Life — March 3, 1910 — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

“AS A MATTER OF ROUTINE Husbands’ Correspondence Bureau Branches in all principal centres, including Paris and Con- stantinople. No connection with any other establishment. W regret to inform our numerous patrons that our plans for the year have been slightly delayed owing to a little difficulty with the police department. Reports of this difficulty have been greatly exaggerated and calumnious rumors about our entertainment committee being housed over night in jail, and of our having to pay a large sum as a tribute, are of course all base lies and naturally to be expected from those who are envious of our immense success. The truth is that one of the heads of the police department made us a friendly call and after looking over the attractive programme of our entertainment committee suggested a few pinor changes, with which we cheerfully concurred. The fact that he made his call about midnight and that he was accompanied by several plain clothes men and carried away a few paltry poker chips has, of course, been dilated upon and made the most of. We can only say that the affair is hardly worth mentioning, except to clear up the miscon- ception The action of the gentleman in question was entirely for- mal and done as a matter of routine. Our customers were promptly bailed out, no names were mentioned and the whole affair was merely a pleasant diversion from office work. The all, handsome blonde, who has attracted universal attention, and who sits at the right as you go in, is still with us. Our Secing-the-Tenderloin Auto still leaves hourly. Our vaude- ville performances are still one of the principal features of our world-wide cure; and the select poker rooms, provided for those of our customers who are in that condition of mind where they must be interested in something, have been re- fitted and are more attractive than ever. We may say indeed that our new arrangement with the policé department is on a much securer foundation than ever before. Inasmuch as we are about one hundred years ahead of our age it was quite natural that the police department should regard us with growing suspicion. This pained us more than we can say, but we bore it in silence. How could we explain that the whole work of our entertainment com- mittce (send for prospectus) was incident to the real object of our existence, which is to bring husbands and wives eventually together? We have therefore suffered with cheer- fulness and resignation the attitude of the police, until the trivial incident referred to came as an act of Providence, and has brought us together, so that we understand each other once and for all. Our enemies have done all they could to exaggerate this incident, and the report that we were locked up in jail over night until friends came to our rescue has been freely cir- culated by base rivals under the complete dominion of the green-cyed monster. As a matter of fact, we visited the jail on the night in question because there is absolutely nothing in the entire gamut of human existence that is not good for us to know in our business. We have long contemplated a night in a jail just to see how it feels. It is only in this way we can broaden our sympathies. We were completely satisfied with our visit and we have only to say that the head of the police department we refer to has put his own marital case in our hands, which ought to TIME IS MONEY comicbooks.com