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Banta Claus is a lie just like the twen
tieth century fairy tale.
And why should we want more
than amusement out of the twentieth
century fairy tale? We were only
amused by the Red. .Riding Hood
story. It cannot be that we envy
the millionaire?
What is there to envy him? His
stomach will only assimilate so much
food. He cannot' dream any more
hours in his mansion than we do in
just "home." The day that we snatch
away from the six of toil and devote
to pleasure is sweet, but the million
aire has every day for pleasure and
he is satiated almost to nausea.
We are never confronted by the
spectacle of human beings ground
down until life isn't worth the living.
We never need to read in the paper
1 of some girl to whom we paid star
vation wages, who is lying in a
morgue, self-slain. We need never
realize that the girl who just passed
us on the street, and who is offering
her sweet young body for sale, is the
girl to whom we pay so little that she
cannot live decently.
Why, we had cornbeef and cabbage
and potatoes for dinner last night,
.but weren't we hungry? And it was
only a nickel show we attended after
ward, but that was a great deal,
wasn't it? And didn't the hero love
the heroine? And weren't we glad
when the villain was punished? And
we forgot all about making the bed
so we just pulled the covers over, but
didn't we sleep soundly?
Great fairy tale, that twentieth
century one, isn't it? It amuses us
quite as much as Grimm's'dld in our
childhood, and after all, it is just a
fairy tale. Wonder what we will have
for dinner tonight?
o o
CLEAR GIVE-AWAY
"My wife will know I drank too
much at the banquet."
"Why, you are walking straight
enough!"
"But look at the bum umbrella I
picked out."
WHOSE BUSINESS? "
Miss Amy Lowell, sister of Har
vard's president, was seen smoking
cigars on the deck of a Transatlantic
steamship. She says she believes in
equal rights and her smoking is "no
body's business."
Of course, she's right. If Amy
should chew tobacco it would be no
body's business. If she started to
raise a mustache some of them can
it would be nobody's business.
If a man put on skirts, or corset,
or a "rat" in his hair, it would be
nobody's business.
We might instance a hundred de
partures from custom, by either sex,
that would be nobody's business. It
is highly difficult to draw the line,
legally or morally, on personal habits
or personal liberty. There are lots of
things that are "nobody's business,"
But what is nobody's business in such
matters is usually everybody's busi
ness. -
Everybody puts the girl who
smokes, or chews, or strives for lip
whiskers in a class, just as every
body would put into a class the fel
low who would wear corsets, or some
of those awful inventions in false
hair. Neither class is at present in
public favor, that's all. It is not so
very long ago that our best male
citizens were wearing white "pig
tails" and our best citizenesses snif
fing snuff or rubbing it on their
gums. Really, the whole human
family is pretty much a devotee, or
victim, of custom. There is a wide
difference between violation of cus
tom and violation of rights.
If Amy Lowell smokes a cigar like
her daddy does she assumes all the
risks, if any. Before we become too
heartbroken over the idea that Amy
is "lowering womanhood," let us look
into our shops and stores and observe
our present day exalted estimate of
womanhood. rf
o o .,
New York's mine output in 1912
was valued at $35,519,382.
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