Life — August 24, 1911 — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

“VERE? Rhymed Reviews One Way Out (By William Carleton, Small, Maynard & Company.) Insurgent soul that would be free, Abjure the Burdened Middle Classes! Throw off Convention's bonds, like me, ‘And rise among the Happy Masses! A clerk, before my fortunes turned, For thirty per I sold my labors, Expending every cent I earned To live exactly like my neighbors. I lost my job when thirty-eight And found I could not get another; I then resolved to Emigrate, With Dick, my boy, and Ruth, his mother; To Emigrate to humbler scenes, Where none should pity, sneer, or cen- sure ; To live on oatmeal, fish And thus began our nd beans; Adventure. By “ Emig’ you'll understand, I merely mean we took example Of those who seck this favored We led the life they find so ai Not far from Ocean's cooling flow A top-floor tenement I rented I dug with shovel, pick and crow; On nine per week we lived, contented ; And of that sum each week, forsooth, We saved a dollar, every tittle! Lut that was wholly due to Ruth, Who fed us high on mighty little. I rose to Foreman, studied well, And found my brains a useful factor, For now, I'm very glad to tell, I'm called the Opulent Contractor. Then, clerkly toiler, wan and sick, Annul your “ Social Obligations"! Compound the mortar, wield the pick And thrive on inexpensive rations! This book will show you how to Its simple vigor brings conviction; And if it isn’t wholly fact, Tis highly edifying fiction. Arthur Guiterman. A Skeptic Charles Sumner had no more sense of humor than a hippopotamus, but there was something excessively humorous about his colossal sclf-consciousness, of which it is no paradox to say he was apparently unconscious. His egotism was inordinately though innocent in its simplicity. It was far from conceit, and led to no dis- paragement of his associates. Probably Grant, whom he hated and abused, came the nearest to sizing him up when he said: “The reason Sumner doesn’t believe in the Bible is because he didn't write it himself. vast, How a Mother Brought Her Daughter To Disgrace She was a careful mother, too, or believed she was: of good family and social position, and the girl was what we call “a nice girl.” Yet, the mother awoke one morning amazed to find “her girl” in jail and dis- graced. The girl was as astonished as was the mother. And the author says, who tells the story: “Thou- sands of mothers are doing exactly for their girls what this mother did, only they don’t know it.” But they should know it, and it will surprise many a mother to read how she és doing it. It is a graphic story, true to life, forcibly told, and with a ring in it that strikes no uncertain sound. Read it in the September Lapres’ Home Journat. 15 Cents Everywhere How Can I Make a Cat Stretch Itself On the Stage Every Night? That is what puzzled David Belasco. He wanted to give a domestic touch to a play: If he could only get a cat to come on the stage at a particular point in the play, stretch itselfand lap a saucer of milk. But how to make a cat stretch every night at a given time? He puzzled over it for days. Then an ingenious idea struck him, and every night for 400 nights he made a cat stretch. It made the success of the play. Read how he did it. You never would have thought it possible. “*Little things like that have made my plays successful,’’ says Mr. Belasco. Then he tells of the ‘little things,’’ all in an article, ‘‘Why I Believe in the Little Things.’’ It is a picture ‘‘behind the scenes’’— but it is more. It is in the September Lapies’ Home Journat. 15 Cents Everywhere 39 comicbooks.com