian Government concern itself? Is not the Pope the proper guardian of cathedral proper- ties? How does the Italian Govern- ment stand with the Pope? They don’t speak when they pass by. If that were your stolen cope, would you give it up to the Italian Government ? It seems to us that the proper course for Mr. Morgan is, stand pat until he hears from the Pope. If he gives back the cope to the Holy Father, may he not reasonably hope to receive in re- turn as valid and comprehensive a line of absolutions as the Holy Father has in stock, and would not the abso- lutions be just as useful to Mr. Mor- gan as the cope? We think they would. Absolutions are a little out of style, but so is the cope. Itis possible that Mr. Morgan may not need them—that, of course, is debatable—but neither does he need the cope. It is true that while he has long been a collector of embroideries, he has never as yet collected absolu- tions, but is not this a good time to begin? We think a sixty-thousand-dollar line of absolutions would look very nice among Mr. Morgan's collections, and he could get them home without pay- ing any duties. There is no tariff as yet on papal absolutions. N. B.—Some of the papers say Mr. Morgan has already ordered the cope to be returned, without stipulating for any absolutions, or even indulgences. Hans: A Horse Prodigy. N far Berlin’s Germanic clans ‘They have a thoughtful horse named Hans Of human cerebrations, Who answers questions neat and quick In calculus, arithmetic, In fractions or equations, He acts a nobler, higher part ‘Than daily working a la cart Upon the broiling cobbles ; Through every thought-deductive hour Descartes or Kant or Schopenhauer Nutritiously he gobbles. Oh, what a stimulus to thought, If Hans were by some horseman brought To pass a Newport season Among the merry gentlefolk, Who look on logic as a joke And give no place to reason ! ‘When in some gilded, grand menage, After an evening's persiflage Around a dinner table, Oh, what relief, profound, intense, To go and talk a little sense With Hans — out in the sable! Wallace Irwin, O*E must move in the best society in order to find out how many ways there are of doing nothing. comicbooks.com