Life — October 23, 1913 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

gp) Ue Clea! oli Worldly TH countries met and talked it over. “This suffragette business,” said Madam England, as she tried to ar- range her face into an Asquith smile, “is rawther getting on my nerves. I never know when I am going to be blown up.” “Neither do I,” said Russia, “but I imagine that you do not feel so»badly about it when it is done by a woman. It is the kind of a thing that any country should expect from a woman when she gets to be slightly hysterical ; but to have to pick the iron filings out of your system, put there by some educated Nihilist—that’s what makes me ashamed of myself. I sometimes feel like taking the Douma out, putting a stone around its neck, and throwing it into the Cattegat.” rmany threw about eighteen tons of smokeless powder off his back, loosened his ammunition belt, took an extra curl in his mustachio, and sighed deep! “You people don't know what trouble is,” he said. “If it weren't for South America and Java anda few other little old out of the way places I should be wearing fringes just above my sabots. You don’t know what it means to live the gunpowder life. The worst of it is that I have not had a real fight for so long that I'm not even enjoying myself a little bit. And now my Kaiser actually wants to make this peace bluff permanent. Just think of always being ready—of always having to be ready for a scrap—and then not do anything but pay the bills!” “That is where I rawther have the best of you,” said China, raising his monocle in true modern style, while he carefully arranged the creases in his trousers. “I say, old top, maybe T have not been in a mélée. Talk about fighting—this being a republic is no bed of roses. I have been shedding blood now so long that I don’t see anything else, and now the Christian bankers are beginning to hold me up. There doesn’t seein to be any money in this liberty fad.” At this, Miss France shrugged her shoulders slightly, while she looked at China with an expression full of ennui. “Tut, tut,” she observed. “ What distresses me about you is that you are so crude. You take your militarism and your bomb-throwing so seriously. These things, have their place, they always have had their place, and they always will have. For example, when I cut off people’s heads, during the Terror, I did it furiously for a short time, and made the performance thor- oughly artistic, but to permit the busi- ness of government to occupy your minds exclusively is hideous. You cans not dance or sing, nor have you any- thing which can be called literature; and these are things that I live for, and do it economically, too. If it weren't for me, pray from whom would you be borrowing?” Italyy. Spain, Portugal and Austria now ‘came in. Skulking behind them were Servia and Bulgaria, while just in the rear, tall, dark-eyed Greece ad- justed his oriental fez, which he had not yet learned to discard. “Come, come,” said France, “let's forget our troubles. You may all be fighting each other to-morrow. But to- night, brothers and sisters, let’s hit it up! Tell Brother Bordeaux to bring in a couple of dozen magnums of champagne, and whatever else there may be in the cellar, and for once in our lives we will forget that we are of the world worldly At this moment the door quietly opened and a personage entered. She had on the divided suffragette skirt, with velvet slippers, and dangling from her waist was a group of child labor- ers. There was* unquestionably, how- ever, some sign of character left; a kind of ible strain of prehistoric rectitude. A single cork-screw curl hung on one side of her head. She whispered something, and in an instant the company had broken up and rapidly dispersed. . o vee Three minutes later, on the corner, Italy said to Spain: “What was the trouble? didn’t the party go on?” “Well, you see,” said Spain, “it would not have been complete without Miss Columbia, who came in and queered it, but she said that in spite Why OPTIMISTIC! Falling Acrouaut: weit RIGHT so FAR! Vs ALL of her hypocrisies, and in spite of her manifold sins and wickedness, she just wouldn't stand for anything but grape juice—and that is why we disbanded. What was the use?” Too Often HY does the legislature of Ala- bama meet every four years? Isn't this too often? Many states have gotten into the habit of having their legislatures meet every year, but they haven't evidently known about Ala- bama. A movement to abolish legis- latures altogether, with Alabama in the lead, ought to be the next thing in disorder. If Alabama can keep out of school doing useful work in factories and mills so many more children than other states where the legislatures meet oftener, surely the fact ought to be known. If the number of children helping along the state industries are to be recognized as a good asset, then why not remove the legislature altogether? Not that there is any immediate danger of the Alabama legislature putting the children into school! But later on some dangerous tendency like this might develop. Why take chances? Answer to Last Week's Rebus “Those who marry for money alone Leget misery and infidelity.” comicbooks.com