Life — November 16, 1911 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

‘LIFE: No Chicago Branch Manager of Husbands’ Correspondence School Declares that He Knows When THE other day, while we were quietly sitting in our office, going over the modicam castigationem ad- hibere proceedings which our recent wife has been pleased to bring against us, we were informed that a delegation of citizens from Chicago was in the outer lobby, having come all the way from that enterprising city for the pur- pose of inducing us to open a branch office there. Although we rarely see our clients He is Well Of seem like an offense against good taste even to mention, Looking back in the calm light of reason upon the reception which we gave the delegation, we confess to a slight feeling of regret; we are now convinced that we treated them too brusquely and dismissed them with too much asperity. In view of this fact, we think it is only due them and the world at large to explain our position more fully. There are numerous husbands and wives in Chicago who are constantly parting company from each other for other reasons than because their married life makes them unhappy. The fact that they are living in Chi- cago renders any other form of human suffering something like the occupation of a bed of roses; in real- ity, these unfortunate couples part company from pure restlessness; and to subject them to our usual course “Married in Swift Succession a Number of Chicago Gentlemen” personally, we made an exception in this case, and greeted our friends cor- dially. We explained to them briefly but succinctly, that so far as Chicago was concerned there was nothing doing. There will be no branch office of the Husbands’ Correspondence Bureau in Chicago—at least not as long as we ourselves own a majority of our stock. We take an unusual amount of pride in our reputation and ideals, and while we recognize Chicago as being the most lucrative field—from a_ purely husiness standpoint—which we could have, there are some subjects that Chicago, generally speaking, is a place where people go to live while they are making enough money to be able to live elsewhere; all of those delicate sentimental felicities which, on the proper soil, it is our humble duty to cultivate in order that two peo- ple may learn how to live with each other on a permanent basis, are not possible in Chicago. There are, of course, in this benighted city many people who do live together in matri- monial tolerance, but this is doubtless because they are so miserable anyway that the usual friction of married life has apparently no effect upon them. of treatment would have no lasting effect. We take many individual cases from Chicago, and have effected some mar- velous cures, but in each instance we have insisted that our patrons break away from their environment. Our usual method with Chicago husbands who apply to us is to send them on to Paris for a residence there in order to improve r moral tone; and when this hasbeen done and the cure made, we urge them to seek some other place. As a rule, however, any person who has chosen Chicago as a place of resi- comicbooks.com