Life — June 21, 1923 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

“oH, GAWD! DON'T MEET AN OFF’ SIGNS, THIS PLA BE THE CAT'S MEOW.” whee! Hot pavements LIFE P ERHAPS you don't know the meaning of hot weather in New York City. You are to be lg congratulated. No matter how hard the August sun beats down, if you live in the country or the suburbs, you can get under the shade of a tree or seek the coolness of the piazza. Of hot nights you can flee to the sleeping porch or at least get fresh air through the open win- dows. But in New York— and high buildings which absorb the heat during the day and radiate it during the night. Open windows only let in more heat. Even the rich in their high-ceiled rooms and behind the thick walls, with electric fans and ever-ready baths, cannot escape entirely the tortures of New York’s heat in midsummer. What about the poor and especially the little children of the poor? Nothing. They simply have to stand it, or die and fifty children are given a fortnight’s vacation in the country. The children sent there are drawn from the city missions, from the East Side and various “settlements” and poorer districts of Greater New York, and the effect on them of a fortnight of good food and pure country air is surprising. No needy child is ever refused, if it can possibly be taken, Caretakers are always with the children, In an experience with more than forty thousand children at the Farm, so far there has not been one serious acci- dent or a worse illness than results from over-appreciation of green apples. Lire’s Farm is supported entirely by contributions from its friends and readers. Costs are high this year, but an average cost for the past three years of about ten dol- lars has provided a happy vacation in a life where happy vacations are a rarity. However small or large the con- tribution, we can use it to advantage. Acknowledgment is made in Lire about three weeks after receipt, also by letter immediately if the sender’s address is given. Visitors are welcome at the Farm. Life’s Fresh Air Endowments If you want to make your well-doing immortal, you may establish a Fresh Air Endowment. This insures that every summer, for all time, a poor child will be sent from New York’s slums to be made happy and strength ened by a fortnight’s stay in the country. All you have to do is to send two hundred dollars to Lire’s Fresh Air Fund. That amount will be placed in a perpetual trust and under it. Absurd as it may seem, the poor have children. And the children are helpless to change their condition. In the day-time they can play in the streets, dodging “automobiles and feeling the heat of the soft asphalt with their bare feet. At night, if they are lucky, they can sleep on the tenement roof or fire-escape. If these are too crowded, they can try to sleep in the small rooms with the small windows letting in nothing but heat, bad air and bad smells. Sometimes the mothers with very small babies get a change by going down to the street to sleep, sitting on the curb with their heads leaning against a friendly lamp-post. The Way to Help O one can alleviate the sufferings of all these little poor children. Each of us, though, can do his or her bit. A ten-dollar bill will send one of these poor kiddies to the country for two weeks. There its little lungs will be filled with the fresh air of the hills and its little tummy with milk and bread and butter and other wholesome things to give it strength for the unequal fight back in the hot city. It can roll in the grass, kick up its heels, play games if it is big enough, wade or swim in the brook, and do a lot of other things it couldn't even dream of in a New York tenement in hot weather. Fractions of ten dollars will send fractions of kids and multiples of ten dollars will send multiples of kids. Go as far as you like and let it come along to Lire’s Fresh Air Fund, 598 Madison ‘Avenue, New York City. The Fund will do the rest as it has done in the last thirty- six years for thousands of these little tenement victims. On Life’s Farm IFE’S Fresh Air Farm is located at Branchville, Connecticut. From the close of school in June until its opening in September, parties of about two hundred the income used for the purpose stated. More than that, the Endowment may bear your name or that of some cause or some person for whom you wish to create a memorial. Any of these privileges are yours by sending the check to Lire’s Fresh Air Fund, 598 Madison Avenue, New York. Funds have been received from Cass Gilbert, Esq., of New York City, to establish FRESH AIR ENDOWMENT No. 251 In Memory of Exizapetu. From Charles Opperman, Esq., of New York City, to establish FRESH AIR ENDOWMENT No. 252 In Memory of Mrs. CHartrs Opperman. From Mrs, John Louis Ireland of Erie, Penn- sylvania, to establish AIR ENDOWME no. 253 In Memory of Doctor Joun Louis IRELAND From Mrs, Herbert S. Greims of Ridgefield, Connecticut, to establish AIR ENDOWMENT no. 254 Memory of Mrs. Grorce A. Hearn. (Acknowledgments o f contributions to the cur- rent expenditures of The I THINK YA _ BETTER Fresh Air Fund will be ee found on page 29.) SHOIT, THERE’S A MAN WATCHIN’ US” comicbooks.com