Life — September 20, 1906 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

Wanted: A Porter [' THAT stern corporation, the Boston and Maine Railroad, would consent to cater to an effete civilization, and pro- vide porters to carry our bags, the whole problem of summer travel in New England would assume lighter and more cheerful proportions. Since the days of “Sanford and Merton,” the heroic principle of waiting upon oneself has never been more amply illustrated than at the North Station in Boston, where the long line of travelers bending wearily under valises, dress-suit cases and golf- clubs would have carried joy to Mr. Barlow’s -soul. The Pilgrim Fathers disembarking their thousand and one spinning wheels from the Mayjlower were not more forlornly independent of assistance than are their pilgrim sons journeying expensively and uncomfort- ably to-day to the sacred coast of free- dom. What makes the absence of porters so “Gracious! THEY HAVEN'T MOVED SINCE 1 PASSED” trying to our unheroic souls is the fact that the station offers us a host of other things that we no more need, and no more want, than did the Pilgrim Fathers. We, may have our choice of sixty-two American periodicals or of the last two hundred and fifty novels. We may pur- chase prolonged indigestion at fruit and candy counters. We may have our freck- les and tan removed with choice little pots of cosmetics. A friendlyand smiling young lady stands ready to smear some- thing of a beautifying nature over our faces and hands, and to show us in a neat little mirror how much improved we are by the operation. A nice pan of clean water, carefully wired over, invites us to put some posies into it, which posies—if they survive the day ‘and night —are carried the next morning by charitable ladies to the deserving poor. Everything that sybaritism and a refined philanthropy can suggest may be found in the Boston station, when we are searching vainly for a porter. The luxuries of life are ours to atone for the absence of necessitie: Agnes Repplier. Aigrettes ! UEEN ALEXANDRA is strongly opposed to Q the use of “aigrettes” of heron plumes, and never wears them. Colonel Roowevelt is dead against aigreties, and Mrs. Roosevelt feels even more strongly than he does about them.. Neither of them ever wears them. Colonel William J. Bryan and Mrs. Bryan will feel and do the same in case an interesting event, which the public now begins to anticipate, should make their views and conduct influential We ourselves disapprove heartily of aigrettes as adornroents for anybody except a heron, and never Sead with one on us. The reason why we feel so is that aigrette-hunting has all but destroyed the breed of herons, because, as you will recall, the heron was valuckily planned without any thought of milliners. and the pretty aigrette sprouts oa the mother bird in the nesting scason and gets her shot just when her family cares are most important These points we record to assist the Audubon societies in their efforts to save the herons (or ospreys) from extinction é ‘owned one, and would on no account be found comicbooks.com